On multiple levels, Harris is in a unique position, complicated by the widespread perception when they entered office that Biden could serve just one term. “He picked a strong, successful, independent woman who’s had her own career and ran for president in her own right.” Joe Biden did not pick a Mike Pence,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Obama campaign and ran a pro–Biden super PAC in 2020. “I think part of it is like my family, my Democratic family is always going to be more dysfunctional than theirs. Tensions between the president and vice president are not uncommon. Now she’s polling even lower than the president a recent USA Today and Suffolk University poll clocked her favorability rating at an abysmal 28% compared to Biden’s 38%. Biden handed Harris a trying and thankless portfolio that included voting rights and diplomacy as it relates to the southern border-two flash point issues without easy solutions. In addition to those who feel she is being ill-served by staff and by her own instincts, there are those who blame the White House. Obviously you can’t account for it without a big lens on race,” the former staffer said. “Obviously you can’t account for without a big lens on gender. And Harris undeniably faces unprecedented expectations, as the first Indian American and Black woman to ever hold the position. That the position is inherently deferential to the presidency complicates the dynamics for anyone in the role. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to blame the staff for all of the stray voltage around that operation,” a former White House staffer said. “The one through line would be the principal and not the staff. But many also see a pattern spanning Harris’s Senate career, her presidential campaign, and now vice presidency. Some in Harris’s orbit have blamed the vice president’s chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, a veteran Clinton ally, for the poor perception of the principal, arguing that she hasn’t been protecting her boss’s interests. While Harris ended up doing the interview remotely, the chaos on air eclipsed anything she said. The event quickly devolved into a fiasco after two of the hosts were abruptly pulled over false positive COVID tests. The tension came to a head in September, when Harris joined The View live for what was set to be her first in-studio sit-down interview. Some advisers have been pushing for Harris to be more visible, and clashing with those who don’t believe that is the best path, according to sources I have spoken with. “In the lead up to the vice president’s inauguration, what would have been a time to get stories about her and how remarkable it was-the first woman, the first woman of color-those stories never really happened in the degree that they would have, if our country wasn’t in such a scary place.” “I think that when the insurrection coverage hit-rightly so-it took all of the soft media off the grid,” Rebecca Katz, a progressive strategist and founding partner of New Deal Strategies, said. She graced the cover of Vogue and then, almost immediately, seemed to fade. Sworn in during a pandemic and in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot, there was little room for Harris to find her footing at the beginning of her term in office. But I am also absolutely, absolutely clear-eyed that there is a lot more to do, and we’re gonna get it done.” I’m very, very excited about the work that we have accomplished. When George Stephanopoulos asked if she felt “misused or underused” by the White House, Harris pushed back. With her approval rating dipping to 28%, Harris went on Good Morning America on Thursday morning to defend her role and the administration. Harris’s office has been beset by unflattering stories, centered largely on how public a role the vice president should have. Etienne made the decision to leave at this time upon taking the job. It is not unusual for White House staffers to leave at the one-year mark. When Etienne joined the vice president’s office she told me she would stay for the first year, but still her departure comes after a raft of stories on infighting and low morale in the vice president’s office. A veteran of the Barack Obama administration and a former senior adviser to both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, Etienne transitioned to Harris’s team in the weeks following the 2020 election. Vice President Kamala Harris’s communications chief Ashley Etienne is leaving the White House.
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