Former Vice President Kamala Harris has made her strongest criticism yet of President Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection in 2024. In her upcoming book 107 Days, Harris said it was “recklessness” for Democrats to leave such an important choice to Biden and First Lady Jill Biden alone.
Harris writes in the book that she and other Democrats often repeated the phrase “It’s Joe and Jill’s decision” like it was a mantra. She said everyone acted “as if we’d all been hypnotized” when discussing Biden’s plans to seek another term at age 81.
“Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness,” Harris wrote in the excerpt published by The Atlantic. “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 explains why she didn’t urge Biden to step aside
The former vice president said she was in the worst position to tell Biden he should not run again. Harris explained that any advice from her would have appeared self-serving since she was next in line for the presidency.
“I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run,” Harris wrote. “He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty, even if my only message was: Don’t let the other guy win.”
Kamala Harris: "'It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.' We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. 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…
— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) September 10, 2025
Harris also defended Biden’s mental abilities while acknowledging his age showed at times. She wrote that Biden was still capable of doing the job but got tired, which led to physical and verbal mistakes. “On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best,” Harris said.
The book reveals that Harris blamed Biden’s poor debate performance in June 2024 on exhaustion from travel. Biden had just returned from trips to Europe and a fundraiser in California before the debate against Trump. “I don’t believe it was incapacity,” Harris wrote. “If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country.”
Harris also criticized Biden’s team for not defending her properly during her time as vice president. She said the White House communications team rarely stood up for her against Republican attacks and often threw her under the bus to help Biden’s image. The former vice president said Biden’s staff had a “zero-sum” mindset where they thought if she looked good, it would make him look bad.
Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, 2024, after weeks of pressure from Democrats following his debate performance. He immediately endorsed Harris as his replacement. She ran for 107 days before losing the election to Donald Trump in November. The book 107 Days will be published on September 23, and Harris plans a 15-city book tour to promote it.
