WASHINGTON: White House press secretary Jen Psaki will leave the Biden administration in the upcoming weeks after serving for more than a year.
Psaki is expected to stay in the job through the White House Correspondents’ dinner at the end of this month. She plans to join television network MSNBC, where she will serve as a host and on-air expert.
Psaki has held near-daily briefings since the start of the Biden presidency and has been praised for her transparency. She had initially said she would stay in her position for a year, but a number of crises — the coronavirus pandemic, withdrawal from Afghanistan and, most recently, the war in Ukraine — appear to have extended her tenure.
US media reported Psaki was in talks with both CNN and MSNBC, and there was even speculation that she might replace MSNBC primetime star Rachel Maddow, who is stepping back from nightly hosting duties.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House’s deputy press secretary, and John Kirby, the Department of Defense spokesman are been considered top candidates to succeed Psaki. Communications Director Kate Bedingfield, who recently made her debut in the briefing room, is also under consideration.
Bedingfield, who was President Joe Biden’s spokesperson when he was vice president and an early presidential campaign hire, has not expressed interest in the job during this administration, though she has talked about the press secretary role in the past.
In January 2021, Psaki said she planned to remain in the job for just a year. In June, she said during a conference that she had the flexibility to stay on longer if needed. Psaki’s brisk, detail-dense press briefings, occasionally marked by warm regards exchanges with reporters, helped define the early Biden presidency.
They served a sharp contrast to the president’s less precise elocution, and to the previous Trump administration’s combative approach to the press. The decision to replace Psaki is likely to be made by Biden personally, in consultation with chief of staff Ron Klain and other top advisers.
