White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Stepping Down From The Job Friday

 Jen Psaki had been White House press secretary for less than two weeks when a reporter asked whether Twitter's ban of Donald Trump had made President Joe Biden's life easier.

"We don't spend a lot of time talking about or thinking about President Trump here," she responded, then added for emphasis: "Former President Trump."

It was an early indication of what was to come with this press secretary. Her briefings were professional and typically congenial, but could turn pointed in a hurry. The sessions were informative but generally lacked the drama to draw big ratings on cable television.

Psaki, whose last day on the job is Friday, has answered reporters' questions nearly every weekday of the almost 500 days that Biden has been in office. That makes her a top White House communicator and perhaps the administration's most public face after only the president and Vice President Kamala Harris. Her departure could complicate how Biden's message gets out at a critical time for him, at least in the short term.

"Anybody with a brain would want her to stay because she's so good," said Martha Joynt Kumar, a political science professor emerita at Towson University and director of the White House Transition Project, a nonpartisan group that tries to help streamline the transfer of power from one administration to the next.