Former Harvey Weinstein Adviser Defends Kamala Harris From Charges of Staff Abuse
VP's office described as 'place where people feel treated like s—t'
Evidence continues to mount in support of the Washington Free Beacon‘s assessment that Vice President Kamala Harris will never become president by winning an election. According to a THE POLITICO report published Wednesday, the VP's office is a woefully mismanaged hellhole of abuse and recrimination.
As a sign of how dire the situation has become, the White House wheeled out former Harvey Weinstein "damage control" adviser Anita Dunn to defend the VP against the allegations from nearly two dozen Democratic sources, including current and former Harris staffers. The situation was "not anywhere near what you are describing," Dunn told THE POLITICO.
MORE: Biden Taps Harvey Weinstein ‘Damage Control’ Adviser Anita Dunn for Senior White House Role
The situation being described is rather harrowing. "People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses, and it's an abusive environment," said one person with knowledge of Harris's management style. "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."
The White House has reportedly taken notice of the dysfunction in the VP's office and has grown concerned. That could explain the decision to deploy Dunn, a former public relations lobbyist who provided "damage control advice" to Weinstein in 2016 after media reports exposed his long history of sexual predation.
While Dunn is speaking to reporters on the record, however, other administration officials have been trashing Harris on background, blaming the dysfunction in her office on the VP's inadequacy as a leader. "It all starts at the top," one said, anonymously.
The morale among current Harris staffers is reportedly "rough," a situation familiar to those who worked on her failed presidential campaign, described in THE POLITICO as having "imploded in a painful maze of finger-pointing and leaks." Former staffers described Harris as a boss whose "expectation won't always be predictable," and their work environment as one of "managed chaos."
The bombshell report is merely the most recent piece of evidence implicating Harris as a substandard politician who will never win a national election. Whether it's her inability to take a coherent position on a given issue or her weird habit of laughing like a maniac in response to basic questions, Harris does not appear to have what it takes to succeed outside her deep-blue home state of California.
A New York Times columnist recently described Harris as having "clear potential as a national leader." The Free Beacon‘s fact-checking department gave that claim a rating of 3.5 Clintons, or "mostly false."
Professional pundits often wonder if President Joe Biden will seek a second term in 2024. Given the VP's glaring deficiencies as a politician, perhaps they should be asking: Will he keep Harris on the ticket?
Report: Traumatized Ex-Harris Staffers Terrified at Thought of Her Becoming President
'You never knew when she was going to snap at you'
Working for Vice President Kamala Harris was so traumatizing for some former staffers, the experience has left them terrified at the thought of her becoming president, Insider reports:
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.
The outlet interviewed a dozen former Harris staffers from various points in her political career, nearly all of whom "spoke on condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships, adding that Harris' job trajectory means it's well within reason she could become the most powerful person on the planet."
That's a terrifying prospect for ex-aides who recall a "toxic" and "reactionary" workplace infused with "a sense of paranoia in that office that you never knew when she was going to snap at you." One former staffer who had mostly positive things to say about Harris conceded that her staffers were often "so stressed out that they were making themselves sick. Is that toxic? I don't know."
The comments from former staffers echo those published earlier this month in Politico. "People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses, and it's an abusive environment," said one person with knowledge of Harris's management style. "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."
Some people have defended the vice president against the charges of staff abuse, including Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide who served as a "damage control" adviser to disgraced Hollywood pervert Harvey Weinstein. According to Dunn, the situation in the VP's office was "not anywhere near what you are describing," though she declined to elaborate as to whether it was better or worse than the situation being described.
Within the community of traumatized former Harris staffers, the Politico report "went around like wildfire," as many "recognized treatment they had seen" during their time in her office. One former aide even forwarded the story to their therapist along with a note that read: "Rarely in life are we publicly vindicated." The ex-staffer told Insider they sought therapy to "resolve trauma from the on-the-job abuse" after Harris was selected as Biden's running mate in 2020.
Their accounts described Harris as an unpredictable boss who would unleash "a lot of verbal abuse" upon staffers who failed to fulfill her erratic demands, or even for handing her the wrong type of pen. The traumatic work environment could explain why Harris had one of the highest staff turnover rates among U.S. senators between 2017 and 2020.
