Kamala Harris regrets not pushing Joe Biden harder over dropping out as she breaks silence on 2024 debacle
WASHINGTON, DC: Former Vice President Kamala Harris has broken her silence on Joe Biden’s sudden exit from the 2024 presidential race just over three months before Election Day.
Ahead of her upcoming book '107 Days,' Harris opened up in an interview with Rachel Maddow, revealing her regrets and reflections on how she handled the political earthquake that followed Biden’s unexpected decision.
Kamala Harris regrets how she handled 2024 run after Biden’s dropout
During a recent interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday night, Kamala Harris called Biden’s decision "recklessness" and admitted she regrets not pushing him harder to change his mind.
“So when I write this, it’s because I realize that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on,” Harris told Maddow.
She added, “So when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I’m talking about myself. There was so much at stake, and at the time I worried it would come off as being completely self-serving."
Harris explained that Biden’s exit gave her just over 100 days to develop a strategy and face off against President Donald Trump, a situation she described as "unprecedented." Her sudden entry threw Democrats into a scramble, while Trump had been preparing for months and aggressively campaigning.
She also remembered how “people who seemingly had nothing in common came together by the thousands with an A-level of optimism and, dare I say, joy about the possibilities for America.”
However, some critics within her own party questioned whether she could unite Democrats and win over independents with so little time left.
Kamala Harris recounts Joe Biden snapping at her before the 2024 debate with Trump
Kamala Harris recently attracted attention following reports about her upcoming memoir, '107 Days,' which revealed a tense phone conversation with Joe Biden before a critical debate against Trump in September 2024.
Harris recounted that while preparing for the high-pressure debate from her Philadelphia hotel room, Biden called to wish her luck but soon changed the subject. After briefly asking if she planned to return to Philadelphia before the election, Biden mentioned that his brother had been talking to influential figures in the city. He named several individuals and asked if Harris knew them, but she did not.
“Then he got to his point,” Harris wrote in the memoir. “His brother had told him that those guys were not going to support me because I’d been saying bad things about him. He wasn’t inclined to believe it, he claimed, but he thought I should know in case my team had been encouraging me to put daylight between the two of us.”
The memoir also describes Biden shifting the conversation to defend his earlier poor debate performance against Trump, three months prior. Harris recalled, “Joe then rattled on about his own former debate performances. ‘I beat him the other time; I wasn’t feeling well in that last one.’ He continued to insist that his debate performance hadn’t hurt him much with the electorate. I was barely listening.”
She added, “I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself. Distracting me with worry about hostile power-brokers in the biggest city of the most important state.”
Her husband, Doug Emhoff, noticed her frustration and advised, “‘Let it go,’” she recounted. “‘Don’t worry about him. You’re dealing with Trump. let it go.’”
