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Former Vice President Harris said Monday night that she had a “certain responsibility” to push back on former President Biden’s decision to run for reelection in the 2024 election cycle.
“So, when I write this, it’s because I realize 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,” Harris said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“There was so much, as we know, at stake. And, as I write … where my head was at, at the time is that it would be completely — it would come off as being completely self-serving,” Harris told host Rachel Maddow in her first major TV interview since losing the 2024 election to President Trump.
The former vice president addressed replacing Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in July last year in her book “107 Days.” The former president dropped out of the race in late July 2024, nearly a month after a disastrous debate against Trump, then the GOP nominee.
Shortly after withdrawing his campaign, Biden put his support behind Harris to lead the Democratic ticket.
His controversial decision to run for a second term was met with criticism from both sides of the aisle at the time, with voters across the board expressing concern about his mental fitness and age.
Harris wrote in her book that Biden got “tired” during the White House reelection bid, pinning some of it to his age.
“On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump at his best,” Harris wrote in her book.
“But at 81, Joe got tired,” she continued in the memoir. “That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles.”
When asked in May during an interview with the BBC if he should have stepped aside earlier in the race, Biden said he does not think it would have affected the outcome of the election.
“I don’t think it would have mattered,” he said. “We left at a time when we had a good candidate. She was fully funded.”
Harris’s book, set to be released publicly on Tuesday, comes as the Democratic Party is attempting to find its footing following several losses in the last election. Some Democrats have accused the former vice president of exacerbating tensions within the party with some of the anecdotes in “107 Days.”
