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Another high-profile official has left Vice President Kamala Harris’ office, making her the latest to do so following a series of other notable departures.
Harris’ deputy press secretary, Ernesto Apreza, is calling it quits, marking another high-profile departure from the vice president’s office. She will join the Department of Defense.
“Ernesto Apreza, Harris’ senior adviser for public engagement, will become deputy press secretary and is expected to focus on engaging local and state press, as well as specific key coalition groups. Apreza previously served on the Biden-Harris campaign, as well as on the then-mayor of Seattle’s staff,” the report noted.
Singh’s departure follows those of other ranking members of Harris’ inner circle.
Chief Speechwriter Kate Childs Graham, Communications Director Ashley Etienne, and Symone Sanders, a senior adviser and chief spokesperson, have all resigned from Harris’ team.
A few months ago, the New York Post published a lengthy report and quoted several current and former staffers who were frustrated with Harris.
The Post reported:
Former aides to Vice President Kamala Harris say she is possessed by “deep, deep insecurity” that has led to a toxic work environment in her office, a forthcoming book claims.
Author Chris Whipple writes in “The Fight of His Life” that Harris refused to answer questions about “turmoil and morale problems” among her staff for his book on President Biden’s first months in the White House, but ex-employees described the woman as a heartbeat from the Oval Office as dysfunctional and unprepared.
One former aide told Whipple that Harris engaged in “really unnecessary gamesmanship” with her underlings, excerpts from the book that were obtained by the Washington Examiner revealed.
The one-time staffer further claimed that Harris “refused to do the kind of preparation that you need to do before going public on a hardcore policy matter. And then she became incensed and outraged when things wouldn’t go the way she thought they were supposed to.”
“I think it’s helpful for people to know,” the former Harris aide told Whipple, adding, “that this is not new, and it will inhibit any administration that she is the leader of.”
“When somebody raises an issue about Kamala, everybody’s like, ‘You don’t want to see black women succeed.’ That’s completely backward. Everybody who goes to work for Kamala, by definition, wants to see her succeed. That’s why you take these jobs,” they said.
Gil Duran, who worked for Harris in 2013 when she was attorney general of California, told Whipple: “The amount of stress she created by constantly being impossible to manage and taking out all her stresses on staff — usually women, or people who were not in great positions of authority — was just kind of unbearable.”
In June 2021, Politico published a scathing report noting that people who worked for Harris said they felt “treated like sh*t” and that Harris was a “bully” with a “soul-destroying” management style.
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” one former worker told the Washington Post at the time. “With Kamala, you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully, and it’s not really clear why.”
“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.”
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said one person familiar with operations in Harris’ office. “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 sh*t.”
