White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week that she plans to step down next year, CNN reports.
"I think it's going to be time for somebody else to have this job in a year from now or about a year from now," Psaki said in a podcast interview with CNN’s David Axelrod, who worked with her in the Obama administration.
Psaki said she hopes to spend more time with her two young children than her current job allows.
"I don't want to miss moments. I don't want to miss things, and I'm very mindful of that as well," she said. "It's a great job. It will be hard, but I also never thought I'd be here, and I also love my kids a lot."
It’s not unusual for there to be high turnover in the press secretary job. Donald Trump went through four press secretaries in four years.
Psaki worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign and then served as deputy press secretary and communication director at the White House. She became the White House communications director in 2015 after a stint as the chief spokesperson for the State Department.
"When I talked to the inner circle of the Biden orbit, we talked about coming in and doing this job for a year, which was quite appealing to me for many reasons," she told Axelrod. "One: What a moment in history to be a part of. It's always true in the White House, but following Trump, if you can take the temperature down a little bit, that's a cool thing to be a part of."
Psaki admits WH avoids Biden questions:
Psaki admitted in the interview that the White House tries to steer President Joe Biden away from impromptu questions from reporters.
That “is not something we recommend,” she told Axelrod.
“In fact, a lot of times we say ‘don’t take questions,'" she said. "But he's going to do what he wants to do because he's the president of the United States."
Who would replace Psaki?
Press secretaries are often replaced by deputies. Psaki’s top deputy is Karine Jean-Pierre, who served as the chief of staff to Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign.
Jean-Pierre is the former spokeswoman for MoveOn.Org and served for years as a political commentator on NBC and MSNBC.
Other deputies include Sabrina Singh, a former staffer at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who served as press secretary to Harris when she served in the Senate. She also worked on the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker, and Mike Bloomberg.
The other deputy is Chris Meagher, a former California journalist who served as a communications flack for General Motors, the Colorado and Montana Democratic primaries, Montana Sen. Jon Tester, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
