Kamala Harris, the former vice president and now author, has a new book: “107 Days,” a memoir recounting the less-than-four months between Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race on July 21, 2024, and the election on Nov. 5, 2024.
As is customary, Harris launched a press tour, including a sit-down interview on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow. The interview was a shameful display of excuses, false attributions and a reluctant “endorsement” of the Democratic Party’s biggest rising star, Zohran Mamdani. The interview left many questions, chief among them being, “Do Democrats want to win?”
It did, however, answer one question. Harris is spineless and full of excuses.
In the interview, Maddow pressed Harris on several points made in the book. An excerpt in which Harris suggests former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg would not have made a good vice president because he’s gay, arguing it would have made him too risky. A point Harris all but backtracked.
As she discusses her book, Harris details the reasons she believes she lost the race. She pens a falsehood that she was fighting from behind from the start, despite polling data saying otherwise. Overall, she claims she simply didn’t have enough time to prepare. She deflects from her inability to run a campaign separate from Biden, backtracking on foreign policy and free healthcare.
To top it off, Harris gave the flimsiest endorsement of a candidate, perhaps ever. When asked if she’d endorse the leading candidate in New York City, Mamdani, Harris’s response was, “I support the Democrat in the race, sure.”
Let the record show there are three former or current Democratic candidates leading the New York City mayoral race. Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams, who is now out of the race, have all previously run on the Democratic ticket.
Harris goes on to say the Democrats exist under a big tent, meaning many upstart candidates are vying for time; there just isn’t enough room for all of them. There are plenty of rising stars in the Democratic party, Harris told MSNBC, and centering the party on its most successful race in the country’s biggest city is not worthwhile.
Mamdani’s race has been historic for the Democratic Party. In the party’s primary, he drew a record-breaking vote count on track to a blowout, upset victory over Cuomo, a dynastic heir of a family deeply rooted in U.S. politics.
As a proud Democratic Socialist, not only have Mamdani’s policies of free childcare, frozen rent and grocery prices and fast and free buses become wildly popular, but Socialism as a whole has boomed nationwide, in no small part due to the market New York City provides.
Harris’ failure to endorse Mamdani is a symptom of why she and several Democrats have failed to win key races – it's a failure to recognize and address what Americans need. It wasn’t the 107-day time limit. It wasn’t Biden. It certainly wasn’t Buttigieg. Until Harris and the Democratic party as a whole can recognize this, they will continue to blow the wide-open layups, failing Americans and losing races.
Logan Adams is a senior studying journalism. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Logan know by tweeting him @LoganPAdams.
