Vice President Kamala Harris quipped that she will have to stop agreeing to take on more responsibilities from the president amid criticism over her handling of the southern border crisis and claims her office is plagued by fighting.
About 19 minutes into the 20-minute interview with BET that aired Friday, broadcaster Soledad O’Brien rattled off Harris’ major undertakings.
‘Immigration, increasing broadband access, black maternal mortality, racial inequality, women in the workforce, infrastructure. We just talked about voting rights. That seems like a lot for one person,’ O’Brien said to Harris.
‘Can one person do all that realistically?’ O’Brien asked.
Harris responded by saying she multitasks and admits there’s a lot to get done.
Then she jokingly said, ‘Yeah, maybe I don’t say “no” enough,’ and then laughed.
‘But I do believe that these things are achievable. It’s just a lot of hard work, but that’s why we’re here and that’s what people wanted. Right?’ Harris said.
‘We will go into these positions that we will arrive in these positions, and we will work hard and get things done. And that’s what motivates me, truly.’
Scroll down for video of full interview.
Vice President Kamala Harris during the BET interview that aired on Friday, when she jokingly said, ‘Yeah, maybe I don’t say “no” enough’ to President Joe Biden
Broadcaster Soledad O’Brien, in the blue, rattled off Harris’ laundry list of major undertakings and asked, ‘Can one person do all that realistically?’
President Joe Biden, flanked by Harris, delivers remarks on deals made with Senators on a bipartisan infrastructure plan in the East Room of the White House in Washington
Harris has been heavily scrutinized by Republicans and some mainstream media, including CNN, for her handling of the border crisis.
West Wing aides from Joe Biden’s office are also said to have been displeased by missteps she made while addressing the issue.
And last week, aides and administration officials complained of a tense atmosphere with low morale and trust, and bad communication in Harris’s office in a bombshell Politico report.
She waited 93 days to visit the border after President Joe Biden tasked her tackling the immigration crisis. When she finally visited El Paso, Texas on June 25, Republicans said it was a ‘pit stop’ en route to her California home.
In Politico’s report, aides said they were treated ‘like s**t’ and tensions reached a breaking point when Harris finally decided to visit the border.
The decision blindsided officials tasked with arranging travel and others outside her office responsible for messaging across the administration, according to Politico.
The outlet cited 22 officials, former officials, aides and associates of President Biden and Harris who described low morale, a tense atmosphere, porous lines of communication and diminished trust.
Harris’s Chief of Staff Tina Flournoy especially came under fire with one source saying, ‘people are thrown under the bus from the very top.’
Flournoy has allegedly created an environment where ‘ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out,’ the outlet reported. She allegedly ‘refuses to take responsibility’ and blames staffers for negative results.
Some of the sources told Politico that Harris also is responsible for how her office is run, claiming that the toxic environment ‘all starts at the top.’
‘People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,’ said one source.
‘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 s**t.’
The sources claimed that even President Joe Biden’s office is concerned about the treatment of staff.
The White House pushed back on the claims, with Biden’s Senior Adviser Cedric Richmond calling it ‘a whisper campaign designed to sabotage [Harris].’
‘People are cowards to do this this way,’ Harris’ chief spokesperson Symone Sanders said.
Harris speaks to the media at El Paso International Airport in Texas on June 25
Harris arrives at El Paso International Airport in Texas to visit the border on June 25
She added: ‘We are not making rainbows and bunnies all day. What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I’m like ‘welcome to the club.’
‘We have created a culture where people, if there is anything anyone would like to raise, there are avenues for them to do so. Whoever has something they would like to raise, they should raise it directly.’
The vice president hosted her team to her Naval Observatory home for a post-Fourth of July barbecue Thursday night, when it was all smiles as Harris and first gentleman Doug Emhoff hosted dozens of staff at an indoors event at their home, as it was raining in Washington, D.C.