Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
A score-settling new memoir from Kamala Harris is sparking sharp rebukes from fellow Democrats, as prominent party figures trade blame about last year’s presidential election and look ahead to 2028.
Harris’s new book is called 107 Days, a reference to the length of her tumultuous presidential campaign, which started with Joe Biden abandoning his re-election bid and ended in a crushing loss to Donald Trump. The memoir will be published next week.
The book pulls no punches as the former vice-president shows she is willing to burn bridges with fellow Democrats, especially those jockeying to be the party’s next standard bearer.
Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary who ran for president in 2020, on Thursday said he was “surprised” to read that Harris had not selected him as her running mate because he is a gay man.
“He would have been an ideal partner if I were a straight white man,” wrote Harris. “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a black woman, a black woman married to a Jewish man. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.”
Buttigieg, who is seen as a possible contender for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2028, told Politico he believed in “giving Americans more credit than that”.
“You know, my experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you are going to do for their lives, not on categories,” he added. “I wouldn’t have run for president if I didn’t believe that.”
Harris was more critical of Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania who she vetted as a possible running mate.
She described Shapiro as “poised, polished and personable”. But she also wrote he had “unrealistic” expectations for the role of vice-president, adding she had a “nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two”.
Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, attacked Harris’s characterisation of the governor, saying it was “simply ridiculous” to suggest he had been “focused on anything other than defeating Donald Trump”.
“The governor campaigned tirelessly for the Harris-Walz ticket — and as he has made clear, the conclusion of this process was a deeply personal decision for both him and the vice-president.”
Harris also criticised Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor she settled on as her running mate, taking particular issue with his debate performance against JD Vance.
Harris wrote Walz “fell for” Vance’s “shape-shifting”. The former vice-president recalled she said to the television screen as she watched: “You’re not here to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.”
A spokesperson for Walz, who earlier this week announced he would seek a third term as governor of Minnesota, did not respond to a request for comment.
In another passage, Harris also made a jab at California governor Gavin Newsom, noting that when she reached out to him after Biden suspended his campaign and endorsed her as his successor, Newsom replied with a text: “Hiking. Will call back.” Harris added he never called.
A spokesperson for Newsom did not respond to a request for comment.
Harris also painted an unflattering picture of her former boss. She wrote Biden called her hours before her debate against Trump to say he had heard that “power brokers” in Philadelphia were claiming she had been saying “bad things” about him. She added Biden then “rattled on about his own former debate performances”.
“I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself,” Harris wrote. “Distracting me with worry about hostile power brokers in the biggest city of the most important swing state.”
Anthony Coley, a former justice department official in the Biden administration, responded to the passage on X, saying: “There are really just two explanations for this: Biden intentionally tried to rattle her — which was wrong & shortsighted & self-defeating — or he didn’t quite realise what he was doing, which would be far more troubling.”
A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment.