Kamala Harris Slams Biden’s Decision to Run Again as ‘Ego,’ Claims His Staff Fueled Negative Rumors About Her

“None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well,” Harris wrote of Biden’s inner circle in the first excerpt from her forthcoming memoir

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. 

Kamala Harris is shedding light on her time in the White House leading up to her historic, 107-day presidential campaign.

In the first excerpt from her upcoming memoir, 107 Days, which was obtained by The Atlantic, the former vice president opened up about the months leading up to former President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and his subsequent endorsement of Harris as the Democratic candidate.

Harris’ book, which chronicles her last-second presidential run during a tense election year, will be available Sept. 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden attend a 9/11 memorial event in N.Y.C. in 2024.
In the months leading up to Harris’ campaign, she said she considered recommending to Biden that he should not seek reelection, but feared that her unique position as his most likely replacement put her in a tough spot to make such a recommendation.

Biden may have seen the suggestion as “self-serving,” she wrote, and the product of “naked ambition.”

So even as the the White House fielded calls from the nation for Biden to withdraw from the race, Harris and other advisers kept quiet and supported the president’s choice.

“‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” Harris wrote in the excerpt.

“Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.”

She added that the stakes were too high for the administration to leave the choice up to “an individual’s ego,” writing, “It should have been more than a personal decision.”

Harris clarified that she personally did not see Biden as unfit for the role.

Though she said he had grown “tired” by the time he turned 81, she and others in the White House believed he still had better judgment and experience than his opponent, Donald Trump.

If Harris firmly believed that Biden wasn’t fit to run the country, she said she would have told him: “As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country,” she wrote.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during a Harris-Walz campaign event in Maryland on Aug. 15, 2024.
Harris’ book also touches on her turbulent tenure as vice president, which came with an unprecedented level of media scrutiny compared to her male predecessors, noting that she felt abandoned by Biden’s staff when the media attacked everything from her laugh, to her long gone ex-boyfriends, to the way she ran her office.

“When the stories were unfair or inaccurate, the president’s inner circle seemed fine with it,” she wrote.

“Indeed, it seemed as if they decided I should be knocked down a little bit more.”

According to Harris, Biden staffers weren’t just failing to defend her, but they were actively “adding fuel to negative narratives that sprang up” about her.

When she was dubbed a “DEI hire” by Fox News and other Republicans, she said the Biden administration “rarely pushed back with [her] actual resume” as an experienced attorney and lawmaker.

And she alleged that in moments where she presented well, the presidential staff grew unhappy with her.

“Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed.

None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well,” Harris wrote.

“That given the concerns about his age, my visible success as his vice president was vital.”

PEOPLE reached out to Biden’s spokesperson for comment on the excerpt.

Vice President Kamala Harris concedes defeat in the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 6.

The new excerpt from Harris’ book comes weeks after she addressed her path forward in the wake of her 2024 election loss.

The former vice president, who previously served as California’s attorney general and junior senator, spent months weighing whether to jump into California’s 2026 gubernatorial race.

On July 30, she revealed that she would not launch a campaign for governor after all, adding that “for now,” her public service will not take the form of holding elected office.

Opting out of the 2026 election cycle leaves her open to run for president again in 2028, though Harris has not yet expressed interest in another White House bid.