Former Vice President Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, faced criticism online for expressing concerns about her ‘climate anxiety’ while still using plastic bags.

Ella, a 26-year-old model and designer, posted a ‘little check-in’ on TikTok where she discussed how her awareness of environmental issues has intensified over the past four years, particularly following her stepmother’s electoral defeat.

Environmental change, she noted, stood out as a major driver of the grief and overwhelm she’s been experiencing.

‘I think everything with the environment is really… f***ing getting to me,’ Emhoff said in her video.

‘I experience a lot of climate anxiety,’ she added with an uneasy laugh. ‘Like I think a lot of us do.’ 

However, her remarks were met with backlash and accusations of hypocrisy, as she was seen holding a plastic bag just a day earlier. This was particularly noticeable given her stepmother’s prior efforts to eliminate single-use plastics.

Kamala Harris first endorsed banning plastic straws during her failed presidential campaign during a climate change town hall meeting with CNN in September 2019.

‘I think we should, yes,’ Harris said when asked if she supported the idea. 

However, when she launched her own campaign in 2024, she reversed her position and quietly dropped the proposed ban. 

Then, in January, fans expressed outrage after spotting Harris and her husband carrying plastic bags during a grocery store trip – similarly, branding the pair as hypocrites. 

The plastic bag stood in contrast to what the American would have perceived her to be: an environmentalist, given California’s 10-cent fine on single-use bags and the long-term impact on the environment that plastics may pose.

Harris’ shock decision to walk back her controversial position proved to be an attempt by her failed campaign to make the Dem candidate seem ‘more practical’ on a host of issues. 

On Friday, Emhoff’s nearly seven-minute video updated her 53,000 TikTok followers on her life since Donald Trump’s landslide victory over her stepmom. 

She voiced her ‘disgust’ over the current state of global affairs, specifically citing genocide, the erosion of rights, loss of healthcare, and a pervasive sense of fear surrounding affordability and the livelihoods of everyday Americans. 

Emhoff then shifted her focus to her profound anxiety about the changing climate, admitting that although it’s no laughing matter, the gravity of it often leaves her with nothing but a nervous laugh.

‘It’s scary, it is,’ she said directly to the camera lens. 

‘All of these things are happening – and besides the small things we can do, and pushing for change and fighting and protesting – it’s really hard not to sit in those moments where it feels so heavy,’ she added.

However, just hours before her serious sit-down update, Emhoff posted a TikTok visiting Remainders, a California-based arts and crafts thrift store.

In the opening seconds of the clip, the 26-year-old model was seen outside the Pasadena store, waving a plastic bag in the air while posing in front of the store’s sign.

The video then cut to the store’s interior, revealing rows of boxes filled with vintage and heirloom trinkets, before transitioning to Emhoff back at home, ready to share her finds with her followers.

Sitting on her bed with her small dog resting behind her, she proudly displayed two bags full of treasures – one stuffed inside a plastic ‘Have A Nice Day’ bag. 

Meanwhile, her dog sported a leash fitted with – of all things – a green plastic poop bag.

While some praised her for thrifting her supplies instead of supporting big businesses, many online quickly called out what they saw as blatant hypocrisy given her professed climate anxiety.

‘Look at allllll the plastic bags,’ one comment read. ‘In fact, didn’t you call for banning single use plastic bags, or was that just for everyone else but you?’

Another comment said: ‘You should probably not support a store filled with excessive plastic bins as shelves. It might worsen your climate anxiety. Not surprised one bit by the hypocrisy. People like you are truly doing a great amount of damage to our country. It’s dangerous.’

‘PRAYING FOR YOU THAT THE FALSE CLIMATE NARRATIVE ISN’T OVERWHELMING YOU,’ wrote a third.

But this isn’t the first time Emhoff has been seen using plastic bags so casually.

Many viewers were quick to call out Harris’s flip-flopping on plastic use – all while criticizing Emhoff over the frequent flights taken by her stepmother and father. 

‘Please stop having your father and step mom fly private everywhere,’ one angered user wrote under the model’s video.

‘It’s giving me terrible climate anxiety,’ they added, using Emhoff’s own words against her. ‘If not for them flying as much as they do privately, I believe the average temperature would be one degree lower.’ 

Last month, Emhoff also shared a video of her farmers market haul – one that didn’t exactly shy away from plastic use.

She showcased two plastic bottles of tomato juice, tomatoes nestled in a small blue plastic container, fruit being taken out of plastic bags, and tofu wrapped in a sealed plastic package. 

Last year, she shared an organization video on Instagram, showing large plastic bags filled with dozens of skeins of yarn, which she unpacked and neatly arranged on her wall.