Former Vice President Kamala Harris said she is not focused on a 2028 presidential run after declining to seek the California governorship.
In an exclusive Sept. 22 interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Harris was asked if she would consider another White House bid.
“That’s not my focus right now. That’s not my focus at all. It really isn’t,” Harris said.
Her remarks follow her July announcement that she would not enter the California governor’s race. At the time, she said “for now, my leadership – and public service – will not be in elected office” and vowed instead to help elect Democrats “who will fight fearlessly” across the nation.
Maddow’s sit-down with Harris came one day before the release of Harris’ new memoir, 107 Days, which recounts her short-lived 2024 presidential campaign.
Harris writes in her new memoir that her then-boss, President Joe Biden, called her shortly before her debate with then-former President Donald Trump to chew her out and to issue a threat.
In one excerpt of the book, which Fox News host Jesse Watters revealed during his Thursday evening show, Harris said that President Biden had spoken with his brother, James Biden, who allegedly told him Harris was criticizing him and that word had spread throughout Philadelphia, leading Democrat donors there to threaten to pull their financial support.
“I just couldn’t understand why he would call me right now and make it all about himself, distracting me with worry about hostile power brokers in the biggest city in the most important swing state,” Harris wrote.
She also wrote that she believed it was reckless for Biden to run for reelection, but she nevertheless kept up the facade that he was capable and could serve another four-year term, Watters noted.
Watters went on to note that Biden himself did not “get a pass” in Harris’ book, nor did his staff.
She wrote: “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. When Fox News attacked me on everything from my laugh, the tone of my voice, to whom I’d dated in my 20s, or claimed I was a ‘DEI hire,’ the White House rarely pushed back with any of my actual resume.”
Watters concluded: “Kamala is going to throw all of her friends under the bus just to sell the book. Juicy gossip, that’s the only way. Because the press tour so far is uninspiring.
Allies of Biden started pushing back last week after excerpts from Harris’s upcoming memoir accused Democrats of being “reckless” in leaving the party’s nomination to the now-former president.
Still, Harris has used the memoir to cast blame for her political failures, portraying her loss as the result of party missteps rather than a flawed campaign.
“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,” Harris wrote in her book excerpt in The Atlantic. “It should have been more than a personal decision.”
Some former White House colleagues, skeptical that Harris may be positioning for another run, characterized the release of her memoir excerpts as a self-serving attempt to subtly undercut her former boss.
“No one wants to hear your pity party,” said one former staffer who spoke anonymously, Politico reported.
“I hate that we’re beating up on a man struggling with cancer, and [who] did genuinely serve our country pretty damn well, even if he made a critical error at the end,” one former Biden and Harris campaign aide said. “But maybe what is even more painful is that we needed more of this distinction and acknowledgement during the campaign. … I’m most offended by this being too little, too late.”
