WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris isn’t ruling out another run for the White House.
In an interview with the BBC posted Saturday, Harris said she expects a woman will be president in the coming years, and it could “possibly” be her.
“I am not done,” she said.
The former vice president said she hasn’t decided whether to mount a 2028 presidential campaign. But she dismissed the suggestion that she’d face long odds.
“I have lived my entire career a life of service, and it’s in my bones. And there are many ways to serve,” she said. “I’ve never listened to polls.”
Harris has recently given a series of interviews accompanying the September release of her book “107 Days.” It looks back on her experience replacing then-President Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee after he dropped out of the race, in an election she lost to Republican Donald Trump.
In an interview with the Associated Press this month, Harris, 60, also made clear that running again in 2028 is still on the table. She said she sees herself as a leader of the party, including in countering Trump and preparing for the 2026 midterms.
Meanwhile, political jockeying among Democrats for the 2028 presidential contest appears to be playing out even earlier than usual.
Several potential candidates are already taking steps to get to know voters in key states, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. Potentially 30 high-profile Democrats could ultimately enter the primary.
Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who spent the week belting “You Don’t Own Me” with the same gusto as an empowered ex-wife dressed in white.
Diane Keaton died this week at age 79 at her Los Angeles home. The L.A. native had a career that spanned more than five decades and included a wide-ranging and indelible list of performances in films such as “The Godfather” saga, “Annie,” Baby Boom,” “Father of the Bride” (and its sequel), “The First Wives Club,” “Something’s Gotta Give,” “The Family Stone” — the list goes on and on. Take a moment to read film editor Joshua Rothkop’s illuminating snapshot of Keaton’s life. Of course, her legacy goes far beyond the performance. Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote how Keaton showed us how to dress up our insecurities and embrace the kooky. And if you want to take a dive into her oeuvre, we have a roundup of 10 Keaton performances worth watching. Pluto TV is featuring an on-demand collection called “Remembering Diane Keaton,” with 15 of her most beloved films available to stream anytime.
And speaking of women who leave a lasting impression — this week saw the return of Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, the highly competent seasoned foreign service officer, with the arrival of “The Diplomat’s” third season. The Netflix series has spent its time tracking the career diplomat’s journey being primed to assume the role of vice president. Its backdrop storyline of an aging president who is expected to pass the torch to a younger female vice president — and the chaos that ensues when the plan is upended — may have real-world parallels, but the show’s creator, Debora Cahn, whose other credits include “The West Wing” and “Homeland,” insists the series is not a commentary. She stopped by Guest Spot to discuss the political thriller.
Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our streaming recommendations are an eclectic pair: a documentary that chronicles the 60-year movement to convert abandoned railroads into public spaces around America and, for those looking to make their viewing of Guillermo Del Toro’s take on “Frankenstein” a double-feature kind of night, we make the case for a ‘90s gory horror-comedy twist on the legend.
ICYMI
Must-read stories you might have missed
Diane Keaton arrives at a news conference at the 40th Cannes Film Festival to introduce her feature directorial debut, “Heaven,” in 1987.
Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
A view of the Island Line Trail in “From Rails to Trails.”
(PBS)
“From Rails to Trails” (PBS.org)
Trains ran close to where I grew up, and I’m still stupidly excited whenever I see one in action. There are fewer now than there were then, but part of their romance is the alternative routes they carved through the land. “From Rails to Trails” documents the 60-year movement to transform abandoned rail lines — which is to say, most rail lines — into paths for biking and hiking, turning them into linear public parks, making the countryside accessible but also remaking urban spaces. It’s a movement not without its opponents, its reversals and consequences, including the gentrification that can follow them. But this often moving hour-long documentary is a paean to old-fashioned coalition building and community activism — needed now more than ever — and the success of a new idea many now take for granted. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean and former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg chime in. New voice of the everyman Edward Norton narrates. — Robert Lloyd
“Frankenhooker” (Pluto TV, Tubi)
The lament of “The Bride of Frankenstein” is that the heroine herself is only onscreen for a few minutes. Get your fix by watching Frank Henenlotter’s “Frankenhooker.” This sleazy-brilliant 1990 romp is so clever it ranks (severed) head and shoulders with the black-and-white classics. An inventor, Jeffrey (James Lorinz), is bereft over losing his fiancée Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) to a freak lawnmower accident. He vows to rebuild his future bride — but hotterr. “I can make you the centerfold goddess of the century,” Jeffrey says with a leer. The real vanity is his. He wants a sexy, mindless babe. Henenlotter (also of the schlock hit “Basket Case”) claimed he didn’t think deeply about the subtext of his horror movies, a feint that dates back farther than George A. Romero pretending “Night of the Living Dead’s” martyred Black hero wasn’t a comment on race. They’re both fibbers. “Frankenhooker” is a giddy, popcorn-chomping comment on the disposability of women, especially the sex workers Jeffrey murders for spare parts. But what brings it to life is Mullen’s uproarious resurrected sexpot. Stomping around wearing a purple bra and a ghastly sneer, she belongs to no man — ring on her finger or not. Make it a double feature with Guillermo Del Toro’s terrific new “Frankenstein” in theaters this week. — Amy Nicholson
Guest spot
A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching
Allison Janney as Grace, Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler and Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in Season 3 scene from “The Diplomat.”
(Alex Bailey / Netflix)
Will the U.S. ever be ready for a female president? Time will tell. But “The Diplomat” has provided its contribution to the list of fictional ones. The Netflix drama, a fast-paced look at the art of diplomacy, stars Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, a newly-appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom who is tapped from the ranks of career diplomats to be quietly prepped to become vice president. The plan, of course, hasn’t gone as expected. In the whirlwind final moments of last season, the president dies and suddenly the person Kate was enlisted to push out, Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney), is whisked into duty — just as Kate has discovered the VP is responsible for hatching a terrorist plot. The show returned for its third season earlier this week and explores the aftermath as Penn is sworn in as president. Here, creator Debora Cahn shares what she was interested in unpacking in Season 3’s marriage dynamics, orchestrating a “West Wing” reunion and the time she met former Vice President Kamala Harris. There are some mild spoilers ahead, so bookmark for later if you haven’t begun the season! — Yvonne Villarreal
What did you want out of Kate’s journey this season? Her professional ambitions are once again tested by her marriage. Hal keeps claiming it’s Kate’s time to be in the spotlight and yet he manages to steal it.
We wanted to look at how it happens that someone like Hal winds up in the spotlight even when he’s desperately trying not to; the circumstances that surround decisions like this, which make it such that even the people in the middle of them don’t really have any control over it. You can look at what Grace is doing, and you can understand why she thinks Kate is fantastic, but that the choice, in terms of what’s going to make it easier for her to get through the day, is Hal. And we didn’t want to have a science fiction White House where there are two women happily running the country. That’s just not the world that we’re living in. And it felt like the most honest thing that we could do is tell a story about what it means to be really qualified and really experienced and really ready, and then watch it all slip away at the last second.
The season includes a delightful “West Wing” reunion, a show you wrote for. Allison Janney returns as VP-turned-President Grace Penn and Bradley Whitford portrays her husband, Todd. What was it like to see them back together onscreen? And what did you want their marriage dynamic to say?
It was like first day of school jitters for the first day that each of them was on set. We really wanted to make sure that this was something new and it wasn’t a reference to the work that we’d done together in the past. And the second they started, it was just clear that we were watching a new relationship that these two great actors were building together and informed by the fact that they know each other quite well and that they’ve been good friends for 20 years, but using that to create something new and fresh and really, really satisfying.
This is a marriage that has some very similar structural dynamics to Kate and Hal, but there are some fundamental differences, which is, there was never an assumption that Todd’s career could continue to function alongside Grace’s once she became vice president; and certainly when she becomes president, there’s no question that will become the focus for both of them. And so there are dynamics that Kate and Hal still wrestle with, which we see are kind of absolved with Todd and Grace. And in some ways that helps, and in some ways it doesn’t help.
We’re looking at a couple that’s 10 years farther down the road in their marriage and have made, in some ways, a more pragmatic decision about what it means to have two smart, capable people with careers existing at the same time. Their decision is that one of them isn’t going to exist right now. I think the thing that I enjoy most about both Hal and Todd is that these are people who really, really, really love their wives and really want to be supportive and they still fail or they struggle so, so mightily. We’ve talked about this before: I don’t like writing villains. I don’t want to write politicians that have bad values or selfish goals. I also don’t want to write people in a marriage who don’t give a s— about each other. I would much rather look at the much larger problem, which is, you do really care about each other. You do really want the best for each other, and you still can’t manage to make it happen.
