2 years ago
White House press secretary Jen Psaki is likely leaving the White House in the coming weeks for a new job with MSNBC, a person with knowledge of the coming move told POLITICO on Friday.
The source told POLITICO that Psaki is slated to join MSNBC and have a show on its streaming partner Peacock.
There’s been chatter for weeks about Psaki leaving the briefing room podium for a TV gig. And her absence this week with Covid spurred speculation about whether communications director Kate Bedingfield’s debut at the podium amounted to fill-in duty or a dry run for taking over the role permanently.
Psaki returned to the press briefing on Friday after testing negative for Covid. She was pressed on whether it was an ethical issue that she was speaking on behalf of the White House while also negotiating for a job with a media outlet. The White House press secretary didn’t confirm any of the reports about her move.
"I have always gone over and above the stringent ethical and legal requirements of the Biden administration, and I take that very seriously," Psaki said. "And so, I hope that all of you — I've been working with you sometime — would judge me for my record, and how I treat all of you, both in the briefing room and otherwise. And I try to answer questions from everybody across the board. I know everybody in the back of the room may not always be pleased with me, but I try my best."
“At whatever time I leave the White House, I can promise you the first thing I'm going to do is sleep and spend time with my 3 and 6-year-olds, who are my most important audiences of all,“ she added.
Psaki has long said her job as White House’s top spokesperson would be a temporary one and she has already stuck with the job past the one-year timeline she had planned on. During an interview with POLITICO in November, she hadn’t decided if she would stay at the podium through the midterm elections but has often talked about wanting to spend more time with her young children.
“I have two little kids, as you know, 3 and 6,” Psaki said in November. “I also think this is a job that’s the honor of a lifetime — working for this president at this moment in history — but I’m a believer in lifting people up and having new faces and new voices out there, and I think that’s an important part of my role too.”
Bedingfield has expressed interest in taking on the role in the past and is familiar with Biden world. She worked with President Joe Biden in 2015 when he was vice president and was his communications director for the 2020 primary campaign.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby and Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre have also been floated as possible contenders for the job. Jean-Pierre would be the first openly gay, Black woman to formally serve as the White House’s top spokesperson.
Max Tani contributed to this report.
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