The surprise statement Thursday by Jen Psaki that she would most likely step down as White House press secretary early next year has sparked speculation over who would succeed her behind the most famous lectern in the world.
Most of the talk about the second press secretary to President Joe Biden pointed to a historic ”first” — the first-ever LGBT person to serve as top spokesman to the president.
The immediate name on the lips of most White House correspondents was Karine Jean-Pierre, the principal deputy press secretary. A longtime fixture in Democratic campaigns, Jean-Pierre served as regional political director in the Office of Political Affairs under President Barack Obama and as chief of staff to Kamala Harris during her vice presidential campaign last year.
Jean-Pierre is openly gay and has long spoken of this.
”President Obama didn’t hire LGBT staffers, he hired experienced individuals who happen to be LGBT,” she told The Advocate. “Serving and working for President Obama where you can be openly gay has been an amazing honor. It felt incredible to be a part of an administration that prioritizes LGBT issues.”
The other name heard as a likely successor to Psaki is also LGBT. Ned Price, 38, now holds the position as State Department spokesman that Psaki held under Obama and that Mike McCurry held before serving as President Bill Clinton’s second (and, most White House correspondents agree, best) press secretary from 1994 to 1998.
Price previously worked as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency until he resigned in 2017. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, he wrote that he stepped down because he could not work as an intelligence professional in the Trump administration.
”I think it’s going to be time for somebody else to have this job, in a year from now or about a year from now,” Psaki told David Axelrod on his CNN podcast ”The Axe Files.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