Allison Janney as President Grace Penn and Bradley Whitford as First Gentleman Todd Penn in “The Diplomat.”
(Clifton Prescod / Netflix)
“The Diplomat” premiered in a different political climate from the one it’s in now. The show is not a direct commentary on what’s happening now, but how does the current reality, particularly as it relates to what those in civil service are facing, inform how you think about or build stories moving forward? What sorts of questions are you asking now of people who work in the government?
We write a story two years before the audience watches it, so we we don’t want to be making a direct commentary. Even if we did, the world is moving so fast, we couldn’t try and keep up. But we do want to be in the foreign policy headspace that the world is in, and try to be looking at what are the bigger questions and bigger conflicts that face people who are working in this field. We think a lot about the fact that 300,000 people were fired from the federal government. We think a lot about what it’s like to work for this administration and — I’m trying to figure out what to say without getting into Season 4, which I don’t want to do. It doesn’t inform the specifics of any of the stories that we’re telling, but it does inform the worldview and the bigger questions that face people in this field as the field changes. As the world changes.
You’re writing about people whose job it is to make hard decisions every day. What was the hardest decision you had to make for this third season — either in the writing phase or the production phase?
We moved the base of production from the UK back to New York. The first two seasons we were based in the UK, and then for Season 3, we did half and half. There were a lot of really good reasons for that. It also meant that we had a crew that grew this organism with us — and we were very close to them; they had huge influence on the show — and leaving them behind was really, really terrible. It’s a tough time in the film and television industry right now, and we felt pretty good about bringing jobs back to this community. That was something that was important to us and we really wanted to do. So, we are comfortable with the decision that we made, but, boy, it sure wasn’t fun making it and going through it. It’s people’s livelihood. It’s not a small thing.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris recently released a book chronicling her whirlwind and brief campaign as a 2024 presidential candidate. Have you read it?
I have not read it. But did I tell you about when we met her?
No. Tell me. You were also filming this third season during the election, right?
We were we were shooting it during the election. We were writing it during the election. And we we were worried about how it was going to look. We didn’t want it to look like a commentary on this presidency. But we did have a female vice president that we liked a whole lot, and a male president that we really loved and was of a certain age and didn’t make it through the process — the dynamics kept getting more and more troubling.
Keri and I were at the [White House Correspondents’] Dinner. And there was a receiving line, and we met and shook hands with the president and the first lady and the vice president and the second gentleman. And I said, “Ma’am, I’m writing a story about what it’s like for a woman who’s really experienced and really smart and really capable and really ready to do a job who then gets passed over for someone who is perhaps less qualified.” And she laughed. Then she said, “Call me.”
Have you called?
I have not called. I felt like she had some stuff going on. I didn’t really want to bother her and say, “Heyyyyy … let’s talk about how that went …”
What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?
“Dying for Sex” [Hulu, Disney+]. It was brutal and intense and very funny and extremely well-written. And I just thought what they did from a public health service perspective, sharing practical information about what it actually means to go through the process of death, I thought it was just a huge public service.
What’s your go-to “comfort watch,” the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?
“Postcards from the Edge” [VOD] — it is just so smart and so funny and both Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep are just absolutely to die for.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris offered a spirited defense of her short, unsuccessful 2024 presidential bid, lamented the loss of voters’ faith in institutions and urged Democrats to not become dispirited on Monday as she spoke at the first hometown celebration of her new book about her roller-coaster campaign.
She appeared to take little responsibility for her loss to President Trump in 2024 while addressing a fawning crowd of 2,000 people at The Wiltern in Los Angeles.
“I wrote the book for many reasons, but primarily to remind us how unprecedented that election was,” Harris said about “107 Days,” her political memoir that was released last week. “Think about it. A sitting president of the United States is running for reelection and three and a half months before the election decides not to run, and then a sitting vice president takes up the mantle to run against a former president of the United States who has been running for 10 years, with 107 days to go.”
She dismissed Trump’s claims that his 2024 victory was so overwhelming that it was a clear mandate by the voters
“And by the way, can history reflect on the fact that it was the closest presidential election?” Harris said, standing from her seat on the stage, as the audience cheered. “It is important for us to remember so that we that know where we’ve been to decide and chart where we are.”
Trump beat Harris by more than 2.3 million votes — about 1.5% of the popular vote — but the Republican swept the electoral college vote, winning 312-226. Other presidential contests have been tighter, notably the 2000 contest between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. Gore won the popular vote by nearly 544,000 votes but Bush won the electoral college vote 271-266 in a deeply contentious election that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Harris, faulted for failing to connect with voters about their economic pain in battleground states in the Midwest and Southwest, criticized former President Biden about his administration’s priorities. She said she would have addressed kitchen table issues before legislation about infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing.
“I would have done the family piece first, which is affordable childcare, paid leave, extension of the child tax credit,” she said, basic issues facing Americans who “need to just get by today.”
Harris spoke about her book in conversation with Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan, the hosts of the “I’ve Had It” podcast and former cast members of the Bravo series “Sweet Home Oklahoma.”
Attendees paid up to hundreds or thousands of dollars on the resale market for tickets to attend the event, part of a multi-city book tour that began last week in New York City. The East Coast event was disrupted by protesters about Israeli actions in Gaza. Harris is traveling across the country and overseas promoting her book.
The former vice president’s book tour is expect to be a big money maker.
Harris’ publisher recently added another “107 Days” event at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on Oct. 28.
The Bay Area native touched upon current news events during her appearance, which lasted shortly over an hour.
About the impending federal government shutdown, Harris said Democrats must be clear that the fault lies squarely with Republicans because they control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
“They are in power,” she said, arguing that her party must stand firm against efforts to cut access to healthcare, notably the Affordable Care Act.
She also ripped into Trump for his social media post of a fake AI-generated video of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The video purports to show Schumer saying that Latino and Black voters hate Democrats, so the party must provide undocumented residents free healthcare so they support the party until they learn English and “realize they hate us too.” Jeffries appears to wear a sombrero as mariachi music plays in the background.
“It’s juvenile,” Harris said. Trump is “just a man who is unbalanced, he is incompetent and he is unhinged.”
Harris did not touch on the issues she wrote in her book that caused consternation among Democrats, such as not selecting former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to be her running mate because she did not believe Americans were ready to support a presidential ticket with a biracial woman and a gay man. She also did not mention her recounting of reaching out to Gov. Gavin Newsom after Biden decided not to seek reelection, and him not responding to her beyond saying he was out hikinG.
Harris lamented civic and corporate leaders caving to demands from the Trump administration.
Among those Trump targeted were law firms that did work for his perceived enemies.
“I predicted almost everything,” she said. “What I did not predict was the capitulation of universities, law firms, media corporations be they television or newspapers. I did not predict that.”
She said that while she worked in public service throughout her career, her interactions with leaders in the private sector led her to believe that they would be “among the guardians of our democracy.”
“I have been disappointed, deeply deeply disappointed by people who are powerful who are bending the knee at the foot of this tyrant,” Harris said.
Harris did not mention that her husband, Doug Emhoff, is a partner at the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher that earlier this year that reached an agreement with the White House to provide at least $100 million in pro bono legal work during the Republican’s time in the White House and beyond.
In April, the firm reached an agreement with the Trump administration, with the president saying their services would be dedicated to helping veterans, Gold Star families, law enforcement members and first responders, and that the law firm agreed to combat antisemitism and not engage in “DEI” efforts.
Emhoff, who joined the law firm in January and also is now on the has faculty at USC , has condemned his law firm’s agreement with the administration.
Emhoff, who was in attendance at the event and posing for pictures with Harris supporters, declined comment about the event.
In a darkened airport hotel ballroom room, a bevy of California Democrats sought to distinguish themselves from the crowded field running for governor in 2026.
It was not an easy task, given that the lineup of current and former elected officials sharing the stage at the Sunday morning forum agreed on almost all the issues, with any differences largely playing out in the margins.
They pledged to take on President Trump, make the state more affordable, safeguard immigrants and provide them with Medi-Cal healthcare benefits, and keep the state’s over-budget bullet train project intact.
There is not yet any clear front-runner in the race to run the nation’s most populous state, though former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter has had a small edge in recent polling.
Aside from a opaque dig from former state Controller Betty Yee, Porter was not attacked during the debate.
