Hard on the heels of the news that the woman in charge of communications for Vice President Kamala Harris is bailing on the Biden administ...
Hard on the heels of the news that the woman in charge of communications for Vice President Kamala Harris is bailing on the Biden administration comes the announcement that the White House director of communications is leaving.
Communications Chief of Staff Emma Riley announced Friday that she will move over to the Department of Labor, according to Newsweek.
The word came one day after it was announced that Ashley Etienne, who served former President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will leave her post as communications director for Harris next month, according to Fox News.
Riley previously was a deputy communications director, regional communications director and press secretary for the Biden campaign.
The departures come at a time when a recent USA Today poll gave President Joe Biden a 38 percent approval rating and Harris a 28 percent rating.
In its reporting based on sources it did not name, CNN said one source told it that Etienne “was not a good fit” for Harris and did not play a highly active role in developing a strategy for getting Harris out of the tailspin that has marked her first year.
Rep James Clyburn of South Carolina downplayed the significance of the changes.
“People leave jobs all the time. I’ve been a part of transitions myself at the state level. And I know that within the first several months –sometimes it takes a year — that people may find out this is not exactly for me. So these things tend to happen,” he said.
Writing in the Atlantic, David Graham suggested that the Democrats have been their own worst enemy.
“Democrats have been at war with one another for months in Washington, and even if voters like the results, the spectacle is deeply unpleasant,” he wrote.
“You can’t turn on a cable-news channel these days without hearing a Democrat explaining why his or her least-favorite part of the Biden agenda is bad, which may be more persuasive than the predictable parade of Republicans saying the same thing,” Graham wrote.
“If that’s true, it helps explain why Biden’s slide has been particularly driven by eroding support among Democrats and independents.
“Disaffection could entail several different, conflicting impulses. Some Democrats are upset that the party hasn’t moved fast enough, others that it hasn’t prioritized their personal preferences, and still others that it’s pursuing ideas they dislike. The end result is the same: The party’s a mess, and people who voted for it are annoyed,” he wrote.
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