Kamala Harris calls out ‘ridiculous’ press coverage of her Paris trip but avoids questions on recent staff exits

At the end of his trip to Paris last month, Harris stopped by a high-end cookware store to buy, among other things, a $ 375 cooking pot. The move resulted in critical press coverage, with reports juxtaposing their spending with Americans struggling to pay for everyday goods due to unusually high inflation rates.

But the vice president ignored questions about staffing problems in her office and recent high-profile exits, according to the newspaper. CNN previously reported the departure of top communications aides Symone Sanders and Ashley Etienne, following a host of reports, including from CNN, about infighting and staff dysfunction.

And Harris’s team will likely see other exits over time. Last month, CNN reported that several people on its staff had begun reaching out to their contacts to tell them they were looking to leave, according to sources who received calls, while many in the vice president’s orbit have expressed frustration that Harris has not done so. . being properly groomed or positioned by the White House and is instead being sidelined.

“Harris twice did not directly answer a question about what lessons he had learned and whether he wished he had done something different in the past year. But he said his goals for next year include more trips across the country to sell on the administration’s priorities. “. said the Chronicle.

“There is nothing about this job that is supposed to be easy,” he told the Harris newspaper, whose portfolio includes immigration. “If something comes to me, it is because it has to be addressed and because, by definition, it is not going to be easy. If it were easy, it would have been handled before it came to me.”

And she called President Joe Biden and herself “governing partners.”

“He can’t do everything, and then on an issue like the root causes of migration, he looks at me because he trusts me and understands the position and the job that the vice president can do,” he said. “And he asked me to take care of certain things because he cannot do everything, and I will do it willingly.”

Noting that Biden also once served as vice president, Harris told the Chronicle, “He really appreciates and understands the role, and he’s very supportive.”