They were joined onstage by former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. State Sen. Toni Atkins, who was supposed to participate, dropped out due to illness. Wealthy first-time political candidate Stephen J. Cloobeck withdrew due to a scheduling conflict.
The forum was sponsored by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, in partnership with the Los Angeles Times and Spectrum News. It was held in Los Angeles and moderated by Associated Press national planning editor Lisa Matthews, with L.A. Times California politics editor Phil Willon, Spectrum News 1 news anchor Amrit Singh and Politico senior political reporter Melanie Mason asking the questions.
Sen. Alex Padilla and businessman Rick Caruso have also both publicly flirted with a bid for the state’s top office, but have yet to make a decision.
With Prop. 50 in the forefront, a lack of attention on the race
California’s June 2 gubernatorial primary is just eight months away, but the horde hoping to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom has been competing for attention against an extraordinarily crowded landscape, with an unexpected special election this November pulling both dollars and attention away from the race for governor. To say nothing of the fact that the race had been somewhat frozen in place for months until the end of July, when former Vice President Kamala Harris finally announced she would not be running.
The candidates reiterated their support for Proposition 50, the Newsom-led November ballot measure to help Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year by redrawing California congressional districts. Newsom pushed for the measure to counter efforts by Republican-led states to reconfigure their congressional districts to ensure the GOP keeps control of Congress.
“This is not a fight we actually wanted to have,” Yee said. “This is in response to a clear attempt to mute our representation in Washington. And so we have to fight back.”
A focus on immigrant backgrounds, and appeals to Latino voters
The candidates repeatedly focused on their families’ origins as well as their efforts to protect immigrants while serving in elected office.
Thurmond raised his upbringing in his opening remarks.
“I know what it is to struggle. You know that my grandparents were immigrants who came here from Colombia, from Jamaica? You know that I am the descendant of slaves who settled in Detroit, Mich.?” he said.
Becerra highlighted his support for undocumented people to have access to state healthcare coverage as well as his successful lawsuit protecting undocumented immigrants brought to this nation as young children that reached the Supreme Court.
“As the son of immigrants, I know what happens when you feel like you’re excluded,” he said.
Becerra and Thurmond addressed the diverse audience in Spanish.
Yee, who spoke about sharing a room with her immigrant parents and siblings. also raised her background during a lightning-round question about what the candidates planned to dress up as on Halloween.
“My authentic self as a daughter of immigrants,” she said.
Differing opinions on criminal justice approaches and healthcare
The debate was overwhelmingly cordial. But there was some dissent when the topic turned to Proposition 36, a 2024 anti-crime ballot measure that imposed stricter penalties for repeat theft and crimes involving fentanyl.
The ballot measure — which undid key parts of the 2014 criminal justice reform ballot measure Proposition 47 — sowed division among California Democrats, with Newsom and groups including the ACLU strongly opposing it. Its passage marked a turning of the tide in Californians’ attitudes about criminal justice reform and response to crime, following years of support for progressive policies that leaned away from punitive prison sentences for lower-level crimes.
First, Villaraigosa contended that he was the only candidate on stage who had supported Proposition 36, though Porter and Becerra quickly jumped in to say that they too had supported it.
But Porter also contended that, despite her support, there were “very real problems with it and very real shortcomings.” The measure should have also focused on prevention and incarcerating people for drug offenses doesn’t make anyone safer, she said.
Thurmond strayed sharply from the pack on the issue, saying he voted “no” on Proposition 36 and citing his career as a social worker.
“Prop. 36, by design, was set up to say that if you have a substance abuse issue, that you will get treatment in jail,” Thurmond contended, suggesting that the amount of drugs present in the prison system would make that outcome difficult.
As governor, he would more money into treatment for substance abuse programs and diversion programs for those who commit minor crimes, he said.
When the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they supported a single-payer healthcare system, Porter and Villaraigosa did not, while Becerra, Yee and Thurmond did.
The need to build more housing
Issues of affordability are top of mind for most Californians, particularly when it comes to housing.
Thurmond said he would build two million housing units on surplus land on school sites around the state and provide a tax break for working and middle class Californians.
Villaraigosa also focused on the need to build more housing, criticizing bureaucratic red tape and slow permitting processes.
Villaraigosa also twice critiqued CEQA — notable because the landmark California Environmental Quality Act was once held seemingly above reproach by California Democrats. But the law’s flaws have become increasingly accepted in recent years as the state’s housing crisis worsened, with Newsom signing two bills to overhaul the the law and ease new construction earlier this year.
Porter said that if she were governor, she would sign SB 79, a landmark housing bill that overrides local zoning laws to expand high-density housing near transit hubs. The controversial bill — which would potentially remake single-family neighborhoods within a half-mile of transit stops — is awaiting Newsom’s signature or veto.
Compare that with Republicans, who not only believe in second chances but, more often than not, seem to prefer their presidential candidates recycled. Over the last half century, all but a few of the GOP’s nominees have had at least one failed White House bid on their resume.
Why the difference? It would take a psychologist or geneticist to determine if there’s something in the minds or molecular makeup of party faithful, which could explain their varied treatment of those humbled and vanquished.
The notable lack of self-blame has rankled other Democrats. Aside from some couldas and shouldas, Harris largely ascribes her defeat to insufficient time to make her case to voters — just 107 days, the title of her book — which hardly sits well with those who feel Harris squandered the time she did have.
More generally, some Democrats fault the former vice president for resurfacing, period, rather than slinking off and disappearing forever into some deep, dark hole. It’s a familiar gripe each time the party struggles to move past a presidential defeat; Hillary Clinton faced a similar backlash when she published her inside account after losing to Donald Trump in 2016.
That critique assumes great masses of voters devour campaign memoirs with the same voracious appetite as those who surrender their Sundays to the Beltway chat shows, or mainline political news like a continuous IV drip.
They do not.
Let the record show Democrats won the White House in 2020 even though Clinton bobbed back up in 2017 and, for a short while, thwarted the party’s fervent desire to “turn the page.”
But there are those avid consumers of campaigns and elections, and for the political fiends among us Harris offers plenty of fizz, much of it involving her party peers and prospective 2028 rivals.
Pete Buttigieg, the meteoric star of the 2020 campaign, was her heartfelt choice for vice president, but Harris said she feared the combination of a Black woman and gay running mate would exceed the load-bearing capacity of the electorate. (News to me, Buttigieg said after Harris revealed her thinking, and an underestimation of the American people.)
Harris implies Govs. JB Pritzker and Gretchen Whitmer of Illinois and Michigan, respectively, were insufficiently gung-ho after Biden stepped aside and she became the Democratic nominee-in-waiting.
In her book, Harris recounts the hours after Biden’s sudden withdrawal, when she began telephoning top Democrats around the country to lock in their support. In contrast to the enthusiasm many displayed, Newsom responded tersely with a text message: “Hiking. Will call back.”
He never did, Harris noted, pointedly, though Newsom did issue a full-throated endorsement within hours, which the former vice president failed to mention.
It’s small-bore stuff. But the fact Harris chose to include that anecdote speaks to the tetchiness underlying the warmth and fuzziness that California’s two most prominent Democrats put on public display.
Will the two face off in 2028?
Riding the promotional circuit, Harris has repeatedly sidestepped the inevitable questions about another presidential bid.
“That’s not my focus right now,” she told Rachel Maddow, in a standard-issue non-denial denial. For his part, Newsom is obviously running, though he won’t say so.
There would be something operatic, or at least soap-operatic, about the two longtime competitors openly vying for the country’s ultimate political prize — though it’s hard to see Democrats, with their persistent hunger for novelty, turning to Harris or her left-coast political doppelganger as their savior.
Meantime, the two are back on parallel tracks, though seemingly headed in opposite directions.
While Newsom is looking to build Democratic bridges, Harris is burning hers down.
When the 49th Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris called, Scott Evans, the host of the YouTube interview show “House Guest,” answered in disbelief.
“I was literally gobsmacked,” Evans tells The Times. “I wanted to make sure she felt the love and that we were ready to discuss anything she wanted.”
In its short-lived history, the Webby Award-winning, self-funded show has welcomed comedian Leslie Jones, Oscar winner Regina King and actor Keke Palmer. On Thursday, Evans entertained a guest with secret service stature.
During her visit, Harris discusses her book “107 Days,” which entails her experience as a presidential candidate during the 2024 election. She revealed to Evans he was the first person she discussed the book with outside of her team.
