Kamala Harris, the former vice president and the first Black woman to secure a major-party presidential nomination, is pulling back the curtain on her tumultuous tenure at the White House and her fraught relationship with President Joe Biden. In a strikingly candid excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, 107 Days, published by The Atlantic on September 10, 2025, Harris offers an unvarnished account of the internal dynamics that shaped the final years of the Biden administration and the historic, if brief, 2024 presidential campaign that followed.
In the 3,000-word excerpt, Harris does not mince words. She describes an environment riddled with tension between her office and Biden’s team, painting a picture of a vice president frequently left to fend for herself amid mounting criticism and political headwinds. According to The Atlantic, Harris writes, “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 recounts how, throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, she became the target of attacks that many decried as racist and sexist. Fox News, she notes, lambasted everything from her laugh to her relationships in her twenties, even suggesting she was merely a “DEI hire.” Harris laments that the White House rarely countered these attacks with her actual credentials: “two terms elected D.A., top cop in the second-largest department of justice in the United States, senator representing one in eight Americans.”
She further accuses Biden’s staff of stoking negative narratives, referencing the persistent labeling of her as Biden’s “border czar” and media reports about “chaotic” conditions and high turnover in her office. “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,” Harris writes. She adds, “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.”
The memoir also delves into the personal and political calculus Harris faced after her headline-making confrontation with Biden over busing during a 2020 presidential debate. She acknowledges that this moment meant she entered the White House with something to prove—most notably, her loyalty. When Biden’s disastrous debate performance in July 2024 against Donald Trump ignited panic within the party, Harris found herself in a bind. Should she have advised Biden against seeking a second term? She reflects, “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 recalls the mantra that echoed through the administration: “It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.” She questions whether this was an act of grace or, in hindsight, reckless abdication of responsibility. “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.”
Her reflections confirm what many political observers had long suspected: that the decision for Biden to run again in 2024 was not universally supported within his own camp. According to The Atlantic, Harris is clear-eyed about the gravity of the moment, labeling Biden’s decision as “reckless” and arguing that the stakes for the country were too great for such a consequential choice to be left to personal whim.
Despite these sharp critiques, Harris is unequivocal in her defense of Biden’s fundamental fitness for office. She addresses persistent rumors about his health and cognitive sharpness, which reached a fever pitch after his lackluster debate performance and a series of physical and verbal stumbles. “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,” Harris writes. She attributes Biden’s visible fatigue to the grueling demands of the job, particularly for someone in his eighties: “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 adds, “If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country.”
Harris also confronts the persistent rumors of a rift between her and Biden, which intensified after she replaced him as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2024. While she had publicly dismissed claims of sabotage and insisted on party unity, her memoir acknowledges the underlying tension. She notes that members of Biden’s inner circle “did not favor her,” a reality that became more pronounced as she outpaced Biden in public opinion polls. Still, she credits both herself and the Democratic Party with maintaining a “harmonious front” for the sake of unity during the campaign.
The excerpt published by The Atlantic has already sent ripples through political circles, as it confirms many of the behind-the-scenes narratives that had been whispered about but never fully substantiated. Harris’s willingness to air these grievances and reflect publicly on her own limitations—particularly her inability to challenge Biden’s ambitions directly—offers a rare glimpse into the complex, often messy realities of political life at the highest level.
Harris’s memoir, 107 Days, which she describes as “my candid, personal account of the shortest presidential campaign in modern history,” is set for release on September 23, 2025. The book promises to provide further insights into her historic campaign and the unprecedented challenges she faced navigating the corridors of power as both a trailblazer and, at times, an outsider within her own administration.
With its unfiltered perspective and willingness to grapple with uncomfortable truths, 107 Days is poised to spark debate not only about the Biden-Harris era but also about the broader questions of loyalty, ambition, and responsibility that continue to shape American politics.