Kamala Harris Calls Biden’s 2024 Run “Reckless” in New Memoir
Harris criticizes Biden’s decision to seek re-election, reveals White House tensions, and faces questions over her Secret Service security.
Washington, September 10 EST: Kamala Harris has never been one to sit quietly at the margins of power. On Tuesday, she all but confirmed it. In leaked passages from her upcoming memoir, she characterizes Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign as “reckless,” a decision driven less by duty than by personal ambition. Only hours later, a very different story broke the former vice president no longer receives Secret Service protection, raising uncomfortable questions about her security in an era of sharpened political hostility.
A Sharp Cut Against Biden
The memoir, 107 Days, is Harris’s account of her brief 2024 presidential run and the broader political climate that surrounded it. Her judgment of Biden’s campaign choice is unsparing. According to Reuters, she argues the party deferred to the president when what was needed was collective discipline.
That assessment cuts against decades of vice-presidential etiquette. History is full of silent partners from Lyndon Johnson under John F. Kennedy to Dick Cheney beside George W. Bush who voiced disagreements privately but avoided breaking ranks. Harris is not playing by that script. She names the decision for what she believed it was a miscalculation that burdened Democrats in 2024 and narrowed her own options.
Still, her criticism is layered, not wholesale. As reported by The Guardian and AP News, she spares Biden from the more brutal speculation about his faculties, attributing his struggles to fatigue rather than decline. In effect, Harris is saying Biden could still govern but governing and campaigning are not the same, and mistaking one for the other cost the party dearly.
The Vice President Who Never Was
The memoir also surfaces a frustration that had long been whispered around Washington: Harris never found solid footing inside the administration. She describes being cut out of key decisions, boxed in by advisers, and, in her view, hung out to dry during the immigration battles. The New York Post and others had reported that dynamic in real time; Harris’s account suggests it was not just perception but deliberate strategy from Biden’s circle to manage her rising profile.
It is a familiar fate for vice presidents. Hubert Humphrey endured it under Lyndon Johnson, while Dan Quayle was ridiculed into irrelevance under George H. W. Bush. Harris’s telling makes clear she understood the trap speak up, and she looked ambitious; stay silent, and she appeared ineffective. Either way, she was diminished.
A Book as Political Weapon
Books from ex-officials often aim to soften legacies. Harris’s, arriving September 23, reads more like a counterstrike. With a global book tour already mapped out, she is signaling she intends to shape her own story, not let Washington do it for her.
This is hardly new. Barack Obama used The Audacity of Hope to preview a presidential run. Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices sought to cast her as the inevitable nominee. Harris is entering the same arena defending her choices, repositioning her image, and reminding Democrats and perhaps foreign allies that she remains part of the conversation.
Protection Pulled, Questions Raised
The memoir revelations coincided with another, more personal headline. The Los Angeles Times reported that Harris’s Secret Service detail has been pulled, in keeping with protocol for former officeholders. On paper, this is standard. In practice, it has ignited debate.
Harris remains one of the most recognizable women in American politics, and the first Black and South Asian woman to have held the vice presidency. Supporters argue that alone makes her a continuing target, and stripping away federal protection ignores real-world risk. For now, the LAPD is reportedly stepping in to provide some cover, but the arrangement raises questions about who should bear the cost and how much protection is enough.
Power Without the Armor
Together, the memoir’s sharp judgments and the security flap illustrate the paradox of Harris’s current standing. She no longer holds office, yet she still commands attention enough to spark party anxiety and law enforcement debates alike. She has power in the form of visibility, but lacks the institutional armor that once shielded her.
Harris has often been described as a politician caught between roles prosecutor and politician, insider and outsider, loyalist and critic. Now, with no formal office constraining her, she is leaning into candor and risk. Whether that opens the door to a new political chapter or simply cements her as a cautionary figure in Democratic history remains to be seen.
One thing is certain Harris has chosen not to fade quietly.
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A political science PhD who jumped the academic ship to cover real-time governance, Olivia is the East Coast's sharpest watchdog. She dissects power plays in Trenton and D.C. without bias or apology.
