Ex-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blames Hunter Biden gun trial for dad Joes halting debate

WASHINGTON — Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has blamed Joe Biden’s “halting” 2024 debate performance against Donald Trump on the stress of his son Hunter’s federal weapons trial in a new tell-all book.Jean-Pierre, 51, also claims she “saw no such decline” in the oldest-ever president’s mental acuity before the fateful night of June 27, 2024, and insists that Biden watching his “only living son” face decades in jail “broke” his heart.“As soon as President Biden opened his mouth at the debate podium, I became worried,” she writes in her tome, “Independent,” out Tuesday.“Then our phones started going off.It was clear that he was sick, and that this was the beginning of the end.”Asked during a closed-door meeting of Democratic governors about his health days later, Biden responded that he was fine and attempted to joke that the main problem was “just my brain,” The New York Times also reported.Jean-Pierre’s book, subtitled “A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,” is meant to pull back the curtain on what she calls the “three wrenching weeks” before the 46th president ended his bid for a second term on July 21, 2024.“First of all, he’d been traveling back and forth to Europe,” she recalls of the run-up to the debate, before adding: “Granted, traveling extensively is what world leaders do, and if that completely wipes you out, there’s a good argument to be made that you have no business in the office.

But, in the middle of all those trips, Biden’s only living son was also on trial.” “It had to be straining Biden’s spirit.And frankly, I think his heart broke,” she said of Hunter’s conviction in Delaware federal court, which was prosecuted by his own father’s Department of Justice — though Jean-Pierre suggests the president’s son was politically targeted.In July, Hunter claimed during an interview with YouTube personality Andrew Callaghan that his fa...