Joe Biden had a secret in 2024, and Kamala Harris may have finally figured it out. We’ve been talking bout her forthcoming campaign memoir, 107 Days, and some of the juicy excerpts that have come out in recent weeks, but a new one signals to me that Harris has finally gotten wise to something that I think most of us figured out rather quickly last year.
Biden wanted her to lose.
The latest excerpt comes from Politico, and in it, Kamala threw some serious shade at her former boss, recounting a phone call that perfectly encapsulates the dysfunction at the heart of their administration. Just moments before her make-or-break debate with Donald Trump, Biden called Kamala in what Kamala’s ghost writer clearly saw as a deliberate act of political sabotage. He demanded to know why she had been bad-mouthing him to donors, a confrontational conversation that left Harris rattled at the most critical moment of her abbreviated campaign.
"My head had to be right. I had to be completely in the game," Kamala recalled in her book, describing how Biden's timing couldn't have been worse. "I just couldn't understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself." The call came after Biden's brother had told him that Kamala was criticizing him to "powerbrokers" in Philadelphia, prompting Biden to confront her minutes before she stepped onto the debate stage.
Related: Kamala Harris Admits That She’s an Idiot
Harris wrote that she felt "warmth and loyalty" towards Biden, but their relationship was clearly tested leading up to the election. While this might sound like an excuse for her less-than-stellar debate performance, the broader pattern of Biden's behavior suggests something far more sinister was at play, and I think Kamala has finally figured it out.
We know Biden was extremely bitter about being pushed out of the 2024 presidential race by Democratic Party leaders. His endorsement of Kamala was bizarre and shocking, considering rumors that she had supported invoking the 25th Amendment to pressure him out of the race. Reports indicated that Biden and his allies sought revenge through two main objectives: establishing his legacy as the only Democrat capable of beating Trump and embarrassing the party leaders who forced his exit.
The evidence of Biden's quiet sabotage was hiding in plain sight throughout the campaign. While Kamala desperately tried to position herself as the "change" candidate representing a "new way forward," Biden systematically undermined her message at every turn. During a September interview on The View, Biden directly contradicted Harris's change message by declaring, "As vice president, there wasn't a single thing I did that she couldn't do."
Biden didn't stop there. He emphasized how he had "delegated everything, from foreign policy to domestic policy" to Harris, effectively tying her directly to every unpopular decision his administration had made. When asked about ongoing crises, including hurricanes, port strikes, and Middle East situations, Biden stressed their partnership, saying, "We're singing from the same song sheet." He credited Harris as "a major player in everything we've done" and described her staff as "interlocked with mine in terms of all the things we're doing."
The pattern of Biden's public statements appears deliberate and timed to maximize damage to Harris's electoral prospects, despite his public support for her. Every time she tried to distance herself from the Biden administration's failures, Biden would publicly drag her back down with him. He even expressed continued confidence in his own electoral prospects, claiming "I was confident I would beat Trump — he's a loser," a not-so-subtle dig at Kamala’s inability to do what he believed only he could accomplish.
Biden exacted revenge on his party by forcing them to nominate Kamala, thereby sabotaging any chance the party had of winning the White House. Now, Harris seems to be getting her revenge on Biden for sabotaging her campaign.
