Kamala Harris says she had a responsibility to argue against Biden running again

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Kamala Harris said Monday evening that she regrets not voicing concerns about then-President Joe Biden running for a second term when a majority of Americans believed he was too old for the job. "I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on," Harris told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC in her first live television interview since the election.

Her remarks expand on a passage in her memoir, 107 Days, in which she describes replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee after he dropped out of the race and notes that in White House briefings, everyone kept saying, "it's Joe and Jill's decision" about rerunning. "Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness," she wrote. "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." In the Maddow interview, Harris said, "when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I'm talking about myself."

She added that she was concerned it would look self-serving if she counseled Biden not to seek reelection. Harris, who previously ran against Biden in 2020, noted that she was well positioned to run in 2024. A representative for Biden declined comment. Harris said that while she wasn't worried about Biden's ability to continue doing the job, she had concerns about his campaigning: "His voice was no longer strong, his verbal stumbles more frequent."

Before Biden dropped out, there were plans for him to run a White House-centric campaign while Harris did more traveling. A week after Biden's disastrous debate against Trump, Harris wrote that "he felt so frail." She did not indicate when those reflections occurred beyond referencing the memoir.

Speaking about 2028, Harris said "that's not my focus right now" and noted she has already passed on an opportunity to run for governor of California. She has backed a plan by Gov. Gavin Newsom to redraw congressional districts to counteract a similar plan by Republicans in Texas that was intended to help Trump keep control of the House in next year's midterms. "We tend to play by the rules," Harris said. "But I think this is a moment where you got to fight fire with fire."

During the Maddow interview, Harris criticized Trump as acting like a "tyrant" and "Communist dictators," saying "that's what we're dealing right now in Donald Trump." Harris also pointed the finger at business leaders who she accused of capitulating to the president, saying, "These titans of industry are not speaking up." Maddow referenced a passage in Harris's book where she wrote that Pete Buttigieg was her first choice for vice president but she worried Americans weren't ready to vote for a ticket featuring a Black woman and a gay man. "It's hard to hear ... he couldn't be on the ticket, effectively, because he was gay," Maddow said. Harris said "it wasn't about any prejudice on my part" but "we had such a short period of time, and the stakes were so high." Buttigieg told Politico he was surprised by the passage and said he believes in "giving Americans more credit."

A representative for Biden did not respond to requests for comment."