The housewarming vibes set the tone for a conversation that allowed Harris to speak with comfort and embrace emojis, a delicacy she had been without during her time in the White House.
Harris and Evans talking on “House Guest.”
(Ryan Handford)
As they discussed her book, Evans and Harris shared a cheese and anchovies pizza. The host made the choice to commemorate the day she found out President Joe Biden was going to drop out of the race for the house on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“The first day you found out that Joe Biden was not going to be running for reelection and that you got the go-ahead,” Evans said, “cheese pizza with anchovies is where you went.”
Harris reveals she found out Biden was going to drop out of the presidential race while playing with her niece’s daughters. She was in her sweatpants, with her hair in a ponytail, when the unexpected call went through.
“This is really happening and the only people staffing me are both under 4 feet tall,” Harris said. “My little baby nieces … firsthand witnesses to history.”
She recalls her team coming together immediately and turning her dining table from a breakfast setting to business. Work for her campaign began and as the day elongated and dinner time passed, they ordered pizza, including one with cheese and anchovies.
In her book, Harris calls the day she certified the election one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do. As vice president and president of the senate, it was her responsibility to confirm the election on Jan. 6, a date in infamy after the insurrection that took place on the same date in 2021. Evans asked her if there was ever a moment in which she didn’t want to take the high road.
“It was nonnegotiable in my mind that I would stand there and give it the process, the dignity that it deserves of showing what leadership should be about, which is a peaceful transfer of power,” Harris said.
“I was not going to let them, in any way, compromise every reason that I ran for president, which is that I do believe in the importance of the rule of law,” she added.
After conceding the election, Harris tells Evans she grieved and experienced emotions that resembled those she felt when her mother died.
“I choose not to allow circumstances or individuals disempower my spirit,” she added as an emotional Evans added: “If you can say that, if you can really believe that, then there are so many others of us who can feel confident in that as well.”
WASHINGTON — In an interview with Rachel Maddow this week promoting her new memoir, Kamala Harris was asked whether her book tour is part of a strategy to run again for the presidency in 2028.
“That’s not my focus at all,” Harris replied, dismissive of the idea. “It really isn’t.”
Democratic strategists agree that her book, “107 Days,” and the tour that has followed suggests Harris lacks a serious plan for a future in elected politics, generating more questions than clarity on her path forward and future role in public life.
The book has reopened a fractious intraparty debate over who is to blame for last year’s loss to President Trump. Polls show Harris’ standing in the field of 2028 Democratic presidential contenders as relatively weak for a figure who led the party less than a year ago. And even in California, her home state, Democrats prefer another potential candidate, Gov. Gavin Newsom, over her for the next contest.
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Harris argues in her book she had too little time to mount a competitive campaign after President Biden announced he would drop out of the race that July, handing the party mantle to her with little notice.
She called it “reckless” to allow Biden to make the decision to run for reelection on his own, and on tour, has acknowledged responsibility for not speaking up more on the matter herself. But she has not stated explicitly that it was a mistake for him to enter the race in the first place.
Harris would ultimately post the worst electoral college showing for a Democrat since Michael Dukakis in 1988.
“I realize that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on,” she told Maddow. “When I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I’m talking about myself.”
Potential 2028 candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, many of whom already are making visits to battleground states, have seized the moment of her tour to criticize her handling of the 2024 race. Harris wrote in the book that it was her duty as Biden’s vice president to remain loyal to him, despite acknowledging that, at 81, Biden “got tired” on the job.
“She’s going to have to answer to how she was in the room and yet never said anything publicly,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told a SiriusXM podcast last week.
The book touches on Shapiro as well as Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s former Transportation secretary and another possible contender in 2028, as figures she considered as potential running mates. But airing her assessments of active political aspirants has only drawn more scrutiny. On “Good Morning America” this week, asked whether her book had hurt her relationships with fellow Democrats, Harris replied, “that’s not my intention, and I hope not.”
“Harris, like other well-known Democrats, naturally wants to be a part of the national conversation — about 2024, 2026 and 2028. What happened, what should the party do, and who should lead it forward?” said Andrew Sinclair, an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “These are all questions Democrats are actively debating now, and even if she decides not to run in the future, Harris has a high enough profile in the party to have a role in answering those questions.”
Passing on a potential run for governor of California, Harris told Stephen Colbert that she had decided America’s system of elected offices was no longer the venue for her to enact change. “I think it’s broken,” she said.
But her memoir and book tour have shed little light on what alternatives she might have in mind to remain a relevant figure in public life — or what vision she has for the Democratic Party going forward.
She concludes the book with a handful of platitudes on the need to invest in Gen Z.
“We need to come up with our own blueprint that sets out our alternative vision for our country,” she wrote.
Newsom better positioned
High-quality polls show Harris remains a leading choice for Democrats in the next campaign cycle, tied or slightly edged out by Newsom. But under the hood, data indicate that less than 20% of Democrats view her as an ideal party leader entering the coming race.
Newsom’s polling trajectory, on the other hand, has begun moving in the opposite direction.
A series of polls published late last month found support for the California governor had surged over the summer, as Newsom embraced high-profile battles with Trump over ICE raids in Los Angeles, national gerrymandering efforts and the cultural memesphere.
And after Trump took substantial time in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week to deride climate change as a “hoax,” Newsom is in New York, as well, to attend Climate Week, highlighting California initiatives in interviews with Colbert and the New York Times.
His combative appearances, looking forward to 2028 and beyond, offer a contrast with a book tour by Harris that has thus far focused on the past.
“Governor Newsom has deftly positioned himself as the national Democrat most consistently ready to stand up to the president, adopting the tools — his podcast — and tactics — in-your-face-social media — that proved so effective for the GOP ticket last time,” said Bruce Mehlman, a bipartisan campaign consultant in Washington.
But the pace of political change in Trump’s America makes current polling unreliable, Sinclair said.
“The 2028 election is far away at a time when the political situation in the United States is changing rapidly,” he said, adding: “At best, Democratic leaders today can put themselves in a position to be influential, but I do not think anyone knows enough about what is going to happen next to have much more of a plan than that.”
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Without a doubt, it is important to capture the reflections of a vice president who found herself in an unprecedented situation after the president was pressured to withdraw from the 2024 election. And “107 Days,” a taut, often eye-opening account — written with the help of Geraldine Brooks — takes you inside the rooms where it happened, as well as what led up to Kamala Harris’ remarkable run.
For one, apparently MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell first gave Harris the idea she should seek the presidency in 2020. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were having breakfast at a restaurant near their Brentwood home when O’Donnell “wandered up to our table to talk about the dire consequences of a second Trump term.” Harris, then in her first term as a U.S. senator, recounts that O’Donnell bluntly suggested: “‘You should run for president.’ I honestly had not thought about it until that moment,” she writes in “107 Days.”
Later, Harris also reveals that Tim Walz was not her first choice for running mate: Pete Buttigieg was, though she ultimately concluded the country wasn’t ready for a gay man in the role.
“We were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man,” she writes. She assumes Buttigieg felt similarly, but they never discussed it.
We do not glean much more than we already knew or assumed about President Biden’s life-changing 2024 phone call that set Harris on this path. Pleas for Biden to step aside had been building following his disastrous debate performance less than five months before the election, but by that time Harris had given up on the idea that he would withdraw from the race. But on Sunday, July 21, Harris had just finished making pancakes for her grandnieces at the vice president’s residence and was settling in to watch a cooking show with them when “No Caller ID” came up on her secure phone.
“I need to talk to you,” Biden rasps, then battling COVID-19. Without fanfare, he told her: “I’ve decided I’m dropping out.” “Are you sure?” Harris replies, to which Biden responds: “I’m sure. I’m going to announce in a few minutes.” In italics, we are made privy to what Harris is thinking during their brief phone call: “Really?” Give me a bit more time. The whole world is about to change. I’m here in sweatpants.”
If we wanted in on the powerful feelings that must have been swirling within each of them during such an exchange, or a nod to the momentousness of the moment — no dice. The conversation shifted to the timing of Biden’s endorsement of Harris, which Biden’s staff wanted to delay and which she wanted immediately. Politics, not sentiment, reigned.
The Atlantic book excerpt published earlier this month, it turns out, accurately represents the overall tone of “107 Days.” A thread running throughout is one of bitterness toward Biden’s inner circle, whom Harris felt had been poisoning the well since she first took office: “The public statements, the whispering campaigns, and the speculation had done a world of damage,” she recounts, and perhaps laid the groundwork for her defeat. While she had a warm relationship with the president himself, Harris believes she was never trusted by the first lady or the president’s closest advisors, nor did they throw their full weight behind her as the Democratic nominee.
