KJP says that Democrats wanting an open primary to replace Biden was ‘insulting’ to Kamala Harris

Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggests in her new book that it was insulting to former Vice President Kamala Harris that some Democrats wanted an open primary after former President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

Jean-Pierre’s new book, “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,” which details her decision to leave the Democratic Party, was released on Tuesday. In the book, Jean-Pierre claims that some Democratic Party leaders “were up to their same old tricks” during the 2024 presidential election by “softening the ground beneath Harris’s feet by saying she shouldn’t be a shoo-in to take Biden’s spot at the top of the ticket.”

“Many party insiders speculated that [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi preferred [Democratic California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, California’s charismatic governor and her fellow San Franciscan, to be the nominee,” Jean-Pierre wrote. “But for the most part, the comments floating around didn’t focus on a single contender. Instead, an anonymous strategist here, an unnamed insider there would periodically pipe up in the press and say that with so much talent in the wings, the party should throw the convention gates open and let the voters decide. It was an insult to Harris.”

“While a last-minute switch so close to an election was unusual, it was the norm for both major parties for the most recent vice president to be the nominee when the incumbent couldn’t or wouldn’t run,” she wrote further.

Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race on July 21, 2024 after his campaign was marred by party allies calling for him to end his reelection bid following a disastrous debate performance the month prior. Harris officially clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in early August 2024.

Jean-Pierre later wrote that Harris “was also the rightful nominee based on the votes of the people.”

“She, along with Biden, was on the party’s primary ballots in 2024 and together they earned the overwhelming majority of votes cast,” Jean-Pierre wrote. “While Harris respectfully said she intended ‘to earn and win this nomination’ after Biden endorsed her, as his vice president she was his logical successor and deserved to seek the presidential nomination without a cage fight with governors and congresspeople jostling to jump to the front of the line.”

The former White House press secretary added that “bypassing” Harris completely would have been extremely “disrespectful” to black women.

“Bypassing Harris would have also been disrespectful to Black women overall, the ride-or-die foot soldiers of the Democratic Party who’d long done the work but too often got bypassed or overlooked once the campaigns that needed their votes and labor were in the rearview mirror,” Jean-Pierre wrote. “Despite the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the party presented a united front to the public.”

“Early on, party elders like the Clintons voiced their support for Harris. So did many members of the Senate and the House. Before long, the open primary talk went away, and that was largely due to Biden,” she wrote further. “By immediately announcing his support for Harris, he made an end run around the party members who’d undercut him. Maybe he needed to step aside for the greater good to unite a fractured party so it could focus on defeating Donald Trump. But when it came to who should fill his shoes, Biden disregarded the opinions of Pelosi and some other party leaders, acted independently, and made up his own mind.”

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