Allies of President Biden are pushing back after excerpts from Kamala Harris’s forthcoming memoir accuse Democrats of being “reckless” in leaving the party’s nomination to Biden.
The former vice president has been working to rebuild her public image following her loss to President Donald Trump. Earlier this summer, she announced she would not run for California governor in 2026, saying her future, for now, lies “outside elected office.”
Still, Harris has used the book to cast blame for her political setbacks, portraying her failed presidential bid as the product of party missteps rather than a flawed campaign. “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,” Harris wrote in a book excerpt published by The Atlantic. “It should have been more than a personal decision.”
“No one wants to hear your pity party,” said one former staffer who spoke anonymously to trash the person leading their party just a year ago, Politico reported. Another former Biden aide asked, “Why didn’t she do this during the campaign?” when her “main imperative would’ve been to distance herself because there was an election going on.”
“I hate that we’re beating up on a man struggling with cancer, and [who] did genuinely serve our country pretty damn well, even if he made a critical error at the end,” one former Biden and Harris campaign aide said. “But maybe what is even more painful is that we needed more of this distinction and acknowledgement during the campaign. … I’m most offended by this being too little, too late.”
Although Harris campaigned vigorously for Biden last year, she writes in her memoir that the then-81-year-old president had “grown tired” as the race wore on. The comment follows other eyebrow-raising remarks from Harris, including her assertion in an NBC interview that Biden was “very much alive.”
Her candid tone marks a departure from the deference she showed Biden immediately after the campaign. Some former staffers argued her differences with him should have been addressed privately, not aired publicly as Democrats struggle to chart a path forward.