Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is speaking out about how fellow Democrats treated former President Joe Biden in the waning months of his presidency.
Jean-Pierre, who spoke at an event at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, likened the Democrats’ treatment of Biden like “a firing squad.”
During the 2024 presidential race, it became clear how Democrats were abandoning ship as well as Biden himself as they forced him to leave the race, Fox News reported.
“He was the President of the United States at the time, he was the leader of the Democratic Party. It was truly his decision to make on what he wanted to do, and I supported that 100%. Whatever it was, I was going to support that 100%,” she said. “Because he had the right to, as the leader of the Democratic Party coming out of a pretty successful midterm. There was supposed to be a red wave, there wasn’t a red wave.”
She spoke about the three weeks between the disastrous debate between Biden and then-candidate Donald Trump and Biden leaving the race.
“I… look, personally, I think what was the toughest thing to see in the three weeks was there was a disconnect for me [in] what was happening with leadership in the Democratic Party and how it was truly, as my former colleague, communications director Ben Labolt said, it was a firing squad,” Jean-Pierre said.
“I had never seen anything like it before. I had never seen a party do that in the way that they did, and it was hurtful and sad to see that happening,” she said. “A firing squad around a person who I believe was a true patriot, a person who I believe did everything that he can for this country. A person who I believe, as I mentioned before, has done more in one term than most presidents had done in two terms, historical things, and I was shocked by what I was seeing.”
Watch the video below:
When questioned further, Jean-Pierre said she indeed was referring to Democratic leaders who publicly criticized Biden.
“Instead of coming together to really be unified and trying to figure out how do we save our democracy how do we fight back, that’s what I was seeing,” she said. “That’s what we decided to do for three weeks, and, you know, it was truly, truly unfortunate, and I think it hurt us more than I think folks realized, to have done that.”
