Harris says it was reckless for Democrats to defer to Biden on running for re-election

WASHINGTON – Former vice-president Kamala Harris has said it was “recklessness” for top Democrats to defer to then President Joe Biden on whether he should seek re-election, the starkest comments yet from his top lieutenant after

her defeat in the 2024 election

.

In an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, published on Sept 10 in the Atlantic, Ms Harris says Mr Biden was capable of serving as president but grew tired at times, and that his top aides deferred entirely on the core question of whether he should even seek a second term.

“‘It’s Joe and 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,” Ms Harris wrote, referring to the former president and first lady Jill Biden.

“This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition,” she said. “It should have been more than a personal decision.”

The excerpt from 107 Days, an account of Ms Harris’ frenzied campaign for the presidency after Mr Biden

bowed out and endorsed her

to lead the ticket, marks a break from her tone during her shortened candidacy, when she avoided criticising the timing of Mr Biden’s decision to exit the contest.

Mr Biden’s decision to forgo seeking re-election – but only after a calamitous debate performance against the eventual election winner, Mr Donald Trump, amp ified voters’ concerns about his mental acuity and physical fitness – prompted Democratic recriminations that have only intensified after Ms Harris’ loss.

Still, while the excerpt in The Atlantic expresses dismay at the tight circle around the former president, Ms Harris also offered a defence, saying that even on his worst days, Mr Biden was “was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best”.

Ms Harris said she would have spoken up if Mr Biden had been incapacitated, and said it was no surprise that his debate performance against Mr Trump came after a gruelling travel schedule.

“Joe Biden was a smart guy with long experience and deep conviction, able to discharge the duties of president,” she said. “But at 81, Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles.”

Ms Harris also expresses frustration with what she casts as being sidelined by Mr Biden’s team or abandoned when she became a target of conservative media.

“Getting anything positive said about my work or any defence against untrue attacks was almost impossible,” she said.

She later added: “When polls indicated that I was getting more popular, the people around him didn’t like the contrast that was emerging.”

And she pointed out that Mr Biden himself, in the speech explaining his decision to abandon his re-election campaign, did not mention her until nine minutes into the remarks.

“That was it,” she wrote.

Ms Harris earlier in 2024 said she would

not run for governor

of California in 2026 as questions swirl about her political future and whether she will seek the Democratic nomination for the 2028 presidential election. BLOOMBERG