Harris expresses concern she did not ask Biden not to run

Former US Vice President Kamala Harris has expressed concern that she has not asked Joe Biden to withdraw from the race for the White House.

In a BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, she said: “I wonder if I should have had a conversation with him, urging him not to run for office.”

After months of speculation about his health and mental acuity, President Biden ended his re-election bid in July 2024 after a disastrous performance in a debate against Donald Trump just weeks earlier.

Harris, who ran as a Democratic candidate but lost to Trump, revealed in her book about her three-month campaign that she did not discuss with President Biden her concerns about his abilities. The then 81-year-old man did not raise the issue with her either.

In the book 107 Days, the former vice president writes that Biden’s decision to run again was a choice that should not have “been left to an individual’s ego, to their ambition.” She wrote that “maybe” she should have talked to him about it.

In that interview, she told the BBC that she still wonders if she should have acted differently and told him about it.

“I wonder if I should have had a conversation with him, urging him not to run away.” She said that “my concern, especially upon reflection, is whether I really should have raised it.” She wondered if it was “grace or carelessness” that had kept her from speaking out.

Her concern, she added, was not Biden’s ability to do the job of commander in chief, but rather his ability to meet the demands of a grueling election campaign to stay in the White House.

When asked why there was a distinction, she said there was a serious difference between running for office and serving as president. And running against Trump is even more demanding, she said.

She said she was “concerned about her [Biden’s] capacity, with the level of endurance, of energy, that it requires, particularly to run against the current president.”

The former vice president said it was difficult for her to speak out because she risked being accused of promoting her own political interests if she confronted Biden about his health.

“Part of the problem was, would this have been an effective and productive conversation, given what would otherwise appear to be my self-interest? »

Whether more people in Biden’s inner circle might have challenged him on the wisdom of running again has become a major talking point.

One book, Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, alleged that those close to him hid his physical deterioration from the public.

Biden aides have rejected that claim, saying there have been physical changes as he has aged, but no evidence of mental incapacity and nothing that affects his ability to do the job.

In his first interview after leaving the White House, in May this year, Biden told the BBC it wouldn’t have mattered if he had left the race earlier.

His former vice-president is in the UK to promote her new book. During a wide-ranging conversation Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Harris also said it was “possible” she could run for the White House again.

She has already ruled out running for governor of her home state of California, and the former prosecutor told the BBC she was “not done” with public service.