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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was celebrated Wednesday by the Long Island community where she grew up.
The Hempstead mayor presented the history-making presidential spokeswoman with the key to the village. She also received a rousing welcome while touring her old elementary school.
“I moved [to the Village of Hempstead] during the most transformative years of my life and … a really big part of who I am is because of this community,” she told Spectrum News in an interview. “I was a volunteer firefighter … I worked in the community, I went to school in the community.”
As Jean-Pierre visited Joseph A. McNeil Elementary School on Wednesday morning, students lined the halls to give her high fives and hugs. Some held signs to greet her.
“It truly looks the same, it feels the same,” she said of the school, which was known as Franklin Elementary when she was a student.
“I think about little Karine,” she said. “I was shy. I was awkward. I was new to the community.”
She also could not have imagined as a student that she would one day serve as the spokesperson for the President of the United States, she said.
Addressing a school assembly held in her honor, Jean-Pierre urged the students to fight for their dreams. “The naysayers — the people who tell you you can’t do it — don’t listen to them, don’t listen to the noise,” she said.
For the past two and a half years, Jean-Pierre has made history as the first Black person and the first openly gay person to serve as White House press secretary.
In 2023, she told Spectrum News she hoped her presence behind the briefing room podium each day offered a dose of encouragement to the LGBTQ community.
Now, with just weeks to go until the White House changes hands and she loses her position, she said she will always be concerned about those vulnerable communities.
“I hope that we’ll continue to fight, whatever happens, we’ll continue to be there for each other,” she said.
Reflecting back, Jean-Pierre argues she has done the press secretary job “well.”
“I am the longest serving female press secretary to date,” she said. “I am here in this job because the president wanted me in this job. I continue to stay in this job, because the president wants me in this job.”
Her tenure has not been without criticism, from complaints she was too dependent on her briefing book to reports of tensions behind the scenes — criticism she disputes.
Then there was her repeated insistence that President Joe Biden would not pardon his son Hunter. Just after Thanksgiving, the president did just that.
Jean-Pierre says she did not mislead anyone.
“It is my job as the White House press secretary to convey what the president is thinking and wants and how he’s going to move forward in that moment,” she said, repeating, “In that moment.”
As for what comes after Biden’s term ends, Jean-Pierre so far is not sharing, saying she is focused on the work left to do before Jan. 20.
She says serving as White House press secretary has been a privilege. And she hopes her time in the role serves as an inspiration to the young students who now sit in the same classrooms where she learned all those years ago.
“I never thought I would be here,” Jean-Pierre said. “It’s been a job of a lifetime.”
