Vice President Kamala Harris was slammed by Republican lawmakers and pundits Monday after giving an interview to the San Francisco Chronicle about the meaning behind new decorations in her West Wing office, leading many to question her priorities.
On Sunday, the Chronicle tweeted a link to the interview article with the caption, “Kamala Harris has redecorated the VP’s office. Here’s the meaning behind her choices.”
The outlet, which interviewed the veep in her newly decorated office, noted among other details that Harris keeps a portrait of late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall — the first black man to sit on the nation’s highest bench — near her desk.
“It’s positioned in a way that looks almost as if Marshall is looking over Harris’ shoulder when she works,” read the article, which added that the painting is on loan from Harris’ alma mater, Howard University.
The piece was one of several stories published by the Chronicle over the weekend that stemmed from an interview with Harris.
It didn’t take long for critics to slam the feature as a “puff piece” while questioning what the vice president is doing with her time as the administration is faced with several crises.
“Take that all you haters who said she does nothing,” Jim Hanson, executive director of America Matters, jokingly tweeted.
“Now that she is done with that, can she go to the border?” asked Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.).
Miller’s colleague Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) echoed that sentiment by asking: “No time for the border…?”
“Crazy how she doesn’t have time to visit the southern border,” added the official Twitter account for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
The House Republican Policy Committee, chaired by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), joined the pile-on by tweeting: “Maybe she will visit the southern border now that the big remodel is done.”
Some referenced recent reports of trouble in the vice president’s office — including the departure of four key members of her team and whispers of a toxic work environment as well as a strained relationship with President Biden.
“When folks said she needed to ‘reset’ her office, they didn’t mean to LITERALLY reset her office,” tweeted Nathan Brand, deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee.
Others took issue with the Chronicle for publishing the article in the first place.
“This is embarrassing,” former US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell tweeted. “The home state media for California Democrats is no different than state-owned media coverage. No excuses. The Chronicle is not journalism.”
In a separate tweet, Grenell took direct aim at Chronicle Washington correspondent Tal Kopan, who wrote the article.
“Did @TalKopan come up with this story idea on her own or was she assigned this Pravda-style angle? This isn’t remotely journalism,” he said before suggesting in a third tweet that Kopan was paid by the Democratic National Committee.
“Did you get a chance to ask her about the border or do your ‘journalists’ stick strictly to wallpaper?” asked the Tea Party Patriots of the Chronicle.
The White House has repeatedly defended Harris through her staffing woes and public missteps.
On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki insisted that Harris remains the Biden administration’s point person for the ongoing border crisis as thousands of migrants make their way toward the US-Mexico border in caravans.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.