Numerous ex-employees of Vice President Kamala Harris have criticized their former boss, portraying her as a “bully” who frequently reduced individuals to tears through harsh and degrading outbursts. These staffers, interviewed by author Charlie Spiering for the UK’s Daily Mail, characterized her as a “soul-crushing bully,” resulting in exceptionally high staff turnover rates.
“Only four of the initial 71 staffers hired by Harris during her first year in office still remain in a job. The rest either quit or were fired, according to analysis by non-partisan watchdog Open The Books,” Spiering reported. “That translates to a 92 percent staff turnover rate – and, say critics, is a likely sign that the issues on Team Harris have more to do with her than anyone else.”
He proceeded to mention that, during his research for his recently published Harris biography, “Amateur Hour,” which was released in January, his sources shared “horrifying stories” of their treatment by Harris, some of which he found “astonishing.” Dating back to 2010, during her time as California attorney general, she was already known for creating a “toxic” work environment. Barbara O’Connor, a professor at the University of California-Sacramento, informed the biographer that her students who interned for Harris “often returned to her in tears, feeling undervalued.”
Upon her election as a U.S. senator from California in 2016, it seems that she brought the same negative behaviors to Washington, D.C. “Data revealed that her office had the ninth-highest staff turnover rate out of the 114 senators who served between 2017 and 2020,” Spiering reported. He added: “Congressional sources told the Mail that she would berate subordinates in expletive-laden tirades.”
Republican employees were also occasionally subjected to verbal abuse. According to a source, in 2018, she scolded a group of Senate employees during the heated confirmation hearings for current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was wrongly accused of sexually assaulting multiple women in college.
Sources reported that during one incident, Harris erupted in an angry outburst outside the main Senate Judiciary Committee room, shouting, “All staff members, leave this place!” to all employees, including those who were employed by Republican senators.
Spiering added:
“In a sensational resignation letter shared with the New York Times in November 2019, Harris’s then State Operations Director Kelly Mehlenbacher slammed her boss, saying: ‘I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.’”
She continued: ‘It is not acceptable to me that we encouraged people to move from Washington, DC to Baltimore only to lay them off with no notice. Morale has never been lower,’ she added, saying there was no ‘real plan’ for how Harris might win, but that she hoped her departure ‘might result in some serious consideration of […] our internal communications.”