“In her first television interview about her new campaign memoir, Kamala Harris was pressed on what she meant when she wrote that it was reckless to let former President Joe Biden seek reelection,” CNN reports.
Said Harris: “I realized that I have – and had – a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on. And so when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I’m talking about myself.”
“Why did Kamala Harris lose the presidency? In 107 Days, her memoir of the election she inherited from Joe Biden, the answer is a series of mistakes, committed over years, mostly by other people,” Semafor reports.
“It was a mistake for Biden to disinvite Elon Musk from a White House electric vehicle summit and make him an enemy; she ‘shared this view’ with Biden staff. It was a mistake for Biden to run again, a view she kept quieter about.”
“It was her mistake to stay so loyal to Biden, and not give The View a better quote about their differences than ‘there’s not a thing that comes to mind,’ even though he’d weakened her campaign.”
“The Democratic argument about why they lost to Trump twice will get fresh material from 107 Days. It doesn’t absolve Harris, who has little advice for how her party can win again, or answer the questions about immigration and LGBT rights that staggered her last year.”
Out soon: Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department by Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis.
A shocking investigation of unparalleled depth into the subversion of the Justice Department over the last decade.
“If there’s a political strategy here, it’s a bad one. There’s an awful lot of grievances and finger-pointing that really doesn’t serve a political agenda.”
— David Axelrod, quoted by Politico, on Kamala Harris’ new book.
Meanwhile, Harris launched a Substack with a new excerpt from the book.
Out next month: Lessons from Bobby: Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters by Chris Matthews.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris writes in her new book that she thought she was going to win the presidential election last year, the Washington Post reports.
When Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s campaign manager, broke the news, Harris recalls being in shock, barely able to breathe.
She repeated over and over: “My God, what will happen to our country?”
Worth reading: How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future by Maria A Ressa.
For decades, Ressa challenged corruption and malfeasance in her native country, the Philippines, on its rocky path from an authoritarian state to a democracy.
Politico: “The memoir, which goes on sale next week, sprints through Harris’ hyper-speed campaign for the presidency after Biden dropped out. Harris, known as a cautious communicator, presents a relatively unvarnished look at her losing presidential bid, and her critical assessment of a range of leading Democrats represents one of the highest-profile installments yet in the party’s post-election recriminations.”
“It wasn’t just her criticism of the ‘recklessness’ of Biden running again, or her characterization of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as the second choice. Harris begins naming names early in the book, as she recounts the reactions from fellow Democrats in the immediate aftermath of Biden ending his campaign and, soon after, endorsing Harris in his stead.”
More from Politico: Harris details distracting pre-debate phone call from Biden.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris hits Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) in her new book saying he seemed more interested in defining the role for himself as her possible running mate than helping her win, the New York Times reports.
She also recounts Shapiro questioning an aide about the pieces of art he could use to decorate the vice president’s residence.
Here’s a must-read: The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight by Jon Ralston.
“How did the son of a laundress for local brothels end up one of America’s most powerful politicians and the Senate’s most bare-knuckled Democrat?”
Jonathan Lemire reports on a passage from Kamala Harris’s soon-to-be-released book, 107 Days, that as Harris rushed to pick a running mate last year, her “first choice” was her close friend Pete Buttigieg, but she decided that it would be “too big of a risk” for a Black woman to run with a gay man.
She writes that Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man.”
“But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.”
Just published: When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ’s Pursuit of the President, From Nixon to Trump by Elie Honig.
“You might unearth information that will be politically, professionally, and personally devastating to your subject, and you alone hold the power to indict and potentially imprison him. At the same time, the boss can fire you and end the case—and might even turn the tables and launch an inquiry aimed at you.”
Eric Trump announced his book Under Siege: My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation will be published on September 5, and will give an “unfiltered look at the highs and lows of life in the Trump world,” USA Today reports.
In a new book out tomorrow, Dead Center, former Sen. Joe Manchin, a lifelong Democrat who publicly broke with his party last year, offers some biting criticisms of former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Punchbowl News reports.
“Former aides to Joe Biden reacted with rage Wednesday to an excerpt from Kamala Harris’ upcoming book in which she said the ex-president was ‘reckless’ to run again and accused Biden’s team of sabotaging her during her vice presidency,” Axios reports.
“The Biden and Harris camps publicly have claimed they were united through the four years of Biden’s presidency, but now Harris is trying to distance herself from him — after not doing so during her short run for president.”
The Washington Post notes Harris is starting to “separate herself from what could become an albatross on her career: her association with Biden and everything that happened in 2024.”
Politico: “On Tuesday, former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone with former President Joe Biden to warn him about the forthcoming excerpt from her new memoir…”
“That didn’t prevent former Biden aides from going on the attack a day later in the first public breach between the party’s last two standard bearers.”
An important excerpt from Kamala Harris’ new book, 107 Days:
“Many people want to spin up a narrative of some big conspiracy at the White House to hide Joe Biden’s infirmity. Here is the truth as I lived it. Joe Biden was a smart guy with long experience and deep conviction, able to discharge the duties of president. On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best.”
“But at 81, Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles. I don’t think it’s any surprise that the debate debacle happened right after two back-to-back trips to Europe and a flight to the West Coast for a Hollywood fundraiser. I don’t believe it was incapacity. If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country.”
The Atlantic excerpts Kamala Harris’ book on the 2024 presidential election, 107 Days, and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, offers this observation:
“The biggest surprise in Kamala Harris’s forthcoming account of her rough-and-ready, intense, and absurdly condensed campaign for president, 107 Days, may be that it is filled with surprises.”
“I read it last week, expecting lawyerly calibration and discretion. This careful Harris is present, but so too is another Harris: blunt, knowing, fervent, occasionally profane, slyly funny. As you will see in the following excerpt—and throughout this newsworthy book—she no longer seems particularly interested in holding back.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
