Karine Jean-Pierre’s glitzy Vogue profile draws sharp criticism from White House reporters

WASHINGTON – So that’s why she had no time for our questions!

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre took a break from her duties as President Biden’s top spokesman to model three outfits for a fawning profile in Vogue’s latest issue — drawing sharp criticism from politics reporters in the capital.

Wearing a power suit in discordant Republican red and clutching a binder of talking points, Jean-Pierre, 49, posed with a serious look outside the West Wing.

Feted by Vogue as “quite disciplined about work, from which she allows few distractions,” Jean-Pierre was also pictured lounging in her office in a rainbow-striped Victor Glemaud dress.

In another glamorous snap, she posed on a balcony of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, gazing off to the distance in a maroon Tove dress and golden Khiry earrings.

The high-fashion shots were accompanied by a profile declaring that Jean-Pierre has “sharpened her own technique: disarm with a smile, then lay out the facts at hand.”

“I’m representing the president, so petty is just not on the menu,” she is quoted saying.

But that “disarming smile” is seen nowhere in the glamour shots.

Instead, her expressions are more akin to a scowl – an expression the White House press corps has seen just as often.

“It’s sad that a magazine that purports to be practicing journalism is profiling a press secretary that’s gone out of her way to deliberately silence members of the press corps,” said one veteran White House reporter.

“We shouldn’t be rewarding those who actively obfuscate facts and seek to undermine freedom of the press, which Karine Jean-Pierre and her press office have done on numerous occasions and which the press corps has pushed back against.”

“God bless!” exclaimed another veteran of the briefing room.

“That’s the kind of story you would see during the Kennedy administration about Jackie O — not something you’d see about a press secretary dealing with serious issues facing the country.”

The second reporter told The Post he was surprised by “the lack of substance in that piece about the issues that concern the press and most Americans.”

The single most unaddressed issue, the journalist lamented, was, “Why is this administration so averse to hard questions from the press?”

A third reporter who regularly attends briefings quipped, in reference to Jean-Pierre’s regular non-answers: “I understand the question. I appreciate the question. I get the question. I’m just going to refer you to the White House counsel’s team for all questions about the substance of the KJP Vogue profile.”

In the profile, Vogue quotes First Lady Jill Biden, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and former press secretary Jen Psaki lavishing praise on Jean-Pierre.

Zients hails her as “humble” and the first lady touts her “grace, integrity, and insight“ as the “pioneering” first gay and non-white press secretary.

The compilation doesn’t mention Jean-Pierre’s tiffs with reporters, the fact that she often skips journalists who don’t share their questions ahead of time, or that her office presided over a since-softened press screening initiative that barred major outlets from presidential events.

Jean-Pierre’s non-answers

Between Jan. 1 and June 30, Jean-Pierre received 252 questions about Biden administration scandals — including the various House committee investigations into Biden’s role in his relatives’ foreign business dealings — but gave “definitive answers” to just six, according to a review by the conservative Media Research Center.

That report also came after Jean-Pierre blasted a reporter for The Post at a July 7 briefing as “irresponsible” for asking whether cocaine found on White House grounds belonged to the Biden family, inaccurately claiming the family wasn’t on the premises the Friday preceding the Sunday discovery.

She was blasted by Fox News for “losing it” in her response, asserting that it had the opposite effect of what she presumably intended with the brazen deflection.

Opting for insults over a simple “yes or no” does little to inspire, pundits said.

Jean-Pierre hasn’t called on The Post at a briefing since then, despite America’s oldest daily newspaper being the fourth-most-read online news source in the US, excluding aggregator MSN, and having the fourth largest print circulation of US newspapers.

Also not mentioned in the Vogue report: Jean-Pierre’s office presided over a mysterious prescreening process for journalists allowed into large indoor events for the president that under past presidents were open to all.

She claimed last year that she was unfamiliar with the criteria for selection and in May claimed to The Post that there was “no restriction” on events  — despite reporters routinely being told there’s no space for them to attend events with many empty seats.

The prescreening process is widely understood to be a way to shape the variety of questions posed to Biden and has gradually eased in recent months following sustained pushback from reporters and leaders of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

Still, this week at least one journalist from an outlet with an assigned briefing-room seat was denied access to an event in the large East Room — despite plenty of space to accommodate him.

The profile also didn’t mention the curation of queries in the briefing room itself.

Reporters from the middle to rear of the briefing room generally are called on only if they tell Jean-Pierre’s aides what they intend to ask.

She proceeds to give away the game by tilting her face downward and reading lengthy prepared statements that often skirt the thrust of the inquiry.

Distaste crosses party lines

The groveling Vogue profile also gives cursory treatment to the fact that Democratic officials themselves are often left shaking their heads at her briefings due to a perceived inability to “sell” the administration’s message.

Capitol Hill Democrats were stunned last month when Jean-Pierre mispronounced the names of both of the state’s senators and misgendered Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) when discussing Maui wildfires that killed at least 115 people.

One White House reporter, who works for a liberal-leaning outlet, questioned whether Jean-Pierre was sending the wrong message about the Biden administration by modeling pricey outfits.

“It’s the kind of magazine that exemplifies everything KJP’s Democratic Party has come to stand for right now: ostentatious wealth concentrated and controlled by a very small minority of Americans,” the journalist told The Post.

“The sheer cost of the clothing KJP is modeling shows just how out of touch the party is with the pain people feel right now trying to make ends meet.”

Though Vogue gave little mention of tensions with the press, it did note an exchange this year when NPR reporter Tamara Keith, then the president of the White House Correspondents’ ­Association, called out the White House’s failure to acknowledge that classified documents had been found at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home in initial statements.

Are you upset that you came out to this podium…with incomplete and inaccurate information?” Keith asked.

“And are you concerned that it affects your credibility up here?”

When she does engage in tough questions, Jean-Pierre generally refers the reporter to another office or agency.

Former Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was brought to the White House last year to supplement Jean-Pierre on national security subjects, leading to an awkward briefing-room exchange in which a reporter asked if Kirby was effectively a second press secretary.

Washington figures regularly speculate about how long she might last in the role after taking the position in May 2022.

But Jean-Pierre told the outlet Blavity in May that “I’ll continue to be in this job as long as I can, as long as possible, as long as the president wants me and needs me.”

Psaki, Biden’s first press secretary, also received a Vogue profile but The Post was unable to locate a similar spread for the four Republican women who have served in the position — including Trump’s press secretaries Sarah Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany.