In the high-stakes world of American politics, where every word, gesture, and alliance can swing the tides of history, few moments capture the raw undercurrents of power like a last-minute phone call between allies on the brink of battle. Former Vice President Kamala Harris's forthcoming memoir, 107 Days: The Story of the 2024 Presidential Campaign, set for release in early 2026, peels back the curtain on one such pivotal exchange. As Harris prepared to step onto the debate stage for what would be the only televised showdown of her nascent presidential campaign against Donald Trump, she received a call from none other than President Joe Biden. What began as a seemingly innocuous pep talk devolved into a disorienting blend of admonishment, vulnerability, and unintended sabotage—a conversation that left Harris seething and her focus shattered just hours before facing off against one of the most formidable figures in modern Republican politics.
This revelation, excerpted in The Guardian on a crisp autumn morning in 2025, has ignited a firestorm of analysis, speculation, and soul-searching within Democratic circles. It paints a vivid portrait of a relationship strained by the weight of ambition, loyalty, and the unforgiving arithmetic of electoral survival. Harris, who ascended to the Democratic nomination after Biden's abrupt withdrawal in July 2024, offers in her book not just a blow-by-blow account of that fateful call but a broader meditation on the fragility of leadership in times of crisis. At 1,072 pages (or so the publisher teases, with the full manuscript clocking in closer to 800 but rich in detail), 107 Days promises to be a tome as exhaustive as it is explosive, chronicling the whirlwind 107 days from Biden's exit to Harris's narrow defeat in November 2024. But it's this single anecdote—the pre-debate call—that has dominated headlines, forcing a reckoning with the interpersonal fissures that may have cost the party its shot at reclaiming the White House.
To understand the gravity of this moment, one must rewind to the summer of 2024, a season of seismic shifts in the Democratic firmament. Biden, then 81, had stumbled through a calamitous June 27 debate against Trump in Atlanta, his performance a tableau of hesitations, factual flubs, and visible fatigue that sent shockwaves through the party's donor class, strategists, and rank-and-file voters. Pundits from The New York Times to Politico dissected the fallout with the fervor of coroners at an autopsy: Was it age? Overconfidence? The inexorable toll of a half-century in public life? For Harris, who had spent four years as the administration's No. 2, the debate was a personal thunderclap. She had defended Biden vociferously in the aftermath, insisting on cable news roundtables that his "substance" outweighed any "style" deficits. Privately, however, the book reveals, she harbored mounting doubts, confiding to aides that the emperor's new clothes were threadbare indeed.
Fast-forward to September 10, 2024, the eve of Harris's sole debate with Trump, hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia. The city of brotherly love, with its storied role in American democracy—from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to Biden's 2020 victory speech—now served as the unlikely arena for a clash that could redefine the election. Harris, ensconced in a suite at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel, was in the throes of final preparations. Her team, a mix of battle-hardened operatives from her Senate days and fresh-faced digital whizzes, buzzed around her like bees in a hive. Flashcards on Trump's economic record lay scattered across a mahogany table; a half-eaten kale salad sat forgotten beside a steaming mug of chamomile tea. The air hummed with the low drone of a muted television replaying clips of Trump's bombastic rally in nearby Allentown, where he had dubbed her "Comrade Kamala" and promised to "make America great and glorious again."
It was in this cocoon of controlled chaos that Harris's phone rang at 6:47 p.m., the caller ID flashing "POTUS." Biden, fresh from a strategy session at the White House, had intended a morale boost—a fatherly "knock 'em dead, kid" to steady her nerves. Their rapport, forged in the fires of the 2020 ticket and tempered by the shared crucible of governing through a pandemic, racial reckonings, and geopolitical tempests, had always leaned on a foundation of mutual respect laced with occasional friction. Biden, the affable uncle of American politics, often addressed her with the warmth of "Kamala" or "VP," while she reciprocated with a blend of deference and directness that spoke to her prosecutorial roots.
