On September 11, 2025, American politics was thrown into a fresh round of turmoil as an excerpt from Kamala Harris’s forthcoming memoir, "107 Days," was published in The Atlantic. The passage, which laid bare Harris’s frustrations and pointed critiques of President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid, ignited a firestorm among former Biden White House aides and reignited debate over the inner workings of the previous administration.
Harris, who served as vice president under Biden and later replaced him as the Democratic nominee—only to lose to Donald Trump—did not mince words in her memoir. She described Biden’s decision to seek a second term at age 81 as "recklessness," a move she believed was driven more by personal ambition than the gravity of the nation’s needs. "‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness," Harris wrote, according to The Atlantic. "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."
The excerpt revealed that Harris, despite her loyalty, was deeply conflicted about Biden’s reelection run. She admitted that she "perhaps" should have spoken up at the time, but feared that doing so would be interpreted as a self-serving power grab. "I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out," Harris reflected. "I didn’t because it would seem incredibly self-serving."
Her comments did not fall on deaf ears. Former Biden aides, many still licking wounds from a bruising 2024 campaign season, reacted with a mix of outrage and exasperation. According to Axios, one former Biden White House official dismissed Harris’s criticisms outright: "Vice President Harris was simply not good at the job. She had basically zero substantive role in any of the administration’s key work streams, and instead would just dive bomb in for stilted photo ops that exposed how out of depth she was." The same official insisted, "Biden is not the reason she struggled in office or tanked her 2019 [presidential] campaign. Or lost the 2024 campaign, for that matter. The independent variable there is the vice president, not Biden or his aides."
Other former aides echoed this sentiment, suggesting that Harris’s memoir was an attempt at "political absolution." One former Biden aide told Axios, "I’m not sure the very robust defense of not having the courage to speak up in the moment about Biden running is quite as persuasive as she thinks it is. If this is her attempt at political absolution: Lots of luck in your senior year." Another former aide, referencing a line Harris herself used on the campaign trail, quipped, "We’re not going back!" when asked about her prospects for a 2028 presidential run.
Yet, not all reactions from Biden’s circle were negative. Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, struck a more conciliatory tone: "I thought she did a good job as [vice president] and I feel badly that she found the experience negative." Some former aides even privately admitted to Axios that Harris had finally said what many had long suspected—that the Biden team did not always have her back. "We all know that the Biden folks treated her and her team like sh*t. We never thought she would actually say anything," said one former aide. "The staffers across a range of ages and positions that I’m talking to are proud of her."
Harris’s memoir offers a rare, unfiltered look at the dynamic between her and the president, as well as the broader Democratic establishment. She accused Biden’s staff of actively undermining her, seeing her success as a threat to Biden’s own standing. "Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed. None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well. His team didn’t get it," Harris wrote. She added, "When the stories [about her] 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 addresses the unique challenges Harris faced as the first Black woman to serve as vice president. She noted the unprecedented level of media scrutiny: "I was the first vice president to have a dedicated press pool tracking my every public move. Before me, vice presidents had what’s called a ‘supplemental pool,’ as the first lady does, covering important events. Because of this constant attention, things that had never been especially newsworthy about the vice president were suddenly reported and scrutinized."
Harris did not shy away from discussing the issue that dogged Biden throughout his final year in office—his age. She acknowledged that at 81, "Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles." However, she was careful to draw a distinction between fatigue and incapacity. "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 wrote. She denied any conspiracy to hide Biden’s condition, but conceded, "It was clear there were issues with his age."
The events leading up to Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race were dramatic. After a widely panned debate performance against Trump, Biden announced in late July that he would step aside, endorsing Harris as the Democratic nominee. The decision came just four months before the November election, following mounting pressure from party insiders and growing public concern over his fitness for office. Harris’s campaign, lasting just over three months, became the shortest presidential run in modern U.S. history—a detail that provided the title for her memoir.
Harris’s tenure as vice president was not without its controversies. She shouldered much of the blame for the administration’s border immigration policy, an issue Trump exploited during the campaign. She also publicly broke with the White House over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, delivering a speech in March 2024 that "went viral" but reportedly displeased the West Wing. "I was castigated for, apparently, delivering it too well," Harris said, underscoring the fraught relationship with Biden’s team.
The excerpt closes with Harris expressing disappointment that Biden scarcely mentioned her in his televised Oval Office address after stepping down and endorsing her. "It was almost nine minutes into the 11-minute address before he mentioned me," she recalled.
As Harris’s memoir, set for release on September 23, continues to send shockwaves through the Democratic Party, the debate over responsibility, loyalty, and leadership in the Biden-Harris White House is far from over. For many, the story is a window into the high-stakes, high-pressure world at the top of American politics—where ambition, loyalty, and human frailty collide in full public view.
