Vice President Kamala Harris made it clear Thursday night that she refused to take part in the Democratic Party’s criticism of President Joe Biden during the 2024 campaign, despite stepping in to lead the ticket after his withdrawal.
Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Harris was asked how she balanced differentiating herself as a candidate while remaining loyal to the man she served under. Biden stepped aside following mounting concerns over his performance and declining approval, particularly after his disastrous debate with Donald Trump.
“That must have been difficult,” Colbert remarked, noting the tricky balance Harris faced. “Because you have to differentiate yourself as a candidate, and yet you respect this man who you’re still working for at the same time. What was that like to navigate?”
Harris referred to her recently announced campaign memoir, “107 Days”, named after the duration of her brief campaign. “I talk about that extensively in the book,” she said. “You’re raising something that you and I both know requires a lot more time than we probably have right now to talk about.”
When Colbert playfully insisted he and his audience weren’t in a rush, Harris shifted to a more serious tone.
“It’s an instinct of mine to be someone who does not participate in piling on,” she said. “And I was not going to pile on, and I just wasn’t going to do that. And there was a lot of piling on at that time, and I wasn’t going to participate in that.”
While she didn’t name names, Harris appeared to be referring to fellow Democrats who distanced themselves from Biden after questions about his fitness to serve became unavoidable. Colbert notably avoided probing into the reports of Biden’s cognitive decline, which surfaced in multiple books earlier this year.
Privately, Biden’s family remains bruised over the way he was effectively pushed off the Democratic ticket in 2024.
His June debate against Trump had amplified growing concerns about his age and mental acuity. In the weeks that followed, pressure from Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and others, mounted until Biden officially exited the race on July 21, 2024. He endorsed Harris as his successor, and she quickly secured the nomination, setting up a fresh contest against Trump.
But despite resetting the race, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, were unable to overcome both Biden’s lingering unpopularity and her own challenges as a candidate. Trump went on to win decisively in November.
Throughout the campaign, Harris struggled to establish her independence from Biden’s presidency.
A key misstep occurred during an interview on The View, a show usually considered a friendly setting for Democrats. When asked by co-host Sunny Hostin what she would have done differently from Biden, Harris replied, “Not a thing that comes to mind.”
“I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact,” she added.
The Trump campaign seized on the exchange, quickly incorporating the clip into advertisements portraying Harris as a continuation of the Biden administration rather than a change agent. The moment became a focal point in media postmortems analyzing the factors behind her defeat.
Later that same day, Harris again appeared on The Late Show, where Colbert posed a similar question—how her potential administration would differ from Biden’s. Once more, she avoided a direct answer.