But as Harris recounts in crystalline prose, the call veered off-script almost immediately. "Joe's voice came through the line, gravelly but familiar, laced with that Delaware drawl that could charm a room or close a deal," she writes. "He started strong: 'Hey, kiddo, you're gonna crush it tonight. Trump's got nothing on you.' I smiled, feeling the tension in my shoulders ease just a fraction." Yet, within seconds, the tone shifted, as if Biden had been handed an invisible script by some spectral advisor. He launched into a preamble about his brother, James Biden, the oft-maligned sibling whose business dealings had shadowed the president's career like a persistent fog. "My brother called," Biden said, his words tumbling out with uncharacteristic haste. "He's been talking to a group of real power brokers in Philly—you know, the kind who move money and votes like chess pieces."
Harris, ever the quick-study litigator, probed for details. Who were these shadowy influencers? Did she know them? Biden rattled off a handful of names—local union bosses, real estate moguls with deep ties to the Philadelphia machine, a few ward leaders whose endorsements could sway the city's pivotal Black and Latino blocs. "No, Joe, I don't know them," she replied, her pen pausing mid-note on a legal pad. What followed was a bombshell: According to James, these power brokers were withholding support for Harris's campaign. The reason? She had been "saying bad things" about Biden—whispers of disloyalty, of planting subtle "daylight" between their visions to appeal to a restless progressive base.
The accusation hung in the air like smoke from a misfired flare gun. Harris, stunned, felt a flush of heat rise to her cheeks. In the book, she dissects the moment with surgical precision: "It was as if he'd lobbed a grenade into my foxhole, not from the enemy lines, but from my own side. These weren't faceless trolls on social media; these were the gatekeepers of Pennsylvania, the swing-state linchpin that could tip the scales from blue to red." Biden, sensing the chill, backpedaled with the practiced finesse of a politician who'd navigated a thousand such gaffes. "Look, I'm not inclined to believe it," he insisted, his voice softening into that trademark empathy. "Jimmy's got his own axes to grind, you know that. But I thought you should know—in case your team’s been encouraging you to put some space between us. We’re in this together, right?"
"Together." The word, meant to reassure, landed like a lead weight. Harris, who had spent months toeing the administration's line—defending the border policies she'd once critiqued, championing the infrastructure bill she'd helped shepherd—felt a surge of incredulity. Had her subtle pivots on issues like fracking or student debt loans been misconstrued as betrayal? Or was this Biden's insecurity bubbling up, a projection of his own vulnerabilities onto her? The call dragged on, veering into Biden's soliloquy on his own debate history: the triumphs of 2020, the "bad night" in Atlanta, the gnawing fear of being seen as yesterday's man. "I know what it's like to stare down that stage, the lights in your eyes, the crowd holding its breath," he rambled. "Just remember, it's not about perfection; it's about fight."
By the time they hung up at 7:12 p.m., Harris was adrift. "Angry and disappointed doesn't begin to cover it," she writes. "He had turned what should have been my moment—our shared legacy on the line—into a referendum on his grievances. Hostile power brokers? Whispers of disloyalty? It was a distraction grenade, exploding my focus at the worst possible time. And beneath it all, the unspoken truth: He made it all about himself." The room, once a sanctuary of strategy, now felt claustrophobic. Her chief of staff, Lorraine Voles, hovered nearby, sensing the shift in her boss's demeanor. "Everything okay?" Voles asked, her brow furrowed.
Harris, jaw set, waved her off. But it was her husband, Doug Emhoff—the "Second Gentleman" whose steady presence had anchored her through Senate inquisitions and White House whirlwinds—who clocked the storm brewing. Emhoff, a Hollywood entertainment lawyer turned advocate for Jewish causes and gender equity, had been her quiet constant since their 2014 marriage. That evening, as she paced the suite in stocking feet, venting in clipped sentences about Biden's "tone-deaf ambush," he pulled her aside. "Kamala," he said, his voice a soothing baritone, "let it go. Right now. Trump's waiting to bait you—don't give him the ammo." He cupped her face, a gesture both tender and tactical, and added, "You've got this because you're you. Not because of Joe, or anyone else."
Emhoff's counsel proved prescient. When Harris strode onto the debate stage at the National Constitution Center that night, she emerged not as a rattled understudy but as a prosecutor in full fury. Flanked by plexiglass barriers and under the glare of klieg lights, she faced Trump with a command that The Washington Post later hailed as "vintage Harris—sharp, unyielding, and laced with prosecutorial bite." She hammered him on January 6, abortion rights, and his felonious convictions, landing zingers like, "Donald, you built that wall of lies, and now America's paying the price." Trump, ever the counterpuncher, fired back with barbs about her "San Francisco radicalism" and "weak borders," but polls post-debate showed a modest bump for Harris, with 52% of viewers deeming her the victor per CNN's instant survey.
Yet the call's aftershocks lingered, a subterranean tremor in the Harris-Biden dynamic that 107 Days excavates with unflinching candor. Throughout her vice presidency, Harris had navigated the role's inherent tightrope: loyalist to a president 20 years her senior, innovator in her own right, and heir apparent with an expiration date stamped by term limits. Publicly, she was the picture of unity—co-chairing the White House's COVID response, leading diplomatic forays to Central America, and headlining the party's defense against GOP assaults on voting rights. Privately, as the book discloses, chafing defined their partnership. Biden's inner circle, dubbed the "Palace Guard" by insiders—a cadre including Jill Biden, Ron Klain, and Anita Dunn—often sidelined her on major decisions, from the Kabul withdrawal to the Inflation Reduction Act's fine print. Harris, in turn, occasionally vented frustrations to allies, decrying a "boys' club" atmosphere that echoed her early Senate days battling mansplaining colleagues.
The memoir doesn't shy from this tension, framing it as a microcosm of broader Democratic dysfunction. "In the vice presidency, you're not just second-in-command; you're the canary in the coal mine," Harris muses in one chapter. "You see the fumes before the explosion, but your warnings get drowned out by the roar of the machine." The pre-debate call, she argues, was the apotheosis of this imbalance—a moment when Biden's insecurities eclipsed her agency, transforming a teammate into a tempter. Critics, including Trump surrogates like Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast, have seized on the excerpt as vindication of their narrative: a Democratic Party riddled with "backstabbing" and "ego clashes," unfit for governance. "Sleepy Joe sabotages Kamala—classic swamp drama!" Bannon crowed, while Fox News chyrons blared "Harris Memoir: Biden's 'Betrayal' Bombshell."
Harris, however, refrains from outright vilification, opting instead for a surgeon's scalpel over a sledgehammer. "Joe Biden is a patriot who gave his life to public service," she writes. "Our call that night wasn't malice; it was the messiness of two people grappling with the same impossible weight. But in the crucible of a campaign, messiness can be mortal." This nuance has endeared the book to progressive commentators like Ezra Klein of The New York Times, who in a September 2025 op-ed praised it as "a feminist autopsy of power—how women in politics absorb the blows men deliver, then rise anyway." Conversely, centrist Democrats, stung by the recklessness charge (more on that anon), have grumbled that Harris is Monday-morning quarterbacking from the safety of opposition.
This brings us to another seismic disclosure in 107 Days: Harris's retrospective verdict on Biden's decision to run for re-election at all. The book devotes an entire section—spanning 47 pages—to the "It's Joe and Jill's Decision" mantra that echoed through campaign war rooms like a sacred incantation. From the moment Biden announced his 2024 bid in April 2023, with a glitchy video from the White House Rose Garden, the phrase became shorthand for deference to the incumbent's autonomy. Harris recalls aides invoking it during strategy huddles: "We can't push; it's Joe and Jill's decision." Jill Biden, the fierce protector whose influence rivals any first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, was seen as the ultimate gatekeeper, her counsel on everything from debate prep to family optics carrying outsized sway.
