Who could blame him?
Former Vice President Kamala Harris offered insight into her relationship with former President Joe Biden in an interview with MSNBC’s Eugene Daniels.
Daniels questioned Harris about Biden’s prostate cancer after a spokesperson announced the former president is undergoing radiation therapy.
“Yeah no, I called him earlier,” Harris interjected.
“How’s he doing?”
“I have not talked to him. I just left him a message, after I heard the news. I was, otherwise, at the event.”
Hey, it happens. Maybe Biden was hiking.
“Listen, I think Joe Biden is a fighter, and that is what I told him, and left him a message,” Harris said, shaking her head horizontally.
“He’s a fighter. And he’s going to fight this. And we’re going to hold him up, and pray for his recovery, and for his strength, and for his family.”
“You write about him a lot in the book,” Daniels notes. “Have you talked to him about the book?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
All good things, I’m sure.
Harris spent much of her memoir criticizing the former president. Biden was too slow to endorse her, she claims, when he passed the baton.
“I waited, hoping I’d convinced [Biden and his aides] to avoid more turmoil and speculation. [Biden’d] resisted this decision for weeks, adamantly ignoring a drumbeat that had ranged from solicitous advice to intense condemnation. Amid all that cacophony, Joe had said nothing to me about this, until July 15.”
Harris casts herself as the White House’s guinea pig.
“In our relationship, it was common for [Biden] to test out ideas on me, and until he decided, I had no reason to believe it would actually happen.”
Harris suggests Biden’s communications team was, if not actively sabotaging her, disinterested in defending her.
“They had a huge comms team; they had Karine Jean-Pierre briefing in the pressroom every day. But getting anything positive said about my work or any defense against untrue attacks was almost impossible.”
“And when the stories were unfair or inaccurate, the president’s inner circle seemed fine with it. Indeed, it seemed as if they decided I should be knocked down a little bit more.”
Harris claims she was just as horrified by Biden’s debate performance as the public: “Don’t feed me bullshit. Everyone saw what they saw … I was not about to tell the American people that their eyes had lied. I would not jeopardize my own credibility.”
Harris describes Biden as “frail” and recalls an encounter with a “tense, even angry,” Jill Biden on July 4, 2024.
Harris blames Biden, and his team, for mounting a second presidential campaign in the first place.
“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’ memoir has plenty of jabs for other Democrats too.
Pete Buttigieg was too gay to be her vice president.
Democratic Gov. of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro was too ambitious to be her vice president.
Democratic Gov. of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer was too reluctant to endorse Harris right away.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was too busy to return her call pleading for an endorsement, texting, “Hiking. Will call back.”
“He never did,” Harris claims.
Harris’ bridge-burning has two purposes: distancing herself from Biden’s disastrous administration, and distinguishing herself from other Democrats. Democrats who might have their eye on the Democratic nomination for the 2028 presidential election.
Harris “would be incredibly strong” in a 2028 presidential run, according to Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.
Dear Democrats: Ignore that nagging feeling of doubt. That little voice whispering, “But she lost last time. In a landslide. She can’t put together a sentence. And that cackle.”
Just listen to Kelly.