Campaign Staffers Rip Harris For What She Said During Post-Election Meeting

While some of Vice President Kamala Harris's allies are attributing her historic loss to President-elect Donald Trump to President Joe Biden’s delayed exit from the race, numerous former campaign staffers argue that this view is “detached from reality.”

They suggest instead that Harris’s own actions and her difficulty in connecting authentically with voters were the primary reasons for her loss.

“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, a Harris supporter and former Democratic candidate, according to the Associated Press. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.”

However, as reported by Newsweek, other critics believe Harris is responsible for her own campaign decisions that may have led to defeat.

Bob Brady, Philadelphia’s Democratic Chair and a former congressman, pointed out that Harris’s staffers often acted independently. He described them as “elitist” and said they frequently “did their own thing” without coordinating with the Democratic city committee, ward leaders, or local organizers.

According to Axios, some campaign insiders feel the leadership lacks awareness of what truly went wrong. A memo cited by Axios reportedly told staff that the race was quite close, adding to frustration among team members.

“People are depressed and frustrated about the overconfident leadership of the campaign,” one unnamed staffer told Axios.

During an all-staff call on Thursday night, there appeared to be a disconnect, with campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon reportedly in tears and Harris commenting, “Yeah, this sucks … There’s also so much good that has come of this.”

A staffer quoted by Axios said, “It was detached from the reality of what happened. We are told the fate of democracy is at stake, and then the message was, ‘We’ll get them next time.’”

A Biden staffer dismissed claims that Biden’s late exit hurt the campaign, instead questioning Harris’s spending: “How did you spend $1 billion and not win?”

Another Biden ally told Axios anonymously, “The Harris team benched [Biden], and then they lost, so now the people who represent Biden are saying, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have benched him.’”

According to Time, a Democratic state committee member in Pennsylvania remarked, “Everyone who destroyed Biden and pushed him out got the race they demanded. There was a choice: The only person that ever beat Trump or a gigantic unknown.”

Others criticized the campaign strategy, with one senior Democratic operative noting, “She let the GOP define her.”

The operative added that Harris “could have left the convention and tried to reach out to voters from across the political spectrum, but she and [running mate Tim] Walz went inexplicably into hiding and didn’t do interviews for weeks.”

In contrast, Trump did a lengthy interview with Joe Rogan before the election, while Harris declined to appear.

Rogan revealed that Harris’s team had a list of demands, including that he travel to her location instead of her visiting his studio in Austin, Texas, as Trump had done. The Daily Caller reported that Rogan was open to some requests but rejected one key condition, which ultimately prevented the interview from happening.

“There were a few restrictions of things they didn’t want to talk about, but I said, ‘I don’t give a f**k.’ I go, ‘Get her in here, like whatever you want to talk about,’” Rogan explained. He added that they also wanted to know if he would edit the interview. “I’m like, ‘There’s not going to be any editing, there’s no editing. We’re not going to edit.’”