Kamala Harris blames herself for Biden’s decision to run again
The article reports on Vice President Kamala HarrisS recent interview on the Rachel Maddow Show, her first since the 2024 election, where she discussed her new book “107 Days,” detailing her unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign.Harris acknowledged that the decision for President Joe Biden to run for reelection was “recklessness” due to the high stakes involved and took part of the responsibility for not urging him to step aside, feeling her objections would have been seen as self-serving. She also criticized media outlets, law firms, and universities for not standing up to former President Donald Trump, whom she called a “tyrant,” accusing them of fear due to his use of federal power against critics.
Harris commented on the upcoming New York City mayoral race, expressing general support for democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani but emphasized the importance of recognizing other local leaders nationwide. When questioned about her future political ambitions, including a potential 2028 presidential run, she declined to comment, saying it was not her focus.
Additionally, Harris addressed her decision not to select Pete Buttigieg as her running mate, citing concerns linked to their identities – she being a mixed-race black woman married to a Jewish man and Buttigieg being openly gay – reflecting cautious electoral calculations. She eventually chose Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
The article also notes some criticism from within the Democratic Party, with certain members questioning Harris’s connection with working-class voters and the relevance of her book’s content given her campaign loss.
Harris claims she was part of ‘recklessness’ that led Biden to seek reelection
Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to implicate herself on Monday as part of “recklessness” that paved the way for former President Joe Biden to run for reelection.
Harris appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show on Monday evening, her first news interview since the 2024 election, where she promoted her new book detailing her unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign, 107 Days, set for release on Tuesday.
In the book, Harris claimed Biden’s decision to run again was “recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition.”
When Maddow asked whose decision it should have been for Biden to seek the White House again, Harris took some responsibility.
BUTTIGIEG SAYS VOTERS DESERVE ‘MORE CREDIT THAN THAT’ AFTER LEARNING ABOUT HARRIS VP SNUB
“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 said. “And so when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I’m talking about myself; there was so much, as we know, at stake.”
Harris claimed if she had said Biden should stand down, it would not have been received in good faith.
“And as I write … where my head was at, at the time, is that it would be completely — will come off as being completely self-serving,” she added.
The wide-ranging interview with Maddow touched on several issues regarding the news cycle, including President Donald Trump’s aggressive actions clamping down on his critics during his second administration.
Harris slammed several media companies, law firms, and universities that have bent the knee to Trump’s wishes as “feckless.”
“Right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the Ellipse, a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators,” Harris said. “That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump, and these titans of industry are not speaking up, and perhaps it is because his threats and the way he has used the weight of the federal government to take out vengeance on his critics is something that they fear.”
The former vice president also gave a less-than-effusive endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist running to become the next New York City mayor.
“Look, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the Democratic nominee, and he should be supported,” she said.
When Maddow asked if she endorsed him, Harris responded, “I support the Democrat in the race, sure. But let me just say this: He’s not the only star.”
“There are people like Barbara Drummond in Mobile, Alabama, Helena Moreno in New Orleans; they’re all running for mayor too, and they are stars,” Harris continued. “So I hope that we don’t so overindex on New York City that we lose sight of the stars throughout our country who are right now running for mayor and many other offices, governor, and so on. … We got a big tent, and we got a lot of stars.”
Harris was less forthcoming about her political career when Maddow waded into the 2028 presidential cycle after she previously declined to run for governor of California.
“Will you consider running in 2028?” Maddow asked.
“That’s not my focus right now,” Harris answered. “It’s not my focus at all. It really isn’t.”
The vice president also sought to clarify her decision not to choose former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as her running mate because he is gay while she is a mixed-race black woman married to a Jewish man.
“I think Pete is a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant. And I think America is and would be ready for that. But … when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go, and maybe I was being too cautious. You know, I’ll let our friends — we should all talk about that,” Harris said. “Maybe I was. But that’s the decision I made.”
Harris would later select Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate.
Excerpts of Harris’s book have caused some stir among Democrats, some of whom slammed Harris.
“Look, if she’d won the presidency, and this was the story of how she overcame obstacles within the Democratic Party to eke out a narrow victory, that would be interesting,” Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told Politico. “But none of it is relevant. Josh Shapiro measuring the drapes is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the fact that she is in no way, on a gut level, capable of connecting to working people in a year when that was the dominant thing to do in order to win.”
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