Kamala Harris gripes about Biden staff not defending her against ‘untrue attacks’ in new memoir

In a new candid excerpt from “107 Days,” the former vice president also shares her true thoughts about President Biden’s fitness and advanced age.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris‘s upcoming book, “107 Days,” is sure to ignite chatter in political circles if a new excerpt from the memoir is any indication.

In an excerpt published in “The Atlantic” on Wednesday, America’s first Black female presidential nominee opens up about the inner conflicts of the Biden White House between President Joe Biden‘s staff and Harris’ office, and defends her former boss against speculations about his health and advanced age.

“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,” Harris wrote.

The former vice president griped about the criticisms she faced, many of which were condemned as racist and sexist, particularly throughout the 2024 presidential campaign.

“When Fox News attacked me on everything from my laugh, to my tone of voice, to whom I’d dated in my 20s, or claimed I was a ‘DEI hire,’ the White House rarely pushed back with my actual résumé: two terms elected D.A., top cop in the second-largest department of justice in the United States, senator representing one in eight Americans.”

Harris also bemoaned that Biden’s staff was “adding fuel to negative narratives that sprang up around me,” including being inaccurately called Biden’s “border czar” and reports that her office was “chaotic” and had an “unusually high staff turnover during my first year.”

“So the first year in any White House sees staff churn. Working for the first woman vice president, my staff had the additional challenge of confronting gendered stereotypes, a constant battle that could prove exhausting,” she writes.

Harris added, “And when the stories 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.”

Harris also admits that due to her scathing call-out of Biden over his stance on busing during a 2020 presidential debate, she knew when she entered the White House as his vice president that she would have to prove her loyalty.

The former vice president said she demonstrated loyalty by not weighing in on whether President Biden, who delivered a disastrous debate performance in a July 2024 debate against Donald Trump, should not have sought a second term. She writes:

“During all those months of growing panic, should I have told Joe to consider not running? Perhaps…of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out. I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run. He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty, even if my only message was: Don’t let the other guy win.”

Harris continued, “’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 an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”

However, Harris firmly vouched for Biden’s ability to do the job as president and said she respected his leadership.

“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,” shared Harris.

“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.”

She added, “If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country.”

Kamala Harris’s memoir “107 Days,” detailing her reflections on her historic 2024 presidential campaign, will be released on Sept. 23.