OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Vice President Kamala Harris is continuing to lose staff, handing fresh political ammunition to her biggest critics that she is simply unqualified to be president.
According to the Washington Post, Harris’ chief of staff Tina Flournoy is departing for personal reasons, an announcement noted on Thursday.
“Tina has been a valued advisor and confidant to me and a tremendous leader for the office,” the vice president said. “From day 1, she led our team during a historic first year as we made progress rebuilding our economy here at home and our alliances around the world. Tina is the consummate public servant and I will continue to rely on her advice, counsel, and friendship.”
“Tina has been a critical member of the White House team since day one, working with the President and Vice President to make their partnership effective and help the administration deliver on critical priorities,” President Joe Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain said. “Her experience, wisdom, and hard work have been instrumental to our success on many issues.”
The latest departure comes on the heels of several prior reports about how staffers have had difficulty working for her and became frustrated with her style.
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” a 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 constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”
But not everyone who has worked for Harris agrees.
Bearstar Strategies partner Sean Clegg, who advised Harris during her career, defended the vice president as a tough boss but not a bully.
“She has put me personally in the position of feeling like Jeff Sessions,” he said, referring to when the former senator and attorney general said Harris “makes me nervous.”
“People personalize these things,” he said. “I’ve never had an experience in my long history with Kamala, where I felt like she was unfair. Has she called bulls—? Yes. And does that make people uncomfortable sometimes? Yes. But if she were a man with her management style, she would have a TV show called ‘The Apprentice.’”
The Post added, however:
Still, the quartet of announced departures were all for jobs that helped shape the vice president’s image to the American people — important roles for one of the nation’s most closely watched politicians, one whose first year missteps have been picked apart in the public eye.
As Harris looks for a new communications director and press secretary, several of her former communications aides are working in top roles at government agencies: Lily Adams, her former campaign and Senate communications director, works at the Treasury Department; Rebecca Chalif, her deputy communications director on the campaign, now works as the director of press at the U.S. Agency for International Development; Ian Sams, national press secretary for Harris’s campaign, and Kirsten Allen, deputy national press secretary, are at the Department of Health and Human Services.
In July, it was reported that some staffers believed her office was abusive.
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” a person that Politico claims knows how her office works, said. “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—.”
At the time, Harris’ spokeswoman, Symone Sanders, defended her boss and said the claims are unfounded.
“Black women like me would not have the opportunity to work in politics without Tina.” She said before speaking of those who have complained anonymously, “People are cowards to do this this way.”
“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,’” she said. “We have created a culture where people, if there is anything anyone would like to raise, there are avenues for them to do so. Whoever has something they would like to raise, they should raise it directly.”
Sanders has also since departed Harris’ office.
