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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Harris stops biting her tongue in ‘107 Days,’ her book about last
year’s campaign against Trump
Associated Press
Updated:
9:26 AM EDT, Fri September 19, 2025
Source: AP
When it was all over, couldn’t believe it. “I could barely
breathe,” she writes in her new book about learning she had lost the
2024 to .
One of her aides peeled “Madame President” off celebratory cupcakes
before serving them to crushed staffers. Harris kept asking, “My God,
my God, what will happen to our country?”
The was no easier. “I was ashamed to realize I was in the denial and
bargaining stages of grief, a very long way from acceptance,” she
wrote.
It’s one of several raw admissions in Harris’ book, “107 Days,”
that is scheduled for release Tuesday. The title refers to the length
of the hyperspeed campaign that the former vice president launched
against Trump after of the race.
Although Harris earned a reputation as guarded and circumspect, the
book has the tone of someone who is finished biting her tongue. She
concedes mistakes, reveals frustrations and details some of the
stranger moments from her race.
The book isn’t a winding memoir or a political treatise, and Harris
doesn’t disclose any future plans. Instead, it reads like a ticking
time bomb, with each chapter counting down to Election Day.
Here’s some memorable moments.
‘Joe got tired’
Harris insists in the book that she had no concerns about Biden’s
ability to serve as president. “If I believed that, I would have said
so.”
“But at eighty-one, Joe got tired,” Harris wrote. “That’s when
his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles.”
Harris wrote that Biden’s inner circle “should have realized that
any campaign was a bridge too far.” However, “it seemed that the
worse things got, the more they pushed him.”
The tenuous situation unraveled when Biden and Trump with each other.
“As soon as he walked onto the debate stage in Atlanta, I could see
he wasn’t right,” Harris wrote.
Biden’s team appeared to be in denial. Afterward, they gave Harris
talking points that said “JOE BIDEN WON.”
Biden was a source of frustration
Harris wrote warmly of her partnership with Biden, but there were
frosty moments too. As Biden faced calls to drop out of the race, he
invited Harris to join him for a Fourth of July celebration at the
White House.
First lady Jill Biden pulled Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff aside.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you supporting us?”
Later, in private, Emhoff erupted in anger. “They have to ask if
we’re loyal?”
Another difficult episode came after Harris had replaced Biden at the
top of the ticket and was preparing for her own debate with Trump.
Shortly before she took the stage, Biden called to say he heard from
his brother that Harris had been badmouthing him, upsetting some power
brokers in Philadelphia. Then he rambled about his own debate
performances while Harris was “barely listening.”
“I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and
make it all about himself,” she wrote.
Hindsight is 20/20
Harris admits some mistakes of her own, particularly a damaging talk
show. When one of the hosts asked what she would have done differently
than Biden during the previous four years, Harris blanked on the
talking points she had prepared and simply said, “There is not a
thing that comes to mind.”
“I had no idea I’d just pulled the pin on a hand grenade,” Harris
writes. Around the studio, “my staff were besides themselves” about
how she had just given a “gift to the Trump campaign.”
Harris wrote that she didn’t want to criticize Biden or litigate any
of the areas where they disagreed. But she also didn’t understand how
much her association with the president was holding back her candidacy.
David Plouffe, a senior adviser, told Harris bluntly that “people
hate Joe Biden.”
The VP’s search for a VP
There’s plenty of grist in the book that could make the next
Democratic convention a little more awkward.
Harris wrote that , Biden’s transportation secretary and a former
mayor from Indiana, was her first choice to be her running mate. He’s
also gay, and Harris thought it was “too big of a risk” to pick him
while already asking voters to accept a Black woman as president.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was another possibility. But Harris
“had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role
as number two and that it would wear on our partnership.”
She ended up going with , but his debate performance against JD Vance
left her yelling at the television screen. “You’re not there to
make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate,” she
said.
There’s only one reference to California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the
book. When Harris reached out to him after Biden ended his reelection
campaign, he texted, “Hiking. Will call back,” but he never did.
Taking over the campaign
Harris’ brother-in-law is Tony West, a former top Justice Department
official and member of her inner circle of political advisers. While
Harris was serving as vice president, West put together what was known
as the “Red File,” a collection of plans in case something happened
to Biden.
West argued that it would be foolish not to prepare. Harris writes that
she “didn’t want to dwell on such an eventuality” and “I left
it in his hands.”
He kept refreshing the document as people pressured Biden to drop out,
which came in handy when Biden finally pulled the plug on his
reelection campaign.
Harris writes that Biden was planning to wait a day before endorsing
her as his successor, an idea that horrified her.
“If you want to put me in the strongest position, you have to endorse
me now,” she recalled telling him. Harris prevailed, and the
endorsement happened shortly after Biden announced that he was done.
Things got weird sometimes
Campaigns can be hallucinatory affairs, and this one was full of
bizarre moments.
Harris writes that she warmed up for her convention speech with a
professional voice coach who “wanted me to stand there and emit
animal noises.” A little hesitant, Harris got her entire team to make
“hums, grunts and trills” with her.
Harris also writes about talking with Trump after a second
assassination attempt against him. Despite tearing into her on the
campaign trail, Trump proceeded to flatter his opponent.
“How do I say bad things about you now?” he said. “I’m going to
tone it down. I will. You’re going to see.” Then Trump said that
his daughter Ivanka “is your big fan.”
When the call was over, Harris was left marveling at Trump’s ability
to turn on the charm. “He’s a con man,” she thought. “He’s
really good at it.”
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