Ousted House speaker auditions as Trump’s attack dog—and fails

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is trying to keep himself relevant by taking up for Donald Trump and attacking Vice President Kamala Harris to any media outlet that will talk to him. So far, it’s not going well.

In an interview with The Hill, the Republican who was ousted by members of his own party accused Harris of creating a toxic work environment in her Senate office. 

“It’s known in Washington, it is a heroic work environment,” McCarthy said. “If you work for her, nobody lasts very long. Even as VP when she didn’t do anything, she could not keep staff.”

He did not pass up an opportunity to lean hard into sexist stereotypes about women bosses.

“How she treats people around her is a real indication of what she’ll do in the future,” McCarthy claimed. 

To be fair, there was some high-profile turnover among Harris’ staff during her first year as vice president, attributed to “burnout, money, and concern,” as Axios reported in 2021. Gosh, it’s hard to imagine that being thrown into trying to rebuild the country that Donald Trump tried to destroy—during a pandemic, mind you—would burn people out.

As it turns out, there are couple of other people, including a senator and a former president, whose staff turnover rate blows Harris’ out of the water.