Kamala Harris says allowing 2024 Biden candidacy was reckless: ‘Joe got tired’
She and others were ‘hypnotised’ into leaving it up to the ex-US president and his wife whether he should drop his re-election bid, she says
Kamala Harris believes it was reckless to allow former US president Joe Biden to decide to seek re-election in 2024, but she felt she was the last person who could advise her 81-year-old boss not to run, according to excerpts from her new book released on Wednesday.
Biden, a Democrat, ended his re-election campaign on July 21, 2024, after a poor debate performance against Republican candidate Donald Trump that prompted aides and party officials to question publicly whether he could endure a full campaign or serve a second term.
“Of all the people in the White House, I 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,” wrote former US vice-president Harris in 107 Days, according to an excerpt published in The Atlantic magazine.
“‘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.”
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US Vice-President Kamala Harris concedes election and congratulates Donald Trump on win
Harris, 60, became the Democratic candidate and had just 107 days to make her case to the American public. She lost to Trump, now 79, in the November election and has kept a low profile since then. She said in July she would not run for governor of California.