At the same time, she never doubted that she was the right person for the job. She writes, “I knew I was the candidate in the strongest position to win. … The most qualified and ready. The highest name recognition.” She also calculates that the president and his team thought she was the least bad option to replace him because “I was the only person who would preserve his legacy.” “At this point,” she adds, “anyone else was bound to throw him — and all the good he had achieved — right under the bus.”
For those who are cynical about politics, “107 Days” will not alter your view. After Biden announces his withdrawal, First Lady Jill Biden welcomes Second Gentleman Emhoff into the fray, advising: “Be careful what you wish for. You’re about to see how horrible the world is.” Her senior adviser David Plouffe encourages Harris to distance herself from the president on the campaign trail, because “People hate Joe Biden.” Again and again, Harris provides examples of being left out of the loop or not robustly supported by his inner circle. She writes that her feelings for the president “were grounded in warmth and loyalty” but had become “more complicated over time.” She claims never to have doubted Biden’s competence, even while she worried about how he appeared to the public.
“On his worst day,” she writes, “he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump at his best.” Still, his decision about seeking a second term shouldn’t “have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition,” she concludes in an observation that grabbed headlines upon its publication in the Atlantic excerpt.
The exhilaration that Harris’ campaign frequently exuded in those early rallies is summarized here, but those accounts don’t capture the joy. Some of the details she chooses to highlight tamp down the excitement. For example, at their first rally together after picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, Walz, Harris and their families greet an audience of 10,000 people in Philadelphia. Though Harris writes, “We rode the high of the crowd that night,” she also notes, “When Tim clasped my hand to thrust it high in an enthusiastic victory gesture, he was so tall that the entire front of my jacket rose up.” She makes “a mental note to tell him: From now on, when we do that, you gotta bend your elbow.”
The Kamala Harris I saw on the campaign trail and enthusiastically voted for is often in evidence on the page. She is smart, savvy, funny and tough. As in many of her stump speeches and media interviews, she tends to recite her accomplishments as if reading from a resume, which sometimes reads as defensive. But she is also indefatigable: She believes that she must win to save democracy, yet she seems to shoulder that formidable burden without breaking a sweat.
“107 Days” does an excellent job of conveying the difficulty of seeking — and occupying — high office, and suggests that if she’d won, Harris’ resilience and ambition would have served her well as the leader of the free world. Many of her insights are astute, though occasionally tinged with rancor. She does accept responsibility for certain missteps, such as when she was asked on “The View” if she would have done anything differently than Biden had she been in charge. She reflects that her response — “There is nothing that comes to mind” — landed as if she’d “pulled the pin on a hand grenade.” But she doesn’t attribute her eventual loss to that or any other miscalculation: She simply needed more time to make her case.
I craved a soaring moment, a rallying cry. I didn’t find hope or inspiration within these pages — the book felt more like an obligatory postmortem with an already established conclusion. If an aim of this memoir was to rally the troops for a Harris run in 2028, “107 Days” falls short of lighting a fire. The brilliant, charismatic woman who came close to breaking the ultimate glass ceiling has given us an essential portrait of an unforgettable turning point in her journey, but “107 Days” is mainly absent the perspective and blueprint for going forward that so many of us hunger for. A few years out, that wisdom may come.
Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.
The services of a life-preserving, ego-boosting retinue of intimidating protectors — picture dark glasses, earpiece, stern visage — were cited by more than one Harris associate, past and present, as a factor in her deliberations. These were not Trumpers or Harris haters looking to impugn or embarrass the former vice president.
According to one of those associates, Harris has been accompanied nonstop by an official driver and person with a gun since 2003, when she was elected San Francisco district attorney. One could easily grow accustomed to that level of comfort and status, not to mention the pleasure of never having to personally navigate the 101 or 405 freeways at rush hour.
That is, of course, a perfectly terrible and selfish reason to run for governor, if ever it was a part of Harris’ thinking. To her credit, the reason she chose to not run was a very good one: Harris simply “didn’t feel called” to pursue the job, in the words of one political advisor.
Now, however, the matter of Harris’ personal protection has become a topic of heated discussion and debate, which is hardly surprising in an age when everything has become politicized, including “and” and “the.”
There is plenty of bad faith to go around.
Last month, President Trump abruptly revoked Harris’ Secret Service protection. The security arrangement for vice presidents typically lasts for six months after they leave office, allowing them to quietly fade into ever greater obscurity. But before vacating the White House, President Biden signed an executive order extending protection for Harris for an additional year. (Former presidents are guarded by Secret Service details for life.)
As the first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president, Harris faced, as they say in the protective-service business, an elevated threat level while serving in the post. In the 230-odd days since Harris left office, there is no reason to believe racism and misogyny, not to mention wild-eyed partisan hatred, have suddenly abated in this great land of ours.
The president could have been gracious and extended Harris’ protection. But expecting grace out of Trump is like counting on a starving Doberman to show restraint when presented a bloody T-bone steak.
“This is another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass angrily declared.
True.
Though Bass omitted the bit about six months being standard operating procedure, which would have at least offered some context. It wasn’t as though Harris was being treated differently than past vice presidents.
Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly stepped into the breach, providing Harris protection by the California Highway Patrol. Soon after, The Times’ Richard Winton broke the news that Los Angeles Police Department officers meant to be fighting crime in hard-hit areas of the city were instead providing security for Harris as a supplement to the CHP.
Not a great look. Or the best use of police resources.
All well and good, until the conservative-leaning Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file officers, saw fit to issue a gratuitously snarky statement condemning the hasty arrangement. Its board of directors described Harris as “a failed presidential candidate who also happens to be a multi-millionaire, with multiple homes … who can easily afford to pay for her own security.”
One person in the private-security business told Winton that a certain household name pays him $1,000 a day for a 12-hour shift. That can quickly add up and put a noticeable dent in your back account, assuming your name isn’t Elon or Taylor or Zuckerberg or Bezos.
Setting aside partisanship — if that’s still possible — and speaking bluntly, there’s something to be said for ensuring Harris doesn’t die a violent death at the hands of some crazed assailant.
The CHP’s Dignitary Protection Section is charged with protecting all eight of California’s constitutional officers — we’re talking folks such as the insurance commissioner and state controller — as well as the first lady and other elected officials, as warranted. The statutory authority also extends to former constitutional officers, which would include Harris, who served six years as state attorney general.
Surely there’s room in California’s $321-billion budget to make sure nothing terrible happens to one of the state’s most prominent and credentialed citizens. It doesn’t have to be an open-ended, lifetime commitment to Harris’ protection, but an arrangement that could be periodically reviewed, as time passes and potential danger wanes.
Serving in elected office can be rough, especially in these incendiary times. The price shouldn’t include having to spend the rest of your life looking nervously over your shoulder.
Or draining your life savings, so you don’t have to.
The Democratic field for attorney general of California is crowded but mixed, divided among several capable candidates and several who do not have the background or vision worthy of the office. Those who merit serious consideration by voters are San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris, former Facebook executive Chris Kelly and Assemblyman Ted Lieu (D-Torrance). The Times sees strengths in all three, but endorses Harris.
To dispense with the bottom of the field first: Rocky Delgadillo was a deep disappointment as Los Angeles city attorney and has done nothing since to suggest that he would do better in a higher office. Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara) has a legislative record to be proud of but offers no compelling vision for the office he’s seeking. Assemblyman Alberto Torrico (D-Newark) is focused almost exclusively on his campaign to pass an oil extraction fee in order to fund education, a perfectly defensible notion but one that has little to do with being attorney general. Attorney Mike Schmier has neither ideas nor experience worth noting.
Among the leading candidates, Lieu is a thoughtful legislator with a solid record in Sacramento. He proposes innovative ideas for building on the current duties of the attorney general’s office while recognizing its essential functions — defending the state, enforcing its laws and protecting its residents. He also has waged an uncommonly civilized campaign, evidence of his character and decency.
Kelly’s background makes him a unique candidate in this field, though one familiar in this election cycle: the public-spirited business leader. He views the office as a platform for protecting consumers, among other things, and would bring fresh ideas for improving the state’s technological capacity. He hews to most Democratic Party tenets — support for same-sex marriage, environmental protection and the death penalty — while suggesting that he would not be captive to the party’s leading constituencies, such as labor, because he comes from outside the political establishment.
