Former Vice President Kamala Harris described how her appearance on “The View” just before the 2024 election contributed to her downfall in the lead-up to Election Day in her newly released memoir, “107 Days.”
During her October 2024 appearance on the program, Harris said that “nothing [came] to mind” on what she would have done differently from former President Joe Biden in response to co-host Sunny Hostin’s question on the matter. In a passage of her newly released book, Harris said that while she had planned her answer to that question ahead of time, she could not bring herself to criticize Biden.
“I had prepped for that question; I had notes on it. There was that answer I’d given in the debate: ‘I’m not Joe Biden and I’m certainly not Donald Trump.’ I had a note that I was a new and different generation,” Harris wrote. “And I had this: But to specifically answer your question, throughout my career I have worked with Democrats, independents, and Republicans, and I know that great ideas come from all places. If I’m president I would appoint a Republican to my cabinet. ”
“But I didn’t say any of that. I said, ‘There is not a thing that comes to mind,’” Harris continued.
The former vice president stated that her answer had done irreversible damage to her campaign that she had not braced herself for. The Trump campaign immediately used that clip in political advertisements and successfully tied her to Biden, who had an approval rating below 40% at that time.
“Political operatives have an eye to see a moment, and I could kick myself for giving the other side that moment … [The] damage was done,” Harris added. “The earlier clip was a gift to the Trump campaign, and they used it in ad after ad to shackle me to an unpopular president. Why. Didn’t. I. Separate. Myself. From. Joe. Biden? Over the course of the 107 days, I became increasingly aware that people wanted to know there was a separation and that it was big issue for them. I just didn’t realize how big.”
Harris said that Hostin’s question required her to be “critical” of her boss, and she could not find a way to answer that question without harshly speaking about Biden. She believed that being critical of any of Biden’s policy issues would have distracted from her “unique perspective” on several issues.
Her campaign staff, however, expressed their frustration with Harris over her hesitancy to break from Biden. Political consultant David Plouffe told Harris that she needed to understand that Americans “hate” Biden and wanted assurance that the next four years would not be a repeat of his presidency.
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