The president of United States, Joe Bidenannounced Thursday that it has named Karine Jean-Pierre as the next White House spokeswoman, awarding this high-profile job for the first time to an openly lesbian black woman.
Jean-Pierre will replace Jen Psaki, under which she served as deputy, beginning May 13, according to a White House statement in which Biden said he was “proud” of this appointment.
The president also praised the “experience, talent and honesty” of his future spokeswoman.
“She will be the first black woman and the first openly LGBTI person to hold the office of press secretary of the White House,” tweeted Psaki, who had anticipated from the beginning that he would leave office during the mandate.
He added: “She will give voice to many, but she will also make many dream big.”
According to US media, Psaki would join the progressive-oriented channel MSNBC.
Biden wished him “the best.”
“Jen Psaki has set the standard for returning decency, respect and decorum to the White House briefing room,” the president said in the statement, thanking her “for raising the bar, communicating directly and candidly with the American people and keep your sense of humor in doing so.
Jean-Pierre, 44 years oldis the first black woman to assume the role of spokeswoman for the White House.
This Francophone, who shares her life with a CNN journalist, with whom she has a daughter, also becomes the first lesbian to take on this tremendously exposed role.
Born in Martinique to Haitian parents who later immigrated to the United States, Jean-Pierre worked on both Barack Obama campaigns (2008 and 2012) and then Joe Biden’s in 2020, before joining his team at the White House.
A graduate of the prestigious Columbia University, Jean-Pierre has often explained how his family’s path, emblematic of the “American dream”, had been decisive for his career.
He grew up in New York, where his father worked as a taxi driver and his mother as an in-home caregiver.
“I’m everything Donald Trump hates”he explained in 2018, referring to the former Republican president, a New York real estate magnate, in a video for the MoveOn organization, of which he was once one of its main figures.