Kamala Harris has shed light on the moment she realized something wasn’t quite right with Joe Biden during his 2024 presidential campaign.
The June 2024 debate between Biden and Donald Trump is regarded as one of the most pivotal political events in recent memory. Biden’s faltering performance, marked by verbal slips, effectively ended his reelection bid and altered the presidential race landscape.
Kamala Harris, however, noticed warning signs well before Biden appeared on the debate stage.
During an appearance on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast on Thursday (October 30), Harris, the former vice president, shared that she sensed something was amiss with Biden months prior.
Harris recalled a particular phone call from Biden while he was at debate preparation camp that raised her concerns.
During the call, Biden appeared weak and forgetful, frequently stumbling over his words.
“He called me from debate camp […] and I could tell something was a little off,” Harris recounted. “And I was concerned about – I just, I don’t think he wanted to debate, is my point.”
She elaborated: “He didn’t want that debate. And you know, it’s like any competition you go in, whether it’s you’re bidding for something, if it’s sports, you gotta want it, right?
“If you don’t wanna be in the competition, it will absolutely have an impact on your performance. I’m pretty sure he did not want to debate.”
When Bartlett inquired how she knew, Harris replied: “Well, we had conversations about it. I think he got talked into it.”
The Democrat explained that she chose to watch the debate that evening with a small team in Los Angeles to ensure she could ‘be candid’ in her reaction, acknowledging that ‘there is no such thing as a perfect debate’.
She added: “There will be something to clean up, and I expected that. And then, you know, we saw what we all saw.”
Biden eventually withdrew from the presidential race in July 2024, with Harris clinching the Democratic nomination.
In hindsight, Harris wonders if she should have advised Biden not to seek reelection. In her memoir, “107 Days,” which details the 2024 election and her groundbreaking presidential campaign, Harris reflects on this challenging situation.
At the time, she feared such counsel might appear ‘self-serving,’ given that as vice president, she would naturally benefit from his decision to step aside, Harris shared with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow last month.
Maddow questioned Harris about a section of the book where she described how everyone in the administration insisted that Biden and then-First Lady Jill Biden should be the sole decision-makers regarding his reelection bid.
“We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” Harris wrote. “Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.”
However, during her conversation with Maddow, Harris took responsibility, stating: “I have and had a certain responsibility that I should’ve followed through on.”