We give our endorsement to Harris because she shares much of what Lieu and Kelly bring to the race yet also offers the most germane and impressive experience. A former prosecutor, Harris has served as San Francisco district attorney since 2004; in that role, she has supervised one of the state’s largest public law agencies and navigated the turbulent politics of that city. Moreover, she has demonstrated creativity, tenacity and toughness, aggressively prosecuting violent criminals while searching for ways to reduce recidivism and take pressure off the state’s overburdened prison system. Harris has alienated some critics with her refusal to bring capital cases, but this is hardly a demerit given the profound moral, constitutional and practical questions raised by capital punishment. If elected, Harris promises to uphold the law and defend death sentences imposed by the state.
In addition to electing California’s next attorney general, this race presents voters with the opportunity to consider what they want the office to be. Harris sees it as a convening agent, as a collector and distributor of best practices that could raise the performance of prosecutors throughout the state. That’s a promising idea, and Harris has the energy and the background to attract top-notch deputies to help her realize it.
The security of former Vice President Kamala Harris, once the duty of the U.S. Secret Service, has been thrown into flux, again, days after President Trump canceled her federal protection.
My colleague Richard Winton broke the news Saturday morning that the Los Angeles Police Department, which was assisting the California Highway Patrol in providing security for Harris, has been pulled off the detail after internal criticism of the arrangement.
Let’s jump into what Winton wrote about this quickly-evolving story.
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What happened to Harris’ Secret Service protection?
Former vice presidents usually get Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office, while former presidents are given protection for life.
But before his term ended in January, President Joe Biden signed an order to extend Harris’ protection to July 2026.
Aides to Harris had asked Biden for the extension. Without it, her security detail would have ended last month, according to sources.
Trump ended that arrangement as of Monday.
How did the CHP and LAPD get involved?
Winton wrote Aug. 29 that California officials planned to utilize the CHP as her security detail. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was required to sign off on such CHP protection, would not confirm the arrangement. “Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” said Izzy Gordon, a spokesperson for Newsom. “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses.”
Fox 11 broke the story of the use of LAPD officers earlier this week and got footage of the security detail outside Harris’ Brentwood home from one of its news helicopters.
The effort was described as “temporary” by Jennifer Forkish, L.A. police communications director.
Roughly a dozen or more officers have begun working to protect Harris.
Sources not authorized to discuss the details of the plan said the city would fund the security while Harris was hiring her own security in the near future.
Controversy ensued
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, lambasted the move.
The union did not address Harris as a former vice president, nor as California senator or state attorney general, in its official rebuke.
“Pulling police officers from protecting everyday Angelenos to protect a failed presidential candidate who also happens to be a multi-millionaire, with multiple homes and who can easily afford to pay for her own security, is nuts,” its board of directors said.
The statement continued: Mayor Karen Bass “should tell Governor Newsom that if he wants to curry favor with Ms. Harris and her donor base, then he should open up his own wallet because LA taxpayers should not be footing the bill for this ridiculousness.”
What’s next?
The CHP has not indicated how the LAPD’s move would alter its arrangement with the former vice president or said how long it will continue.
The curtailing of Secret Service protection comes as Harris is going to begin a book tour next month for her memoir, “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, which include visits to London and Toronto. The book title references the short length of her presidential campaign.
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Los Angeles police Metropolitan Division officers, meant to be working crime-suppression assignments in hard-hit areas of the city, are instead providing security for former Vice President Kamala Harris, sources told The Times.
The department is “assisting the California Highway Patrol in providing protective services for former Vice President Kamala Harris until an alternate plan is established,” said Jennifer Forkish, L.A. police communications director. “This temporary coordinated effort is in place to ensure that there is no lapse in security.”
A dozen or more officers have begun working a detail to protect Harris after President Trump revoked her Secret Service protection as of Monday. Sources not authorized to discuss the details of the plan said the city would fund the security but that the arrangement was expected to be brief, with Harris hiring her own security in the near future.
Trump ended an arrangement that had extended Harris’ security coverage beyond the six months that vice presidents are usually provided after leaving office. California officials then put into place a plan for the California Highway Patrol to provide dignitary protection for Harris. At some point, the LAPD was added to the plan, according to the sources, as California law enforcement scrambled to take over from the Secret Service on Monday.
A security detail was captured outside Harris’ Brentwood home by a FOX 11 helicopter as the station broke the story of the use of L.A. police.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, criticized the move.
“Pulling police officers from protecting everyday Angelenos to protect a failed presidential candidate who also happens to be a multi-millionaire, with multiple homes and who can easily afford to pay for her own security, is nuts,” its board of directors said in a statement to The Times. Mayor Karen Bass “should tell Governor Newsom that if he wants to curry favor with Ms. Harris and her donor base, then he should open up his own wallet because LA taxpayers should not be footing the bill for this ridiculousness.”
Newsom, who would need to sign off on CHP protection, has not confirmed the arrangement to The Times. Izzy Gordon, a spokesperson for Newsom, simply said, “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses.”
Newsom’s office and Bass’ office had discussions last week on how best to address the situation, according to sources not authorized to talk about the details.
Bass, in a statement last week, commented on Trump scrapping the security detail for Harris, saying, “This is another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances, and more. This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles.”
Her office did not respond to comment on the LAPD deployment on Thursday.
Two law enforcement sources told The Times that the Metro officers had been slated to go to the San Fernando Valley for crime-suppression work before their assignment changed.
Deploying LAPD officers to protect Harris was a source of controversy within the department in years past.
During L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck’s tenure, when Harris was a U.S. senator, plainclothes officers served as security and traveled with her from January 2017 to July 2018. It was an arrangement that then-Mayor Eric Garcetti said he was unaware of until Beck’s successor ended it. Beck said at the time through a spokesman that the protection was granted based on a threat assessment.
Beck’s successor, Michel Moore, ended the protection in July 2018 after he said a new evaluation determined it was no longer needed. The decision came as The Times filed a lawsuit seeking records from Garcetti detailing the costs of security related to his own extensive travel.
Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday ending Harris’ protection as of Monday, according to sources not authorized to discuss the security matter.
Former vice presidents usually get Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office, while former presidents are given protection for life. But before his term ended, then-President Biden signed an order to extend Harris’ protection beyond six months, to July 2026. Aides to Harris had asked Biden for the extension. Without it, her security detail would have ended last month, according to sources.
The Secret Service, the CHP and Los Angeles police do not discuss details of dignitary protection in terms of deployment, numbers, or travel teams. CNN first reported the removal of Harris’ protection detail.
The curtailing of Secret Service protection comes as Harris is about to begin a book tour for her memoir, titled “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, which include visits to London and Toronto. The book title references the short length of her presidential campaign. The tour begins next month.
Harris, the first Black woman to serve as vice president, was the subject of an elevated threat level — particularly when she became the Democratic presidential contender last year. The Associated Press reports, however, a recent threat intelligence assessment by the Secret Service conducted on those it protects, such as Harris, found no red flags or credible evidence of a threat to the former vice president.
Aug. 30 (UPI) — The California Highway Patrol reportedly will provide security protection for former Vice President Kamala Harris after she lost her Secret Service protection on Thursday.
California officials on Friday bestowed dignitary status on Harris, who has been a private citizen since leaving office on Jan. 19, and will provide her with security protection instead of the Secret Service, The Los Angeles Times reported.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom must sign off on CHP-provided security protection for Harris, but his office declined to comment on the matter.
“Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gordon told The Los Angeles Times.
Harris lives in Los Angeles and has a pending 15-city book tour that starts in New York City on Sept. 24, according to USA Today.
The book tour is scheduled to last for 107 days, which would have required advance Secret Service work if Harris’ protection were to continue.
Outgoing vice presidents receive Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office, but President Joe Biden extended Harris’protection beyond six months upon a request from her aides.
Harris continued benefiting from the protection until President Donald Trump ended it as of Monday via a signed memorandum on Thursday.
The president also had ended Secret Service protection for his adult children, Hunter and Ashley Biden, after their father extended the protection to them through July.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris will receive protection from the California Highway Patrol after President Donald Trump revoked her Secret Service protection, law enforcement sources said Friday.
California officials put in place a plan to provide Harris with dignitary protection after President Trump ended an arrangement that gave his opponent in last year’s election extended Secret Service security coverage.
Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday ending Harris’s protection as of Monday, according to sources not authorized to discuss the security matter.
Former vice presidents usually get Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office, while ex-presidents get protection for life. But before his term ended, then-President Joe Biden signed an order to extend Harris’s protection beyond six months to July 2026. Aides to Harris had asked Biden for the extension. Without it, her security detail would have ended last month, according to sources.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who would need to sign off on such CHP protection, would not confirm the arrangement. “Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” said Izzy Gordon, a spokeswoman for Newsom. “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses.”
The decision came after Newsom’s office and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass were in discussions Thursday evening on how best to address the situation. Harris resides in the western portion of Los Angeles.
Bass in a statement, said “This is another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more. This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles.”
The Secret Service, CHP and LAPD don’t discuss details of dignity protection in terms of deployment, numbers, and travel teams. CNN first reported the removal of Harris’s protection detail. Sources familiar with Harris’ security arrangements would not say how long the CHP would provide protection.
The curtailing of Secret Service protection comes as Harris is about to begin a book tour for her memoir, titled “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, which include visits to London and Toronto. The book, title references the short length of her presidential campaign. The tour begins next month.
Harris, the first Black woman to serve as vice president was the subject of an elevated threat level — particularly when she became the Democratic presidential contender last year. The Associated Press reports, however, a recent threat intelligence assessment by the Secret Service conducted on those it protects, such as Harris, found no red flags or credible evidence of a threat to the former vice president.
During his second term, President Trump stripped Secret Service protection from several one-time allies turned critics, including his former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both of whom have been targeted by Iran. In March, he ended Secret Service protection for former President Biden’s children — Hunter and Ashley Biden — who both had been granted extended protection by their father.
Harris’ predecessor, Vice President Mike Pence, did not have extended Secret Service protection beyond the standard six months.
Harris, a former senator, state attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, announced earlier this year she won’t seek to run for California governor in 2026.
During last year’s campaign, Trump faced two assassination attempts, including the July 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a Secret Service counter sniper shot a gunman dead after he fired eight shots, killing an attendee, wounding two others and grazing Trump’s right ear.
Times Staff Writer Melody Gutierrez and the Associated Press contributed to this story
William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, was the last commander in chief born a British subject and the first member of the Whig Party to win the White House. He delivered the longest inaugural address in history, nearly two hours, and had the shortest presidency, being the first sitting president to die in office, just 31 days into his term.
Oh, there is one more bit of trivia about the man who gave us the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Harrison was the last politician to lose his first presidential election and then win the next one (Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson managed that before him). Richard Nixon lost only to win way down the road. (Grover Cleveland and Trump are the only two to win, lose and then win again.)
Everyone else since Harrison’s era who lost on the first try and ran again in the next election lost again. Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Thomas Dewey ran twice and lost twice. Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan each ran three times in a row and lost (Clay ran on three different party tickets). Voters, it seems, don’t like losers.
These are not encouraging results for Kamala Harris, who announced last week she will not be running for governor in California, sparking speculation that she wants another go at the White House.
But history isn’t what she should worry about. It’s the here and now. The Democratic Party is wildly unpopular. It’s net favorability ( 30 points) is nearly triple the GOP’s (11 points). The Democratic Party is more unpopular than any time in the last 35 years. When Donald Trump’s unpopularity with Democrats should be having the opposite effect, 63% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the party.
Why? Because Democrats are mad at their own party — both for losing to Trump and for failing to provide much of an obstacle to him now that he’s in office. As my Dispatch colleague Nick Cattogio puts it, “Even Democrats have learned to hate Democrats.”
It’s not all Harris’ fault. Indeed, the lion’s share of the blame goes to Joe Biden and the coterie of enablers who encouraged him to run again.
Harris’ dilemma is that she symbolizes Democratic discontent with the party. That discontent isn’t monolithic. For progressives, the objection is that Democrats aren’t fighting hard enough. For the more centrist wing of the party, the problem is the Democrats are fighting for the wrong things, having lurched too far left on culture war and identity politics. Uniting both factions is visceral desire to win. That’s awkward for a politician best known for losing.
Almost the only reason Harris was positioned to be the nominee in 2024 was that she was a diversity pick. Biden was explicit that he would pick a woman and, later, an African American running mate. And the same dynamic made it impossible to sideline her when Biden withdrew.
Of course, most Democrats don’t see her race and gender as a problem, and in the abstract they shouldn’t. Indeed, every VP pick is a diversity pick, including the white guys. Running mates are chosen to appeal to some part of a coalition.
So Harris’ problem isn’t her race or sex; it’s her inability to appeal to voters in a way that expands the Democratic coalition. For Democrats to win, they need someone who can flip Trump voters. She didn’t lose because of low Democratic turnout, she lost because she’s uncompelling to a changing electorate.
Her gauzy, often gaseous, rhetoric made her sound like a dean of students at a small liberal arts college. With the exception of reproductive rights, her convictions sounded like they were crafted by focus groups, at a time when voters craved authenticity. Worse, Harris acquiesced to Biden’s insistence she not distance herself from him.
Such clubby deference to the establishment combined with boilerplate pandering to progressive constituencies — learned from years of San Francisco and California politics — makes her the perfect solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Her choice to appear on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” for her first interview since leaving office was telling. CBS recently announced it was terminating both Colbert and the show, insisting it was purely a business decision. But the reason for the broadcast network’s decision stemmed in part from the fact that Colbert narrow-casts his expensive show to a very small, very anti-Trump slice of the electorate.
“I don’t want to go back into the system. I think it’s broken,” Harrislamented to Colbert, decrying the “naïve” and “feckless” lack of “leadership” and the “capitulation” of those who “consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy.”
That’s all catnip to Colbert’s ideologically committed audience. But that’s not the audience Democrats need to win. And that’s why, if Democrats nominate her again, she’ll probably go down in history as an answer to a trivia question. And it won’t be “Who was the 48th president of the United States?”
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The Democratic Party faces historic unpopularity, with a net favorability 30 points lower than Republicans, driven by widespread dissatisfaction among its own base over losses to Trump and perceived ineffectiveness in opposing his policies[1].
Kamala Harris’ political challenges stem from internal Democratic factions: progressives blame her for insufficient fight while centrists view her as emblematic of leftward shifts on cultural issues, both detractors united by a desire to win[1].
Harris’s VP selection was viewed as a diversity-driven symbolic gesture by Biden, limiting her ability to build broader appeal beyond traditional Democratic coalitions, as seen in her 2024 loss[1].
Her communication style is criticized as overly generic and focus-group-driven, lacking authenticity required to attract Trump voters, while her ties to Biden and reluctance to distance herself from his leadership are seen as electoral liabilities[1].
Historical precedents suggest candidates who lose once rarely regain viability in subsequent elections, with Harris’ potential 2028 bid viewed skeptically in light of this pattern[1].
Democratic messaging under Harris risks pandering to niche progressive audiences (e.g., her Colbert interview appeal) rather than expanding outreach to swing voters, exacerbating perceptions of elitism[1].
Different views on the topic
Harris remains a strong potential front-runner in the 2026 California governor’s race, with analysts noting her viability despite a crowded field and lingering questions about Biden’s health influencing her decision-making[1].
The Democratic Party is actively reassessing its strategy post-2024, focusing on reconnecting with working-class voters and addressing core issues like affordability and homelessness, suggesting a shift toward pragmatic problem-solving[1].
Harris’ announcement to forgo the governor’s race has been interpreted as positioning for a 2028 presidential bid, reflecting her ability to navigate political calculations with long-term ambition[2].
Internal criticisms, such as Antonio Villaraigosa’s demand for transparency on Biden’s health, reflect broader party debates about leadership accountability rather than a rejection of Harris’ Senate or VP legacy[1].
Other rising Democratic voices, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gov. Tim Walz, embody alternatives to Harris’ messaging, indicating the party’s capacity to diversify leadership beyond established figures[2].
Whether you like Harris or not, a possible run by the XX chromosome former vice president raises a perennial conundrum: Can a woman win the presidency?
She’s a professor of government and director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University. She points out that post-election, Democrats can’t figure out who they are or what they stand for. In that disarray, it may seem easy and safe in 2028 to travel the well-worn route of “a straight, old white guy who fills the status quo.”
That may be especially true in the Trump era, when an increasingly vocal and empowered slice of America seems to believe that women do, in fact, belong in the kitchen making sanwhiches, far away from any decision beyond turkey or ham.
