Kamala loses her TENTH staffer since June: VP's National Security Adviser Nancy McEldowney joins staff exodus after widely-criticized trip to Poland and Romania

 Vice President Kamala Harris's National Security Adviser Nancy McEldowney is stepping down, the White House revealed Monday, the tenth staffer to leave her office since June.

McEldowney will be succeeded by her deputy Philip Gordon, according to an announcement by the Vice President's office. He currently serves as special assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser to the vice president.

Both McEldowney and Gordon have been with the White House since the start of the Biden administration and advised both Harris and President Biden on affairs such as Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine and cybersecurity issues.

McEldowney said that she is stepping down to 'focus on some pressing personal matters' but will remain an impassioned supporter of the Biden Harris administration.  

'This was a difficult decision because I am so deeply committed to the work we do and the crucial national interest we serve. But after more than a year, this is the right decision for my family,' she said.

McEldowney did not say what her last day would be but said she is 'not rushing out the door.'  

McEldowney is a 31-year veteran of Foreign Service, having served as ambassador to Bulgaria, and deputy chief of mission in both Azerbaijan and Turkey. 

The adviser's departure comes on the heels of Harris's high-stakes NATO trip to Poland and Romania, and after a turbulent first year marked by a number of public messaging failures. 

In Warsaw, Harris attracted controversy after laughing off questions about the refugee crisis resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

McEldowney will be succeeded by her deputy Philip Gordon, according to an announcement by the Vice President's office 

McEldowney said that she is stepping down to 'focus on some pressing personal matters' but will remain an impassioned supporter of the Biden Harris administration

 At the press conference Friday, she ignored answering a specific question on how long Americans might have to deal with inflation and high gas prices, and instead talked about the plight of those refugees coming from war-torn Ukraine.

'When we look at Putin's actions ... it is painful to watch. It is painful to watch what is happening to innocent people in Ukraine, who just want to live in their own country and have pride in themselves as Ukrainians,' she said. 'Who want to be home speaking the language they know, going to the church that they know, raising their children in the community where their families have lived for generations.'

'And by the millions now are having to flee with nothing but a backpack,' she added.

She pointed to the Russian attack on a maternity hospital. 'Pregnant women,' she remarked in disgust at how they had been targeted.

'We are - we have the unfortunate experience, all of us right now, who are not in Ukraine, of witnessing horror,' Harris said. 'So we are committed in everything we are doing.'

'And yes, the president did say in the State of the Union there is a price to pay for democracy,' she added.

Last week Harris' deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh revealed she is moving to the Defense Department.   

Singh worked with the vice president for over two years, joining the then-senator's team in March 2020 during the presidential campaign to run communications after working on the campaigns of Michael Bloomberg and Corey Booker. 

Staffers in the vice president's office have been jumping ship after a year full of messaging blunders and a barrage of personal attacks on the VP, combined with viral rumors of toxicity within the office and tensions between Harris's and President Biden's offices. 

The vice president's office could employ up to around 50 staffers at any given time.  

Of the four-person senior press shop that began with Harris, only one remains - Herbie Ziskend. Ziskend will be promoted to senior advisor for communications, according to an email sent to an internal email shared with DailyMail.com. 

Vice President Harris' deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh is leaving for the Pentagon 

Harris has lost ten staffers since June 

Of the four-person senior press shop that began with Harris, only one remains - Herbie Ziskend

Singh's departure follows that of communications director Ashley Etienne and senior adviser and chief spokesperson Symone Sanders, both of whom left at the end of 2021.  

Ernesto Apreza, Harris' senior adviser for public engagement, will become deputy press secretary. Assistant press secretary Rachel Palermo, who worked on the transition team after serving on Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, will serve as deputy communications director.  

The shakeup of the vice president's press team comes under the direction of new communications director Jamal Simmons. The reset came as both the president and vice president sought to step up public engagement to battle low poll numbers.

President Biden sent Harris on a high-stakes trip to Munich at the end of February as world leaders met to attempt to divert Russia from invading Ukraine. Then last week, she visited Poland and Romania to reassure the U.S.'s commitment to their security after an awkward back-and-forth over providing MiG-29 jets to Ukraine.

Harris then spoke at her party's winter meeting in Philadelphia late last week, where she told Democrats they must ensure Americans they 'got what they ordered.'

'Our task is to show people that, in many ways, they got what they ordered,' the vice president said Saturday. 'A lot of what they demanded they got and so let's get out there as we do and remind them…because we know that they will show up again.'

In February, the vice president lost the head of her speechwriting team, Kate Childs Graham.   

Ziskend paid tribute to his departing colleague on Twitter.

'Kate is committed, hard-working, hilarious – a great colleague and friend,' he said.

'I'll miss working with her every day, but excited for her next adventure.' 

It follows a string of farewell messages as staffers leave the office, many of them vacating public facing roles in the press office.

Kate Childs Graham left her role as director of speechwriting at the end of February

Last July, Vice President Kamala Harris sang 'Happy Birthday' to Childs Graham (l) and domestic policy adviser Rohini Kosoglu aboard Air Force Two

Aides chafe at the idea of a reset, but reports suggest Harris is looking to rebuild her public image by doing more to promote her work at the White House 

Herbie Ziskend, deputy communications director to the vice president, gave his colleague a glowing review on Twitter

The most high profile was Sanders, who has since taken up a role with MSNBC.

But it began after Harris's widely criticized visit to Central America in June - when she was mocked for delivering a simple message of, 'Do not come,' in her role as point person for tackling the root causes of migration from the area. 

That trip also featured a case of mistaken identity at a press conference. 

Harris called on 'Maria Fernanda of Univision' to ask a question, only it turned out to be a fan with the same name as a reporter based in Miami. 

The vice president's director of advance Karly Satkowiak and deputy director of advance Gabrielle DeFranceschi - responsible for planning travel and making arrangement with local officials and media outlets - left the office shortly after the trip.   

Next to leave was Rajan Kaur who was Harris' director of digital strategies but quit in July after opting not to relocate to Washington D.C. from Brooklyn. 

Etienne left in November.  

Sanders, one of the main public faces for Harris, left at the end of the year, at about the same time as director of press operations Peter Velz and Vince Evans, who said he was leaving to become executive director with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Spokesperson Symone Sanders and Communications Director Ashley Etienne both left last year. In all, ten officials have left since Harris visited Central America last June

The year began with a slew of reports that Harris was planning to meet negative coverage head on, with a busier media schedule and a campaign schedule that her supporters say will better suit her political skills. 

Her first year in office reached its lowest point in December, when she was branded a 'bully' who inflicted 'constant soul destroying criticism' on her staff by insiders quoted in the Washington Post.

Former staffers said the vice president was exhibiting the same aggressive management style that had dogged much of her political career. 

At the same time she has been a lightning rod for Republican criticism. 

Conservatives have focused on her role trying to tackle the root causes of migration to the U.S. from Central America, which so far appears not to have stemmed the numbers arriving at the southern border.

And her poll numbers remain mired below 40 percent. A Real Clear Politics rolling average shows 38.6 percent of respondents give her a favorable rating, while 53.7 percent have an unfavorable view of the vice president.