The Biden White House wants to stop negative stories from spreading after Politico post slamming harris last Wednesday, in which former staffers claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris’s office was “an abusive environment.”
CNN reported the White House is now in “damage control mode” after Politico’s report. It included 22 former staffers, administration officials, and associates who spoke out about the dysfunctional atmosphere at Harris’ office.
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” a person with direct knowledge of the situation in the vice president’s office 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***.”
“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,” the outlet added.
CNN reported that President Joe Biden’s office is trying to prevent a drama-filled narrative, according to five people speaking to CNN about Harris’ office dynamics. The outlet then published statements from the administration.
Sabrina Singh, Harris’ deputy press secretary, insisted to CNN that Harris was focusing on her work for the Biden administration. White House press secretary Jen Psaki also defended Harris on Friday, saying she “has a challenging job, a hard job, and she has a great supportive team of people around her.”
CNN noted, however, that “help from the West Wing is a sign that the spiraling narrative could start to affect Harris, who is considered the next in line to lead the Democratic Party — with a potential for a presidential run coming as soon as 2024 if President Joe Biden decides not to seek reelection.”
Biden previously has said he would seek re-election in 2024.
Many others have publicly defended Harris against the allegations. However, some of these efforts have backfired which has solidified Politico’s reporting to a certain extent. Anita Dunn, a White House senior adviser, said that Harris’ complaints were not “nearly what you are describing”, but she acknowledged that there might be some “people whose emotions were a little hurt on her team” as many were not informed about Harris’ last-minute visit to the southern border.
Harris flew to El Paso, Texas, a blue county where the border crisis isn’t as harrowing. As The Daily Wire previously reported, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) called out Harris for going to El Paso instead of the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
“I’m sure her planners told her that if you’re going to go down to the border, go to a, something that’s safer to go to that is politically safer. If you go down to the lower Rio Grande with the high activity and you’re there with kids and families, prosecutorial discretion, where people are being released, high numbers of people crossing the border, you know, politically that’s — it’s harder to do that, I know that,” Cuellar said.
