Senator Kamala Harris' Top Aides Jumps Ship To The Bloomberg Campaign.
NOBLES: The 2020 Democrats are returning to the campaign trail after the thanksgiving holiday, but senator Kamala Harris does so while facing new claims of mismanagement and poor treatment of campaign staffers. The "New York Times" obtained a scathing resignation letter from her now former state operations director. In it Kelly Mehlenbacher writes quote "this is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen a staff treated so poorly. With less than 90 days until Iowa, we still don't have a real plan to win. Our campaign for the people is made up of diverse talent which is being squandered by indecision and a lack of leaders who will lead. That is unacceptable". Austin Herndon covered the story for the "New York Times." He is also a CNN political analyst. He joins me now to talk about this. And Austin, you talked to a lot of people close to the senator. What are they saying, I should say, is going wrong?</s>AUSTIN HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Me and my colleagues talked to dozens and dozens almost 50 or more of the allies, staffers and former staffers of senator Harris, And it paints a kind of complete picture what we have seen the trajectory of this campaign be. On one hand, this is one that entered with so much promised. Let's remember, there was the kind of historic entry, the large rally that happened in Oakland, the immediate thrust into the top tier and the big debate moment that happened in debate one. But have seen since the summer a consistent slide and kind of inconsistent messaging from the Harris campaign. And what you hear when you talk to different staffers is that that inconsistency reflects an organizational problem that there is a kind of lack of decision-makers, that there is kind of a flat organization structure, we are not one person is in charge and that can lead to messaging that can change from day to day. Policies that cannot be consistent with what they think the values are, and for voters, that is why they may be picking up a senator that may look different from one day to the next.</s>NOBLES: So it is interesting. You guys were able to obtain this resignation letter from Mehlenbacher. She makes a lot of accusations particularly about this recent layoffs. Now, this is a campaign that is having a money problem. Right? It is a big operation. They expected to be running a national campaign. But if they don't have the money to pay staffers what other options do they have? How should it have been handled differently?</s>HERNDON: Yes. There is kind of two questions at hand there. One is how did they manage the money to bring them to the point where they had to lay off staffers? But as that letter details, there is a separate question that was being asked in the campaign here. A lot of these staffers, some were brought on in New Hampshire were fired just weeks after they were brought on. And so the question is, why were they hired in the first place? What is the management level, what is the oversight level, that caused that to happen? And so, that is kind of what the letter accuses and that is kind of internally what some of the staff accuses particularly the campaign manager -- campaign chairperson of is mishandling those funds even if they weren't plentiful. Now going forward, let's remember we still have two months until the Iowa caucus. This is still someone who has been able to raise a fair amount of money on the grassroots and then kind of the larger donor level. And what they are going for now is Iowa or bust. To beat expectations in Iowa particularly to prove viability above Joe Biden. And they are hoping that they can unlock a well of support in South Carolina and black communities and in California. But as our story states today, that is an increasingly tight window.</s>NOBLES: Yes. It doesn't seem like they are ready to go away yet. And there has been a lot of fluidity in this Democratic primary. Perhaps another opportunity for her to pop. But right now things definitely in a difficult position for Kamala Harris. Austin Herndon, terrific reporting. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. And back to breaking news. The suspect killed in a terror attack in London, but not before he stubbed multiple people. Two of them have now died. We will have details, ahead.