Legal Insurrection has a few posts about potential Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and her staff turnover.
Harris’s treatment of her staff has resurfaced due to her rise as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Harris brought only a few longtime staffers with her to the White House.
OpenTheBooks.com noted that Harris has a 91.5% turnover rate as vice president.
Former President Donald Trump had a 72% turnover rate during his four years in office, while President Joe Biden has a 77% turnover rate.
Biden still has 560 staff members who joined him in January 2021.
In March, Harris only has four original staffers from 2021.
Let’s look back at Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign. In November 2019, Kelly Mehlenbacher, who worked as Harris’s State Operations Director at Kamala Harris for the People, wrote a critical resignation letter.
“This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly,” wrote Mehlenbacher.
Mehlenbacher slammed Harris and the campaign for encouraging people to move from D.C. to Baltimore, MD, “only to lay them off with no notice, with no plan for the campaign, and without thoughtful consideration of the personal consequences to them or the consequences that their absence would have on the remaining staff.”
Mehlenbacher found it unacceptable to fire anyone the campaign hired 90 days before the Iowa caucuses.
But many of the leaks started after Harris’s awful interview with Lester Holt after she visited Guatemala. He asked her when she was going to the border (because she is the BORDER CZAR), and she lost her mind, even adding, “And I haven’t been to Europe.”
That was on June 8, 2021.
On June 30, 2021, 22 people described the toxic, abusive mess to Politico:
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment. 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*it.”
The Washington Post (Yes, WaPo) expanded on the disfunction in December 2021:
Critics scattered over two decades point to an inconsistent and at times degrading principal who burns through seasoned staff members who have succeeded in other demanding, high-profile positions. People used to putting aside missteps, sacrificing sleep and enduring the occasional tirade from an irate boss say doing so under Harris can be particularly difficult, as she has struggled to make progress on her vice-presidential portfolio or measure up to the potential that has many pegging her as the future of the Democratic Party.“One of the things we’ve said in our little text groups among each other is what is the common denominator through all this and it’s her,” said Gil Duran, a former Democratic strategist and aide to Harris who quit after five months working for her in 2013. In a recent column, he said she’s repeating “the same old destructive patterns.”“Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have (them) pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons,” he told The Post.
Harris has a problem with taking responsibility:
Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared.“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” one former staffer said. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”
Harris lost 24 people from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024.
But the problems go back to when she was California’s attorney general. Terry McAteer recalled his son’s time as her intern during that time, and it is…not good:
Senator Harris vocally throws around “F-bombs” and other profanity constantly in her berating of staff and others. The staff is in complete fear of her and she uses her profanity throughout the day.As Attorney General, Senator Harris instructed her entire staff to stand every morning as she entered the office and say, “Good Morning General.”Never once during the month-long internship did Harris introduce herself to our son (as he was only in an office with 20 paid employees) and staff was too intimidated by her to introduce him. The only acknowledgment was a form letter of “thanks” signed by Harris given to him on his last day of service.Gregory was also given instructions to never address Harris nor look her in the eye as that privilege was only allowed to senior staff members.
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