Staff members who have worked for Vice President Kamala Harris claimed they were traumatized while on the job, and the thought of her becoming president is terrifying.
It’s a nightmare scenario for some former Harris staffers who watched nervously as their former boss ascended the national political stage. Many of them remain loyal Democrats and fans of Biden, but they didn’t want to see a boss with whom they’d had a bad experience become the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer. Biden, at 78, was already the oldest person to assume the US presidency. He’ll be a few weeks shy of his 82nd birthday on Election Day 2024, and there’s already speculation six months into his term over whether he’ll run for reelection.
Over a dozen former staffers who have worked for Harris at various points in her political career were interviewed; almost all “spoke on condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships, adding that Harris’ job trajectory means it’s well within reason she could become the more powerful person on the planet.”
Ex-staffers described the workplace with words such as “toxic” and “reactionary” as well as stated the workplace was infused with “a sense of paranoia in that office that you never knew when she was going to snap at you.”
Accounts described Harris as an unpredictable boss who would unleash “a lot of verbal abuse” upon staffers who failed to fulfill her erratic demands. Handing her the wrong type of pen is one example of what would prompt Harris to unleash.
Earlier this month Politico published a similar story with additional accounts. “People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses, and it’s an abusive environment,” said one person. A second stated “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—t.”
Former senior White House aide Anita Dunn came to the defense of vice president Harris who had nothing more substantial to say than the VP’s office was “not anywhere near what you are describing it.” Dunn also served as a “damage control” adviser to disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, so her support should be more of a hindrance for the vice president.
