Former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris thinks it was “reckless” to defer to former President Joe Biden on his decision to remain in the 2024 presidential race long past the point where concerns about his declining health became insurmountable.
In an excerpt published in The Atlantic of her upcoming book 107 Days — a retrospective of her abbreviated, doomed campaign to defeat President Donald Trump in 2024 — Harris writes that she was “in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out.”
“I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run. He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty,” she writes. “‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it 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. It should have been more than a personal decision.”
Harris goes on to add that if she had truly believed that Biden was in a state of “incapacity” due to his health, she would have said something. “At 81, Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles. I don’t think it’s any surprise that the debate debacle happened right after two back-to-back trips to Europe and a flight to the West Coast for a Hollywood fundraiser,” Harris wrote. “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’ path to the nomination was maybe the most unconventional in the history of presidential elections. With little more than three months before Election Day, Biden announced he would be stepping down from the race. The departure came in the aftermath of a disastrous presidential debate against Trump, in which Biden stumbled, slurred, and rambled his way through a painful display of his advanced age that led to calls for him to exit the race.
Biden endorsed Harris to replace him, and the Democratic establishment fell in line behind his chosen successor. In the end, the 107 days of Harris’ candidacy were marked by a reticence to break with Biden — on the economy, the war in Gaza, or practically any other issue touched by the administration. When asked on The View what she would have done differently than Biden, Harris replied, “There’s not a thing that comes to mind.”
Harris’ loyalty to Biden was only one of a host of issues with her campaign, and Trump defeated her convincingly in November, winning every key swing state.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
From Rolling Stone US
