Alex Brandon/AP
- Biden administration officials are privately calling VP Harris’ office “a s—show,” Axios reports.
- Top Biden officials are circling the wagons around Harris’ operartion as internal discord boils over.
- Recent reports in Politico and CNBC detail unhappiness from Harris staffers, allies, and donors.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Top White House officials are publicly circling the wagons around Vice President Kamala Harris’ operation while privately calling the chaos in her office as a “s—show,” Axios reports.
Long-simmering unhappiness in Harris’ office and tensions between her staff and President Joe Biden’s boiled over in a recent report from Politico. The outlet spoke with 22 sources, including current and former Harris staffers, who described poor morale and communication breakdowns within the vice president’s office.
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” one source told Politico. “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—.”
Some key aides and staffers were left completely in the dark when it came to the planning of Harris’ trip to the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, Politico reported. Two advance staffers also recently departed from Harris’ office.
Politico and CNBC also reported on complaints about how Harris’ chief of staff, the seasoned Democratic power player Tina Flournoy, tightly guards access to Harris, including not returning calls and attempts at outreach from Harris’ longtime political allies, friends, and donors.
“We are not making rainbows and bunnies all day. What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I’m like ‘welcome to the club,'” Harris’ chief spokeswoman Symone Sanders told Politico in response, defending Flournoy as having “an open door policy” and calling her anonymous critics “cowards.”
Former President Bill Clinton stepped in with a statement to CNBC backing up Flournoy as “an extraordinary person” with “a unique ability to focus on the big picture and adapt to changing conditions.” Flournoy was known to closely guard access to Clinton during her time as his chief of staff in his post-presidential life, which some Democrats acknowledge is a necessary aspect of staffing a figure like a president or vice president.
Both White House Chief of staff Ron Klain and White House senior advisor Cedric Richmond also went on record to defend Harris and her office operation to Axios, with Richmond charging that Harris is the victim of “a whisper campaign designed to sabotage her.”
The discord being reported out of Harris’ office highlights the sharp divergence between the VP’s office and the nearly leak-proof operation that Biden runs.
The reported dysfunction within her operation and Flournoy’s iron grip over Harris’ political operation echoes some of the breakdowns that befell her 2020 presidential campaign. Per Axios, it’s causing some Democrats to question whether Harris could run a successful presidential campaign in 2024 if Biden, who is 78, decides to retire.
As the sitting vice president, Harris would be Biden’s natural successor. But Axios reports that some Democrats both within and outside the White House “are increasingly concerned about Harris’s handling of high-profile issues and political tone deafness,” including her missteps around immigration.
“‘Oh, no, our heir apparent is f***ing up, what are we gonna do?’ It’s more that people think, ‘Oh, she’s f***ing up, maybe she shouldn’t be the heir apparent,'” one Democratic source told Axios.
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