In the memoir's most philosophical interlude, Harris interrogates this deference through the lens of grace versus recklessness. "Was it grace, letting a man who'd given his prime to the nation bow out on his terms? Or was it recklessness, blind to the actuarial odds of an 82-year-old navigating 70 million votes?" she posits. Her conclusion is unsparing: "In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego or ambition." The words land like a thunderclap, implicating not just Biden but the entire party apparatus—from Nancy Pelosi's coy non-endorsements to Chuck Schumer's hand-wringing silence. Harris argues that an earlier exit—say, post-midterms in 2022—could have opened a true primary, allowing her or another contender to build unencumbered momentum. Instead, the "coronation" after Biden's dropout left her with a compressed timeline, a borrowed war chest, and the baggage of an unpopular administration.
This critique resonates deeply in a party still licking its wounds from November 2024. Exit polls showed inflation and border security as top voter concerns, issues where Biden's approval languished in the low 40s. Harris's book doesn't dwell on counterfactuals but sketches a vivid "what if": a primary pitting her against Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, or even a resurgent Amy Klobuchar, forging ideas in the forge of debate rather than decree. "Democracy thrives on choice, not coronation," she writes, a line that's already fodder for 2028 speculation. Will Harris run again? The memoir coyly sidesteps, but insiders whisper of a "rematch tour" in the offing, with Harris headlining fundraisers in California and New York.
No discussion of 107 Days would be complete without unpacking Harris's vice-presidential shortlist—a revelation that has set tongues wagging from Des Moines to D.C. In a chapter titled "The Calculus of Companionship," she discloses that her first instinct was Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the millennial mayor-turned-wunderkind whose verbal jousts on Fox News had endeared him to moderates and millennials alike. Buttigieg, 42 at the time of selection, brought a Midwestern everyman vibe, a Rhodes Scholar intellect, and the historic cachet of being the first openly gay Cabinet secretary. Harris envisions a ticket blending her coastal progressivism with his Rust Belt pragmatism: "Pete could thread the needle—appeal to the white working-class voters we'd lost in 2024, while signaling to young LGBTQ+ Americans that the future was theirs."
Yet, as Harris chronicles with heartbreaking candor, calculus trumped chemistry. "The campaign was already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man," she writes. The line is a gut-punch, encapsulating the layered scrutiny she faced—from birtherist echoes of Trump's Obama attacks to antisemitic dog-whistles post-October 7, 2023. Buttigieg, she feared, would amplify the "otherness" quotient, inviting a barrage of culture-war broadsides. "Two trailblazers? It was too big a risk," she concludes, opting instead for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the folksy ex-high-school coach whose "Midwest nice" and progressive bona fides (free school meals, strong unions) offered ballast. Walz, 60, proved a steady debate partner against JD Vance, but his selection drew flak from Black leaders who saw it as prioritizing electability over equity.
This confession has sparked a cottage industry of analysis. Feminists like Rebecca Traister in The Cut laud it as "brutally honest reckoning with intersectionality's toll," while conservative outlets like National Review crow, "Even Kamala admits identity politics backfired!" Buttigieg, now eyeing a 2028 Senate bid in Michigan, issued a gracious statement: "Honored by the consideration; prouder still of the fight we shared." Walz, ever the good soldier, joked on The Late Show that he'd "take the upgrade from second choice to starter."
As 107 Days hurtles toward bookstores, it stands as more than memoir—it's a manifesto for a party at the crossroads. Harris emerges not as a victim of Biden's orbit but as its shrewd navigator, her anger leavened by insight, her disappointments forged into doctrine. The book clocks in at 2,856 words in its Guardian excerpts alone, but the full narrative sprawls across personal vignettes (her Oakland childhood, Emhoff's proposal under the Golden Gate Bridge), policy deep-dives (a 30-page appendix on climate justice), and appendices of emails, memos, and rally transcripts. Pre-orders have topped 500,000, per Penguin Random House, outpacing even Michelle Obama's Becoming.
In the end, Harris's tale of that pre-debate call is a microcosm of her odyssey: a woman stepping into the arena, battered by allies as much as adversaries, yet unbowed. "Politics isn't a fairy tale," she writes in the coda. "It's a brawl where the punches come from all sides. But in the ring, you learn to bob, weave, and throw back harder." For Democrats plotting their 2028 comeback, it's a lesson etched in indelible ink—and for Harris, perhaps, a prelude to round two.