Reports continue to swirl that Vice President Kamala Harris’ office in the White House is a toxic culture where staffers are living in constant fear of “backstabbing”.
Since taking office, reports have flurried that Harris’ office has been a chaotic environment without any unified mission or cohesion of any kind. There are also rumors that the VP’s office doesn’t get along with President Joe Biden’s staff, creating more tension when the two should be united.
As detailed in a report from 1945, many of Harris’s problems seem to be of her own making.
The outlet noted that “the culture within the Harris team is poisonous,” with at least one former staffer saying recently that the VP “suffers from deep insecurities” that have “led to a poisonous atmosphere among her staff and led about her ability to lead”.
The staffer also alleged that Harris engages in “really unnecessary gamesmanship” with her staff.
Harris “refused to do the kind of preparation that you need to do before going public on a hardcore policy matter. And then she became incensed and outraged when things wouldn’t go the way she thought they were supposed to,” according to the staffer.
A report in December 2021 from The Hill detailed other staffers coming forward to allege Harris’ office was ripe for a purge of unhappy staffers, with some staffers saying, “no one seems happy” and that due to “too much dissatisfaction … they had to turn over the office”.
“There was no real flow chart. I think there was a constant fear of backstabbing,” one person told the Hill about the communication department.
“Its obvious things aren’t in a great place, so I understand the urge to sub in a new team but that misdiagnoses the problem,” another insider told the Hill of Harris’s office. “The problem is there has never been a coherent strategy. It has always been an operation that lurches from one chaotic moment to the next”.
One source said it’s clear that Harris “feels adrift without her people,” including her sister Maya, who was a senior adviser on her presidential campaign.
Several Democrats are admitting that they have lost hope in Harris, with some admitting to the media that Harris is a liability for the 2024 presidential election.
The New York Times headlined in an article that Harris is struggling to “define her vice presidency and that even her allies are tired of waiting.” The outlet added that more and more Democrats are beginning to agree that Harris is a disappointment at best.
“But the painful reality for Ms. Harris is that in private conversations over the last few months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and around the nation — including some who helped put her on the party’s 2020 ticket — said she had not risen to the challenge of proving herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country”.
Even some Democrats who were supposed to be supporters of Harris “confided privately that they had lost hope in her”.
Democratic fundraiser John Morgan was so fed up that he went on the record against Harris, arguing her weakness as vice president will be “one of the most hard-hitting arguments against Biden”.
“It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘Look, with his age, we have to really think about this,’” he argued. “I can’t think of one thing she’s done except stay out of the way and stand beside him at certain ceremonies”.
It is also possible that Harris could be on her way off of President Biden’s 2024 ticket.
Political pundit and conservative commentator Mike Miller opined in a piece for Red State that he believes the unpopular vice president could be replaced, but President Biden would be met with accusations of being a misogynist and a racist even if she was replaced by another black woman.
“Kamala Harris has been the best insurance policy against being dumped by the Democrat Party that feckless Joe Biden could have. And as his decision to seek re-election looms, Corn Pop’s pal — with a ‘little’ help from his Democrat ‘friends’ — must also decide whether Kamala Harris will be with him on the 2024 ticket if he does decide to run,” Miller said.
But Miller is not the only person to doubt Harris’ ability to attract voters, with some of those naysayers coming from within her own party.
A report by The Washington Post said some top Democrats are concerned about the vice president’s political prospects.
Even Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who said she supports President Joe Biden seeking re-election, did not commit to supporting Harris as vice president on the ticket.
