US President Joe Biden on Thursday named Karine Jean-Pierre as the next White House press secretary, the first Black person to hold the high-profile post.
Jean-Pierre, who will also be the first openly LGBTQ+ person in the role, will replace Jen Psaki, under whom she served as deputy, from May 13.
The 44-year-old Jean-Pierre, who has a daughter with her partner, a CNN journalist, has already taken to the famed podium in the White House’s James S Brady Press Briefing Room as Psaki’s number two.
From May, she’ll take center stage at the daily White House press conference, which is broadcast live and highly scrutinized. Before her, only one other Black woman, Judy Smith, had been deputy White House press secretary, during George HW Bush’s presidency in 1991.
