Almost a year after the 2024 American election, Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in that election, has said that allowing former President Joe Biden to seek re-election was “recklessness,” adding he was “all about himself.”
Ms Harris, who emerged as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the 2024 election after Mr Biden dropped out of the race following his poor debate outing with Donald Trump of the Republican Party, made this revelation in her forthcoming book 107 Days.
“Of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out,” Ms Harris writes, adding, “I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run.”
Ms Harris said, “It’s Joe and [his wife] Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotised. 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.”
Speaking about Mr Biden’s fitness and mental acuity, which became a major issue during the campaigns, Ms Harris said Mr Biden, “On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best. But at 81, Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles.”
Ms Harris, who was vice president to Mr Biden, also expressed frustration over how he called her shortly before her debate with Mr Trump to say some Philadelphia power brokers would not support her because she had been saying bad things about him, suggesting Mr Biden made the election all about himself.
“My brother called. He’s been talking to a group of real power brokers in Philly.” He offered several names and asked if Harris knew them. She did not. Then he got to his point. 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,” Ms Harris said.
She added, “My head had to be right. I had to be completely in the game. I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself.”
