Kamala Harris is reflecting on her 2024 presidential campaign, including a tense phone call from then-President Joe Biden before her debate with Donald Trump.
In her new memoir, 107 Days, the former vice president, 60, says she was in her Philadelphia hotel room on Sept. 10, 2024, with rollers in her hair and her makeup done when Biden called.
At first, she felt touched that her boss wanted to encourage her before the big debate. But after wishing her luck “with little warmth in his voice” and saying she would do fine, Biden allegedly mentioned rumors about her campaign.
According to Harris, the president said his brother had heard she had been bad-mouthing him, which had caused some influential people in Philadelphia to think negatively about the Harris-Walz campaign.
She writes: “[Biden] wasn’t inclined to believe it, he claimed, but he thought I should know in case my team had been encouraging me to put daylight between the two of us.”
After Harris suggested meeting with the Philadelphia leaders in person to address the issue, Biden shifted the conversation to his own past debates with Trump. He reportedly talked about how he beat Trump “the other time” but “wasn’t feeling well” during the June 2024 debate, and insisted that his poor final debate performance “hadn’t hurt him with the electorate,” according to Harris.
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“I was barely listening,” she writes.
“I just couldn’t understand why he would call me right now and make it all about himself,” she adds. “Distracting me with worry about hostile powerbrokers in the biggest city of the most important swing state.”
Harris says her husband, Doug Emhoff, could see how “angry and disappointed” she was after the call and encouraged her to “let it go” so she could focus on the debate.
Though Harris’ book suggests she was in the final quiet moments before the debate when Biden called, the exact timing is unclear. Biden told reporters around 4:45 p.m. that day that he had already called her, and the debate aired at 9 p.m.
Biden’s spokesperson declined to comment on the claims in Harris’ book.
In 107 Days, Harris also reflects on other tense moments with Biden’s team during his initial reelection campaign, as shared in an early excerpt published by The Atlantic on Sept. 10.
She writes that she considered telling Biden he shouldn’t seek reelection, but everyone in the administration seemed to believe it was “Joe and Jill [Biden]’s decision.”
“We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” Harris writes. “Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.”
When Biden decided to drop out of the presidential race on July 21, 2024, he quickly endorsed Harris to take his place on the Democratic ticket.
Harris made her first campaign appearance as the party’s presidential candidate on July 23, 2024, in West Allis, Wisconsin, with Biden’s endorsement.
She first announced her memoir, which recounts the 107 days of her historic campaign, in July.
“Since leaving office, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on those days, and with candor and reflection, I’ve written a behind-the-scenes account of that journey,” Harris said in a video announcement for the book. “I believe there’s value in sharing what I saw, what I learned, and what it will take to move forward.”
On Sept. 24, Harris will start a 15-city book tour across the U.S., Canada, and England, where she will discuss “how we collectively chart a blueprint that sets an alternative vision for our country now,” according to a press release obtained by PEOPLE.
107 Days will be published on Sept. 23 by Simon & Schuster and is available for preorder wherever books are sold.
