(PresidentialInsider.com)- Last Thursday, the Biden administration announced two new hiring moves now that White House press secretary Jen Psaki is leaving her position on Friday to join the leftwing cable outlet MSNBC.
Psaki will be replaced by one of the current deputy press secretaries, Karine Jean-Pierre, and former White House senior advisor and assistant to the president, Anita Dunn, who had left the administration last summer, will be returning to her old position.
Anita Dunn is most notably remembered as the Obama administration official who named Mao Zedong as one of the two people she turns to most for inspiration.
Mao-lover Dunn worked as the co-chair of Biden’s transition team and remained at the White House until August of last year.
Dunn’s other claim to fame was leading the PR strategy to defend disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein against accusations of sexual harassment and assault.
According to a 2017 report in BuzzFeed, Dunn took an unpaid position to help navigate Weinstein through the public relations crisis that resulted from the accusations. Weinstein has since been sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Jean-Pierre, meanwhile, is being touted as yet another “historic first.” The incoming press secretary will be the first black woman and first lesbian to serve in that role. Whether or not she’s qualified remains to be seen. But with the Biden administration, the ability to do the job well is never as important as what boxes the candidate checks.
In her role as deputy press secretary, Jean-Pierre has a reputation for being overly cautious in press briefings, often telling reporters that she has no response to their questions.
And like Anita Dunn, Karine Jean-Pierre has her own controversial history.
On Monday, previous tweets from Jean-Pierre revealed that she believed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp “stole” the election from Stacey Abrams and former President Donald Trump also “stole” the White House in 2016.
Given the Biden administration’s position that questioning the results of elections is “insurrection” and a “threat to democracy,” it will be interesting to see if any White House reporters asked Jean-Pierre about her previous tweets.