A former aide who worked for Harris in the California attorney general's office said the reports coming out of Harris's office just a few months after Biden was inaugurated were "very concerning" and delivered a vague yet ominous warning to the American people: "It's important to both the nation and the Biden administration that this doesn't happen again."
Poll: Majority of Americans Not Confident Kamala Harris Is Ready for Presidency
Nearly half of Democratic voters not confident Harris could handle presidency
A majority of Americans are not confident that Vice President Kamala Harris is ready to be president, according to a national poll of likely voters.
The poll, conducted this month by the Trafalgar Group/Convention of States, found 64 percent of Americans lack confidence in Harris's readiness to replace President Joe Biden based on her performance as vice president thus far. Fifty-nine percent of Americans are not confident at all about Harris's readiness. The nationwide poll captured more than a thousand voters' opinions with a 3 percent margin of error.
The majority of Democratic respondents still viewed the vice president favorably, but it was closely split. Fifty-two percent were confident in Harris, and 43 percent lacked confidence.
Polls conducted during the Trump administration showed greater public confidence in then-vice president Mike Pence. A Rasmussen poll from April 2017, during Pence's first year in office, showed 63 percent of likely voters, and 40 percent of Democrats, thought Pence was "qualified to assume the responsibilities of the presidency."
Harris's tenure as vice president has been marked by controversy, as reports have cast doubt on her leadership. A June Politico report detailed allegations that Harris runs an "abusive" office where people "often feel mistreated." "It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s—t," said one person with knowledge of how the office is run. And Harris's performance as Biden's border czar has been widely panned. She waited three months after being tasked with the immigration crisis before visiting the southern border, even as historic numbers of illegal immigrants crossed over it. The Biden administration this month warned border agents to prepare to process an imminent flood of migrant families and asylum claims.
Harris's readiness to take on the presidency is relevant to the upcoming 2024 presidential election. Biden, 78, has not committed to seeking a second term. He has said his "plan is to run for reelection," but Politico reported in 2019 that he signaled to aides he planned to serve only one term.
More Than 500K Illegal Immigrants Crossed Southern Border Since Kamala Harris Named ‘Border Czar’
Vice President Kamala Harris finally visited the southern border, three months after being put in charge of solving the immigration crisis. In that time, more than half-a-million illegal immigrants were apprehended at the southern border.
Upon arriving in El Paso on Friday, the vice president continued to attack journalists for asking questions about why she waited so long to make the trip. "It's not my first trip, I've been to the border many times," Harris snapped, apparently referring to previous visits she made as a senator.
Since President Joe Biden made Harris his "border czar" on March 24, illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border at a record rate of nearly 180,000 per month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
CBP agents apprehended 178,854 illegal immigrants at the southern border in April, which at the time was the highest monthly figure since April 2000. At least it was until the following month, when CBP agents apprehended 180,034 illegal immigrants attempting to enter the country.
When the CBP data for June is reported next month, the total number of illegal crossings since late March is likely to surpass 500,000, which would mark a tremendous increase compared with last year. During that same three-month period (April-June) in 2020, CBP apprehended just 73,392 illegal immigrants. The 2020 numbers were likely deflated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but CBP reported just 146,210 illegal border crossings for that same three-month period in 2018, significantly below this year's figure.
Harris has come under fire for not taking the border crisis seriously. She has on several occasions laughed like a maniac in response to questions about her refusal to visit the border until now. During an interview with NBC's Lester Holt earlier this month, Harris falsely claimed "we've been to the border" and attacked the journalist for asking about it.
"This whole thing about the border. We've been to the border. We've been to the border," Harris said, contrary to the facts.
When Holt pointed out that she had not, in fact, been to the border, Harris lashed out in a manner unbecoming of an elected official. "I—and I haven't been to Europe. And I mean, I don't—I don't understand the point that you're making," Harris said.
The vice president's decision to finally visit the border is unlikely to silence Harris's critics who contend that she is a terrible politician who has no idea what she's doing.
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