An explosive new report revealed that Vice President Kamala Harris allegedly runs an “abusive office” and morale among her staff is extremely low – “people feel treated like s***.”
The vice president’s office has had to handle several high-level departures less than six months into the term, thanks to Harris’ horrid treatment of the staff. Employees concerns and ideas are ignored, and aides are often surprised with hastily made decisions, like Harris’ recent visit to El Paso, Texas, according to the report.
The vice president’s plans are often only known to her and a close group of staff and advisers, and senior members of the office often do not communicate important details down the chain, or shift blame when something goes wrong, according to 22 former staff members, administration officials, and associates of the vice president interviewed by Politico.
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said one person with direct knowledge of how the vice president’s office is run.
“It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s***.”
Harris’ horribly run office has been such a major issue for the Democrats that even President Biden’s team has had some concerns about potential backlash if the public were to learn the concerning truth about how she treats staff behind closed doors.
Politico reported, “The dysfunction in the VP’s ranks threatens to complicate the White House’s carefully crafted image as a place staffed by a close-knit group of professionals working in concert to advance the president’s agenda. It’s pronounced enough that members of the president’s own team have taken notice and are concerned about the way Harris’ staffers are treated.”
While the report tries to put the blame for Harris’ dysfunctional office on Chief of Staff Tina Flournoy, a veteran Democratic who worked closely with former President Bill Clinton before joining Harris’ team, one former long-time Harris aide said that nothing is happening in Harris’ office that the vice president is unaware of, however.
“She’s been in public life for 30 years. F***. You don’t just all of a sudden go radio silent,” the former aide said.
“She is the most perceptive person on the planet,” they continued. “She might not have first-hand knowledge, but it’s hard to imagine she doesn’t have a sense of what’s going on.”
Harris has a history of overseeing dysfunctional teams. Her campaign for president died in the primary after she let go of most of her staff in an effort to rebuild her floundering operation. At the time, similar to now, most of the blame was placed on her then-campaign manager Juan Rodriguez.
Days before Harris announced the end to her presidential run in December 2019, one of her senior staff members, Iowa operations director Kelly Mehlenbacher, wrote a scathing resignation letter trashing Harris’ campaign.
“This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly,” Mehlenbacher wrote at the time. “While I still believe that Senator Harris is the strongest candidate to win in the General Election in 2020, I no longer have confidence in our campaign or its leadership.”
Author: Sam Quenton