In her new book, former Vice President Kamala Harris takes aim at former President Joe Biden‘s inner circle, claiming it sabotaged her time in office by refusing to dispel rumors that painted her as incompetent. However, she stops short of directly criticizing Biden.
Some political experts have said Harris’s strategy of throwing Biden aides under the bus has helped her explain her disastrous presidential run while staying in Biden’s good graces. Others have said Harris showed weakness by not going after Biden directly and taking the easy way out by blaming others around him.
“Kamala Harris is in an impossible bind, and everyone knows it,” California-based political expert Jamie E. Wright told the Washington Examiner. “She is stuck, and she knows it. If she steps out and questions Joe Biden directly, she’s accused of betrayal. Kamala’s too ambitious, too opportunistic, and too ungrateful toward the man who put her in the spotlight. But if she stays silent and if she sticks too close, she looks like she’s just along for the ride. Too cautious. Too quiet. Not ready. This is the trap women in politics know by heart: Speak up and you’re a threat, stay quiet and you’re invisible. And the standards? They’re never fair.”
Democratic strategist Kaivan Shroff told the Washington Examiner he thought it was a “smart move” by Harris not to focus on Biden but on his team and highlight that “there is a responsibility there with the team as opposed to Biden himself.”
Should she consider another presidential run, not attacking Biden directly could help Harris down the line.
“I think Biden has a lot of strong support still from classical Democrats who think he was really treated badly and see him today and compare how Trump is doing and don’t really think of it as so obvious that he was unable to run again,” Shroff said.
In an excerpt published in the Atlantic from Harris’s upcoming book, 107 Days, she called it a “mistake” not to question Biden’s decision to run for reelection last year despite his advanced age. She wrote that it was “recklessness” that led her and other Democrats to cede the choice “to an individual’s ego.”
Several members of the Democratic Party have since publicly admitted that Biden’s reelection effort at age 81 was a misstep.
Democrats privately questioned whether Biden should run even before his disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump in June 2024.
“During all those months of growing panic, should I have told Joe to consider not running? Perhaps,” Harris wrote. “But the American people had chosen him before in the same matchup. Maybe he was right to believe that they would do so again.”
She also noted that if she spoke up, it would have seemed like a power grab.
“I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out,” she wrote.
Harris then turned her ire on Biden’s staff, saying they rooted for her failure and undermined her vice presidency by not defending her against attacks from the media, including comments about her laugh.
She also accused Biden’s aides of helping fuel negative narratives about her and not giving her credit for her accomplishments.
“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. “His team didn’t get it.”
She added that when stories about her were “unfair or inaccurate, the president’s inner circle seemed fine with it. Indeed, it seemed as if they decided I should be knocked down a little bit more.” She also said press coverage about high turnover in her office and claims of being a lousy “border czar” should have been addressed, but were routinely ignored by Biden’s team.
Biden’s aides have expressed frustration and anger at being scapegoated in the book.
“No one wants to hear your pity party,” one former Biden White House official told Politico.
Another slammed Harris’s performance at the southern border.
“If she had spent a fraction of the time and energy doing the work that she did on complaining about how she was perceived, she would have been perceived a whole lot better,” the aide told Axios.
The same aide criticized Harris’s timing.
“I’m not sure the very robust defense of not having the courage to speak up in the moment about Biden running is quite as persuasive as she thinks it is,” said the aide, who was given anonymity by the outlet.
“If this is her attempt at political absolution: Lots of luck in your senior year,” the aide added, a nod to a longtime Biden saying.
Michelle Glogovac, a public relations specialist and CEO at the MLG Collective, told the Washington Examiner that Harris should have the opportunity to tell her side of the story.
“I don’t believe criticizing President Biden would serve her or the country, and it’s not necessary,” Glogovac said. “Her loyalty has always been to the American people above any one person. But she does deserve to defend herself and her staff from narratives that paint her as incompetent, narratives that too often stem from the fact that she embodies progress. The damned-if-she-does, damned-if-she-doesn’t dynamic isn’t a reflection of her capability, but of how America still struggles to embrace powerful women, especially women of color, in positions of leadership.”
Wright said Harris’s comments about Biden’s staff shouldn’t be taken as a sign of weakness.
“It’s careful, intentional, and a way of saying, ‘I see the problem,’ without blowing up the whole party,” she said. “It’s frustration, sure. But it’s also control. She’s showing she can lead without burning bridges and that she knows the difference between making noise and making moves.”
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“People keep asking if she’s ‘ruthless enough.’ But let’s be honest — that question always lands differently when it’s aimed at a woman. When men are ruthless, they’re tough. When women are, they’re cold, unlikable, and dangerous. Harris knows this. She’s walking that line every day,” Wright added.
Harris’s book, 107 Days, will be released on Sept. 23.