Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina | Email Max If you’ve read a critical piece about Vice President KAMALA HARRIS any time in the past few years, you’ve almost certainly seen a quote from GIL DURAN. The veteran California Democratic operative-turned-political pundit and columnist worked briefly as an aide for Harris in 2013, when she was attorney general of California. During his time in her office, he said he witnessed dysfunction and managerial issues leading to low morale among some staff. He left with little fanfare after just five months. But as Harris’ profile has risen over the past several years, culminating ultimately in her ascendance to the vice presidency, Duran, now an opinion editor for the San Francisco Examiner, has become increasingly in-demand for a reliable, on-record quote about her leadership qualities, relationships with staff, and political acumen. He was quoted on the record in December in longreads in the Washington Post and New York Times, sharing stories contributing to the narrative that she has long had difficulties managing staff. He was also on the record in POLITICO saying the turnover would continue until the White House stepped in to stop it. Just a few days later, he was quoted in the Guardian saying Harris needed to get the staff mismanagement narrative under control and avoid more internal drama. When the Times wrote a story describing her vice presidency as ill-defined and adrift, Duran was quoted asking how she was going to reset her agenda. Even before her time as vice president, he was the on-record voice in stories expressing skepticism about Harris. When her 2020 presidential campaign collapsed before a single primary vote had been cast, he was on the record in the Times blaming her for campaign mismanagement. He’s shared interesting anecdotes about his observations of the dynamic between the vice president and her niece, MEENA HARRIS. Duran, who also worked for Sen. DIANNE FEINSTEIN and former California Gov. JERRY BROWN, has written critically about other California politicians, including Gov. GAVIN NEWSOM, Health and Human Services Secretary XAVIER BECERRA (a former California congressman and attorney general), and Republican Rep. DEVIN NUNES, and rarely writes about Harris in his columns . But it’s his comments about his old boss that have gotten the most attention. His columns and quotes about the vice president get wide pickup among the news aggregators and conservative media op-ed pages. Duran told POLITICO reporters seem to keep calling because other staffers who may be willing to share their gripes are unwilling to speak out on the record for fear of professional retaliation. Indeed, few of the stories — which often cite numerous current and former operatives — have any on-record sources. “It’s hard to get people to speak on the record against a powerful person,” he said in a telephone call on Tuesday. “The threat of retaliation there is very real.” But among many Harris allies and loyalists, Duran is a source of frustration and emblematic of one of the flaws in political media. People close to the vice president told West Wing Playbook that they feel reporters are lazy for using Duran as a source, noting that he hasn’t worked for Harris since 2013, and worked in her office for less than six months. NATHAN BARANKIN , who worked for Harris for nearly a decade in the attorney general’s office, her Senate office and later on her 2020 presidential bid, said both Harris and Duran felt the partnership was not a good fit from the beginning, and that the duo were like “oil and water.” “Gil Duran is brilliant and acerbic and often quotable,” Barankin said. “I will say, though, his experience with Kamala Harris is exceedingly limited.” Other former Harris staffers have been less charitable about his punditry on the VP. “It’s puzzling to many of us in California that national outlets take anything Gil Duran has to say seriously,” said SEAN CLEGG, a Democratic strategist and longtime adviser to Harris. “He worked for Kamala for a few months a decade and two political offices ago. It didn’t work out. He left bitter and has been attacking Kamala to boost his own flagging relevance since the start of the presidential race. It’s as pathetic as it is parasitic.” Duran hasn’t been surprised by the criticism (when West Wing Playbook contacted him for this piece, he said he knew the backlash to his commentary was coming). He said he knew he would “lose some friendships” over his on-record quotes of the VP’s performance and that he received some private criticism from Harris loyalists and former colleagues, in addition to being swarmed by some of the vice president’s aggressive supporters online. And he acknowledged he doesn’t know many people in the VP’s office these days, and hasn’t spoken with Harris since before she was elected to the Senate in 2016. But he said his insights wouldn’t be relevant or newsworthy if other more recent campaign and administration staffers didn’t leak stories that echoed his own experience working for her. “I definitely know it's annoying to some people. But nothing I've said has been as damaging as what her own staff members have said about her,” he said. “I'd have no platform to say these things if they weren't leaking this crap in the first place.” Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you STEPHONN ALCORN, the associate director of racial justice and equity at the Domestic Policy Council? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal Alex at 8183240098. | 
