Jean-Pierre refuses to tell CNN whether Biden should be president now, won't read book about his decline

Former Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wouldn't directly say if Joe Biden should be president right now during an interview on CNN, arguing with an anchor about why she wouldn't read the bestselling book about a cover-up of his decline in office.

"Do you think he should be president right now?" Keilar asked. "Do you think that he is capable right now of being president? Because that was what you were advocating for, someone who would be president in his current state until 2029?"

"I did not see anything that concerned me when he decided to run for president. I did not," Jean-Pierre said. "This is someone that I saw every single day. Again, he was on top of the policies. He was sharp. He was someone that cared about what the outcome of the issues that were in front of the American people and what we were doing. I‘m speaking from my own personal opinion. I‘m speaking from what I saw on a day-to-day basis."

Jean-Pierre's new book has criticized the Democratic Party for how it ousted former President Joe Biden from his re-election bid. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

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Jean-Pierre is promoting a new book, "Independent," about her break from the Democrats. She vents in the book that her boss was treated cruelly by his party when they pushed him out of the White House race.

Keilar's colleague Jake Tapper co-authored the bombshell book "Original Sin" this year that laid out, in painful detail, numerous anecdotes of Biden's mental decline behind the scenes and his inner circle covering it up.

"I can't speak to sources," Jean-Pierre said Friday. "I can't speak to a book I actually haven't read."

Keilar was incredulous.

"You say you haven‘t read it, and you don‘t plan to read it," Keilar said. "I mean, why not? I mean, if most people, a lot of people, if the leadership of their workplace imploded and someone wrote a book with 200 sources, many of them good, they would want to read it. They‘d want to reflect on that. Why not?"

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Jean-Pierre has repeatedly insisted she had no concerns about Biden's mental faculties, and she reiterated that on CNN. Biden eventually left the race last year and was replaced by Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket, who went on to lose to President Donald Trump.

Jean-Pierre is harshly critical of Democrats for not doing enough for Harris, in addition to what she considers a betrayal of Biden. 

Jean-Pierre's interviewers this week have pointed out the numerous sources who said Biden had clearly declined during his presidency, forgetting people he'd known for years and appearing lost and confused both behind the scenes and in public.

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Jean-Pierre pivoting to criticizing the Trump administration during the CNN interview, saying she wanted to talk about being in an "unprecedented situation."

Karine Jean-Pierre discusses her new book during a town hall event with SiriusXM host Clay Cane at SiriusXM Studios on Oct. 20, 2025, in New York City. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

"These are dangerous times, and so I‘m asking, like millions of other Americans, for the Democratic Party to meet the moment," she said. "I‘m trying to create a conversation."

"We talk about it every day on the show about this moment that we are in and the things we see happening every day," Keilar replied. "We would be remiss if we didn‘t talk about how we got to this moment. That is certainly essential."

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