As criticism mounts from within former President Joe Biden’s world against former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her new book, one ex-aide lambasted the now-Independent ombudswoman as ‘kinda dumb’ — a tweet he deleted but later stood by.
Timothy Wu, now a Columbia Law professor, was Biden’s ‘architect’ of antitrust policy whose faculty bio claims he also coined the progressive term ‘net neutrality’ in 2002.
In a now-deleted tweet, Wu wrote: ‘from a [White House] staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb.’
‘[She had n]o interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random incoherent answers on policy,’ Wu added in the trashed tweet.
The X account ‘I work with my word’ replied to the original tweet, calling it ‘pretty racist,’ and the tweet was later deleted, but the reply remained.
Below the reply, Wu added a new line of commentary, saying the Biden White House was ‘full of genius-level Black women. [Jean-Pierre] was not one of them.’
In response to another X user asking Wu whether Trump White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt understands executive policy, the professor said a good ombudsperson will ‘meet with policy staff and try and understand what the administration is doing and why.’
After Wu’s original tweet, fellow former Biden advisor Symone Sanders Townsend wrote on X that Democrats ‘going on the record or on background to call Karine ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ have crossed a line.’ ‘You can have a valid criticism about how she did the job, but let’s not walk down the road of disrespect,’ Sanders Townsend said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Wu via his Columbia faculty office, where he has taught since 2006.
The former Biden advisor was also a Democratic primary candidate for New York’s lieutenant governorship in 2014, and also worked in the Obama administration and at the Federal Trade Commission.
Jean-Pierre on Wednesday announced that she left the Democratic Party and has become an independent while revealing her upcoming book: ‘Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.’
She was mocked and criticized by several people in Biden’s orbit besides Wu, including one who said, ‘I wouldn’t ignore what Karine has to say, but it’s not an account in which much weight will be invested — just like her briefings.’
‘At noon on that day [that Biden left office], I became a private citizen who, like all Americans and many of our allies around the world, had to contend with what was to come next for our country. I determined that the danger we face as a country requires freeing ourselves of boxes. We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically,’ Jean-Pierre said of her new independent streak.
Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and The Associated Press contributed to this report.