Karine Jean-Pierre, a native of Martinique, currently serves as the White House principal deputy press secretary. Her decorated career includes serving as senior advisor to president-elect Biden and chief of staff to the vice president-elect on the Biden-Harris campaign. The Columbia graduate joins rolling out to amplify the cry for help ringing from Haiti.
Can you bring us up to date on the status of Haiti? What should we know?
[Eleven days] ago, a 7.2 earthquake hit Haiti, and hours right after, President Biden got into action in order to get U.S. aid to the country. And he also offered his condolences to people who lost their loved ones, and also their businesses. So what he did is he asked the administrator of USA ID, Samantha Power, to lead the effort to … make sure that we did everything that we can to help Haiti. One of the things that we put together was Dart, this Disaster Assistance Response Team, a 65-person search and rescue team. [Including] four canines and 52,000 pounds of tools, and equipment, which arrived in Haiti, $100,000, to the American Red Cross to support emergency logistics and shelter assistance to Haiti. The Coast Guard [is] delivering aid to Haiti as well. They delivered helicopters, medical equipment, medevaced more than 200 people, and 140 medical experts have gone to the country. So we are doing everything that we can. This is something that the president wanted to make sure that we were leading in as a country, he sees Haiti as a partner. This is incredibly critical and we have to make sure that we do everything we can to help the people in Haiti.
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