Former Vice President Kamala Harris takes a scalpel to President Joe Biden’s legacy in her forthcoming memoir, calling his decision to seek a second term “recklessness” driven by “ego,” according to excerpts obtained by The Atlantic.
“Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness,” Harris writes in new book 107 Days. She argues Biden’s insistence on staying in the 2024 race should not have been “left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition.”
Harris admits she stayed silent “during all those months of growing panic” over Biden’s cognitive health out of loyalty — but says that loyalty was never returned. She describes a White House that left her exposed to mockery about her laugh, her voice, even her dating history.
“They had a huge comms team … but getting anything positive said about my work or any defense against untrue attacks was almost impossible,” she recalls. Worse, she alleges Biden’s own staff sometimes “added fuel” to the fire as her poll numbers crept closer to his.
“Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed. None of them grasped that my success was important for him,” Harris writes.
Still, Harris insists she never urged Biden to step aside. “The American people had chosen him before in the same matchup,” she reasons — and if he believed he could win again, “it was just possible he was right.”
She portrays herself as trapped: “Of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out. He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty.”
The refrain in Bidenworld, Harris recalls, became a kind of catechism: “It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.”
Yet Harris bristles at the idea of a cover-up. “Joe Biden was a smart guy with long experience and deep conviction, able to discharge the duties of president. On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best.”
(That line, Harris delivers with gusto — though many readers will call it demonstrably untrue.)
Even so, she concedes age took its toll. At 81, Biden grew tired. His “debate debacle,” she notes, came right after back-to-back overseas trips and a Hollywood fundraiser.
“I don’t believe it was incapacity. If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country,” Harris writes.
