Democrats are growing increasingly irritated with former Vice President Kamala Harris’ retreat from public life — as she holes up in an $8 million oceanfront Malibu mansion with a taxpayer-funded security detail.
Harris — who had vowed that she would not “go quietly into the night” — following her embarrassing 2024 election loss to President Trump has since adopted a withdrawn lifestyle, keeping mostly out of the public eye.
“She’s not someone who likes being out and about. She doesn’t really want to engage with people in a way that isn’t already orchestrated,” a Democratic consultant in her circle told Politico.
“But her absence has been really notable. And to some people, very offensive.”
When she got back to Los Angeles last January, wildfires were still smoldering across the region, just a few miles from Harris’ Brentwood home.
While she and her husband Doug Emhoff made a few fire recovery-related appearances, Harris embraced a level of privacy she hadn’t known since before she ran for office as San Francisco district attorney in 2002.
In February, Harris appeared to lean into a different post-political identity, signing with Creative Artists Agency and setting up a new website for the “Office of Kamala D. Harris,” honoring her vice presidency —moves that struck some Democrats as more Hollywood than grassroots.
Some progressives in LA grew bitter by what they viewed as Harris’ carefully curated detachment from the broader city, according to Politico.
One Democratic consultant described her limited social footprint as “Kamala’s Los Angeles.”
Fanning the flames, Harris and Emhoff recently bought an $8 million home in a ritzy, oceanfront pocket of Malibu that sits in a secluded enclave removed from everyday Angelenos.
The status of the couple’s four-bedroom, 3,500 square foot home in Brentwood was unclear. According to The Wall Street Journal, Emhoff bought it in 2012 before he met Harris.
Critics also pointed out that taxpayers continue to bear the cost, even has Harris enjoys a low-profile existence and has all but vanished from public life.
After Trump pulled Harris’ Secret Service detail, state and local officials scrambled to fill the gap, extending their own security detail using Los Angeles Police Department officers working alongside the California Highway Patrol.
The shift immediately sparked backlash — including from the city’s powerful police union, which blasted the decision as a misuse of resources.
“Pulling police officers from protecting everyday Angelenos to protect a failed presidential candidate who also happens to be a multi-millionaire, with multiple homes and who can easily afford to pay for her own security, is nuts,” the Los Angeles Police Protective League board of directors told the Los Angeles Times in September.
Still, after a yearlong pause from public life, Harris — who recently took a pass on running for California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s soon-to-be-vacant seat –seems to be nominally getting back in the mix.
She recently spoke at a Democratic National Committee meeting, and also was among prominent Democrats slamming Trump’s handling of Venezuela.
