The Disastrous KJP New Yorker Interview
The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner recently interviewed former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre by phone regarding her new book, Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines. Ten minutes in, the audio recorder malfunctioned, necessitating Chotiner restart the interview. The American Spectator successfully restored the original audio and presents a transcript here:
‘But did they really nominate her, Isaac? Or was she a physical metaphor for someone else who they wanted to nominate? Think about that.’
Chotiner: Karine, I’d like to ask —
KJP: I take that question very seriously and —
Chotiner: I haven’t asked the question yet.
KJP: Oops! Sorry. I’m nervous. Remember, one of the conditions for this interview is you can’t ask me any hard questions like they did on The View and Sesame Street. Kermit the Frog is brutal when he wears that newsman’s costume.
Chotiner: I never agreed, nor would I ever agree, to any such conditions. As a communications professional, I expect you to answer my questions, whatever they are, intelligently and succinctly.
KJP: Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no. That’s not, I mean, that’s not what I meant when I answered your question.
Chotiner: I still haven’t asked it yet. But I will now: You now call yourself an Independent. Does that mean you are open to voting for Republicans?
KJP: Never. Disaffected Democrats and socialists label themselves Independent because they’re Bernie Sanders, or sometimes out of cowardice, or because they’re trying to sell a book and need to give people a reason to buy it.
Chotiner: So, you’re not truly Independent?
KJP: I am 100 percent independent in the sense that I will vote only for candidates who adhere to a rigid progressive orthodoxy. So, I’ll vote for whichever Democrat runs against JD Vance in 2028.
Chotiner: Good Lord. Let’s focus solely on Joe Biden’s senility and not you.
KJP: As a black woman who is LGBTQ, Haitian, and has a hangnail, I will inject my marginalized identity into my answers as a crutch whenever you corner me into having to speak coherently.
Chotiner: Karine, please. If Donald Trump was an existential threat to democracy, as Joe Biden himself said, weren’t the Democrats correct to push him out of the race in favor of someone, anyone, who had a better chance of saving the very democracy they say was imperiled?
KJP: As a black woman who is LGBTQ, Haitian, and has a hangnail, I see my marginalized status reflected in your question the same way Joe Biden and I reflect off each other. We’re one in the same, and that’s why it devastated me to see the party President Biden dedicated himself to for 50 years shove him into a proverbial nursing home rather than keep him in the White House.
Chotiner: Are you suggesting Joe Biden is a black Haitian lesbian?
KJP: I’m still waiting on the AncestryDNA results to come back, but I don’t think he’s a woman and have no way of knowing if he has a hangnail. But what I am clearly saying is that the Democratic Party clearly looks down upon powerful, historical black women like me and takes our votes for granted.
Chotiner: How can you say that when the Democratic Party nominated Kamala Harris, a black woman, to be its presidential nominee in 2024?
KJP: But did they really nominate her, Isaac? Or was she a physical metaphor for someone else who they wanted to nominate? Think about that.
Chotiner: I have no idea what you mean.
KJP: That makes two of us. But I state in the book how insulting it was when people demanded an open convention and didn’t want Vice President Harris to win. She deserved the nomination.
Chotiner: But you also write “the truth was, I never really believed Harris could win.” If you didn’t think she could claim victory, why feel insulted when people didn’t want her as the nominee?
KJP: “But two things should be true, right? The thing that I say the second time actually proves the thing that I said the first time, right?”
Chotiner: Wait, what?
KJP: Isaac, we’re getting off course. My book’s subtitle, “A Look Inside a Broken White House,” refers to the Trump White House. Can we please talk about that?
Chotiner: I don’t see what good it will do, but how can you credibly give an insider’s account of a White House administration that you don’t actually work for?
KJP: O.K., wait a minute. Hold your horses. Let’s not get bogged down in inconsequential details of who has access to which White House.
Chotiner: Then let’s discuss whether you still believe Joe Biden, had he won re-election in 2024, could serve as president until January 2029.
KJP: Absolutely. Whenever I walked into the Oval Office, Joe Biden was always in the room.
Chotiner: You could say the same thing about a potted plant.
KJP: A fern was there, too. Both were stalwart.
(At this point, the audio malfunctions and the interview ends. Chotiner reportedly downed at least two extra-strength Tylenols and cried while Jean-Pierre stares vacantly into the ether.)
READ MORE from Matt Manochio:
‘Hey! It’s Enrico Pallazzo!’: The Fall of Comedy
What Can We Expect from a Mamdani Administration?
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