Kamala Harris’ book tour sparks new round of criticism

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has crashed back onto the political scene — and critics say crashed is the operative word.

Ms. Harris is making the rounds on the TV talk show circuit promoting “107 Days,” a memoir that pulls back the curtain on her abbreviated presidential campaign.

Her return to the fray is simultaneously renewing speculation about her desire to run for president in 2028, as well as criticism about why her late-innings move to the top of the Democratic ticket was doomed from the start.

David McCuan, political science professor at Sonoma State University, said Ms. Harris’ return has gotten off to a shaky start.

“I think she sees herself as someone who is relevant to the fortunes of national Democrats, and I’m not sure that this book is doing her a favor to demonstrate that,” Mr. McCuan said. “I think the book tour illustrates the challenges she has as a national candidate, and reminds even core supporters of those challenges, which is why she’s not a strong candidate to run in 2028.”

Indeed, Ms. Harris’ struggles in television interviews have been well-documented, as has her calibrated approach to politics, which raised doubts about her authenticity.

In appearances on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “The View,” Ms. Harris sharply criticized President Trump. She also offered a glimpse into how it felt when she realized she had lost the race, and was given a chance to retell some of the juicier parts of the book.

“That night, I grieved in a way that I have not since my mother died,” Ms. Harris said Wednesday on “The View.” “The pain was not at all about losing a race. I knew what it was going to mean for the country. … All I could say over and over was, ’My God, my God, my God.’”

Ms. Harris also weighed in on what proved to be a disastrous appearance on “The View” in 2024, in which she failed to articulate any significant differences with Mr. Biden.

“I’m a loyal person, and I didn’t fully appreciate how much people wanted to know there was a difference between me and President Biden,” Ms. Harris said Wednesday. “I thought it was obvious, and I didn’t want to offer a difference in a way that would be received or suggested to be a criticism.”

The biggest beef about her book tour has been her seeming reluctance to fully embrace some of the more enticing passages from the book that the publisher released early to generate excitement for it.

In one of the early excerpts, Ms. Harris said her “first choice” for running mate was Pete Buttigieg, but that she did not think the nation was ready to elect a Black woman and a gay man.

But when pressed on why she felt Mr. Buttigieg could not be on the ticket because he was gay, Ms. Harris told Rachel Maddow that it was “not what I said.”

Ms. Harris said it was more about the compacted calendar, as well as concern that picking Mr. Buttigieg would have been a real risk.

“Maybe I was being too cautious,” she said.

After reading the excerpt, Mr. Buttigieg, another possible 2028 presidential contender, previously said he is willing to give Americans more credit than to assume the ticket would have been doomed.

In another excerpt, Ms. Harris wrote about how Mr. Biden called her moments before she took the debate stage with Mr. Trump, and wished her well before asking her about a rumor that she had been criticizing him behind his back.

“I couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself,” she said in the book. “Distracting me with worry about hostile powerbrokers in the biggest city of the most important swing state.”

During her appearance Wednesday on “Good Morning America,” Ms. Harris again was reluctant to retell the story, saying part of the call was to “talk about something that was more in his interest than it was in mind — especially in the context of that time.”

Dan Turrentine, a Democratic strategist, said Ms. Harris appeared to be more focused on responding to early criticism of the book than retelling the juiciest tales.

“She looks uncomfortable, she looks tentative, and what I see is she has heard the criticism and now she is trying to adjust, which is again part of her problem,” Mr. Turentine said Tuesday on 2Way’s “The Morning Meeting.”