Welcome to Words Matter with Katie Barlow and Joe Lockhart.

Welcome to Words Matter, I'm Katie Barlow.

Our goal is to promote objective reality.

As a wise man once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not their own facts.

Have power and words have consequences.

Our guest today is a political activist, organizer, analyst, and author.

Her experience ranges from presidential campaigns to local politics to grassroots activism.

Karine Jean-Pierre is the Chief Public Affairs Officer for MoveOn.org,

an lecturer in international and public affairs at Columbia University.

Karine is also a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC,

and the author of the new book, Moving Forward, a story of hope, hard work, and the promise of America.

Karine Jean-Pierre, welcome to Words Matter.

Thank you. Thank you for Words Matter for having me.

First of all, congratulations on the book. Your story is amazing and inspiring.

I want to talk a little bit about you. You are a first born daughter of immigrants,

Haitian American, and you begin your book with that introduction and talking about it and your

introduction to politics. So take us back to that day in July 1988 when you and your siblings

were getting together to watch your favorite sitcom at the time, a different world.

And it got postponed or put off for the Democratic National Convention at the time.

Tell us about your family and how you felt as a 13-year-old watching a Michael DeCocque story.

DeCocque had to run public. I mean, it was wild because I did not grow up in a family of politics.

Both my parents are immigrants, as you just mentioned. They were born in Haiti,

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