Post-2024, Harris’ defeat — and deciphering what it means — has caused a lot of “morning-after anxiety and agita,” she said. “We’re all doing research, we’re all in the field trying to figure this out.”
While confused Democrats diddle in private with their feelings, Republicans have made race and gender the center of their platform, even if they cloak it under economic talk. The party’s position on race has become painfully clear with its stance that all undocumented immigrants are criminals and deserving of horrific detention in places such as “Alligator Alcatraz” or even foreign prisons known for torture.
The Republican position on women is slightly more cloaked, but no less retrograde. Whether it’s the refusal to tell the public how Trump is included in the Epstein files, the swift and brutal erosion of reproductive rights, or claims, such as the one by far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk, that the only reason for women to attend college should be to get a “Mrs.” degree, Republicans have made little secret of the fact that equality is not part of their package.
Although Trump’s approval ratings have tanked over immigration, he did win just over half of the popular vote last fall. So that’s a lot of Americans who either agree with him, or at least aren’t bothered by these pre-civil rights ideas on race and gender.
Add to that reality the eager pack of nice, safe Democratic white guys who are lining up for their own chance at the Oval Office — our current California governor included — and it does beg the question for the left: Is a woman worth the risk?
“I’ve definitely seen and heard consultants and, you know, even anxious women donors say, ‘Maybe this means we can’t run a woman.’ And I think it’s completely normal for certain elements of the party to be anxious about gender,” said Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, a grassroots advocacy group.
She too thinks the gender question is “logical” since it has been blamed — though not by her — as “the reason we lost to Donald Trump twice in a row, right? Whereas Biden was able to beat him.”
While Timmaraju is clear that those losses can’t — and shouldn’t — be tied to gender alone, gender also can’t be ignored when the margins are thin.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive political organizing group Our Revolution, which backed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, said that gender and race are always a factor, but he believes the bigger question for any candidate in 2028 will be their platform.
Harris, he said, “lost not because she was a woman. She lost because she did not embrace an economic populist message. And I think the electorate is angry about their standard of living declining, and they’re angry about the elites controlling D.C. and enriching themselves.”
Greevarghese told me he sees an opposite momentum building within the party and the electorate — a desire to not play it safe.
“Whoever it is — male, female, gay, straight, Black, white, Asian — the candidate’s got to have a critique of this moment, and it can’t be a normie Dem.”
Brown, the professor, adds, rightfully, that looking at the question of a female candidate’s chances through the lens of just Harris is too narrow. There are lots of women likely to jump into the race. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are just two names already in the mix. Brown adds that an outside contender such as a woman from a political dynasty (think Obama) or a celebrity along the lines of Trump could also make headway.
The criticisms of Harris, with her baggage of losing the election and critiques of how she handled the campaign and the media, may not dog another female candidate, especially with voters.
“Whether Kamala runs again or not, I’m optimistic that the American people will vote for a female president,” Vanessa Cardenas told me. She is the executive director of America’s Voice, an advocacy group for immigrants’ rights.
“After the chaos, cruelty and incompetence of the Trump presidency, Latino voters, like most Americans, will reward candidates who can speak most authentically and seem most ready to fight for an alternative vision of America,” she said. “I believe women, and women of color, can credibility and forcibly speak to the need for change rooted in the lived experiences of their communities.”
Timmaraju said that regardless of what Harris decides, Democrats will probably have one of the most robust primaries in recent times — which can only be good for the party and for voters.
And rather than asking, “Can a woman win?” the better question would be, “Do we really want a system that won’t let them try?”
In her first interview since losing the election to President Trump and leaving office, former Vice President Kamala Harris told Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” that her decision not to run for California governor was more “basic” than saving herself for a “different office” — which is to say, another run for president in 2028.
After years of being a “devout public servant,” Harris said in the interview, set to air Thursday night, she just doesn’t want to be “in the system” right now.
“Recently I made the decision that I just — for now — I don’t want to go back in the system,” she said. “I think it’s broken.”
She said that was not to take away from the important work being done every day by “so many good people who are public servants,” such as teachers, firefighters, police officers and scientists.
“It’s not about them,” she said. “But you know, I believe, and I always believed, that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think right now that they’re not as strong as they need to be.”
She said she instead wants to travel the country and talk to Americans in a setting that isn’t “transactional, where I’m asking for their vote.”
Colbert said to hear Harris — whom he called “very qualified for the presidency” — say that the American system is broken was “harrowing.”
“Well, but it’s also evident, isn’t it?” Harris replied, to applause from the studio audience.
The interview came on the heels of Harris’ announcements this week that she is not running for California governor and is releasing a memoir about her short, whirlwind presidential campaign following President Biden’s decision to drop from the race, and it was a big get for Colbert in what appears to be his final chapter on late-night TV.
CBS, blaming financial concerns across late night, announced July 17 that the 2025-2026 season of “The Late Show” would be its last.
The announcement followed Colbert sharply criticizing Paramount Global’s $16-million settlement with Trump over a CBS News “60 Minutes” interview with Harris during the presidential campaign, which Trump accused the venerable news show of manipulating to make her look better.
Paramount Global was at the time seeking a major merger with Skydance Media and needed the Trump administration’s approval, which it ultimately got. Just days before the announcement that his show would be ending, Colbert described the “60 Minutes” settlement as a bribe to get the merger deal done.
All that caused many observers and allies of Colbert to speculate that the cancellation of the show was political in nature. The Writers Guild of America, for example, said the company appeared to be “sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration.”
Trump said it was “not true” that he was “solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert,” and that the “reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT” and that Colbert’s show was losing Paramount millions of dollars a year.
“And it was only going to get WORSE!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Paramount has said the decision was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” though some polling has suggested many Americans don’t believe the company.
It’s unclear whether Harris considered any of that in granting Colbert her first interview since leaving office. However, it would almost certainly not have been her only reason.
Colbert is liberal and seen as a friendly interviewer by Democrats.
During Thursday’s interview, the late-night host heaped praise on Harris. After saying it was “harrowing” to hear she feels the system is broken, he asked whether she was giving up fighting.
Harris said she was not.
“I am always going to be part of the fight,” Harris said. “That is not going to change.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris closed a big door when she announced Wednesday that she would not run for California governor. But she left open a heap of others.
Departing presidents, vice presidents, first ladies and failed presidential candidates have pursued a wide variety of paths in the past. Empowered with name recognition and influence but with no official role to fill, they possess the freedom to choose their next adventure.
Al Gore took up a cause in global warming, while George W. Bush took up painting. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton went on to become secretary of State, while Donald Trump fought off prosecutors, launched new business ventures and plotted his return to power. Barack and Michelle Obama grew their foundation, wrote books and started a production company — and both have done podcasts, too — while remaining prominent voices within the Democratic Party.
Of course, Harris could focus all her energy on another run for president in 2028. But how would she do that, and what would she do to remain politically relevant in the meantime? Which other paths might she choose instead?
“She just finished writing a book. She’s finally decided she’s not running for governor. But to be prescriptive about what role she’s going to play next and how it’s going to look would be premature,” said Harris senior advisor Kirsten Allen.
Experts in power and political leadership expect Harris’ next move to be something in the public eye, given she is relatively young at 60 and no doubt wants her last chapter in the spotlight to be something other than her humbling loss to Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
“Even if it isn’t the governorship of California, the idea of wanting something else other than the 2024 election to be the last thing Kamala Harris ever did would be very appealing,” said Gregory H. Winger, an assistant professor of public and international affairs at the University of Cincinnati who has studied former presidents’ lingering influence.
Winger said his research showed those “most active in trying to be influential” in their post-White House years were those whose time in office ended on a sour note, such as failing to win reelection.
“It’s kind of a frustrated ambition that then leads into higher activity,” Winger said — and Harris has that.
In her announcement about not running for governor, Harris was careful to leave her options open — framing her hopes for the future around ideals such as “fighting for the American people.”
She said she is a “devout public servant” who has long believed the best way to make a difference was to “improve the system from within.” But she also said “our politics, our government, and our institutions have too often failed the American people,” and that “we must be willing to pursue change through new methods and fresh thinking — committed to our same values and principles, but not bound by the same playbook.”
Harris said she looked forward talking to more Americans while helping to elect other Democrats.
Within 24 hours, she had announced a book deal for her forthcoming memoir, “107 Days,” which will chronicle her whirlwind 2024 presidential campaign, and her first interview since the election on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Thursday night.
Nathanael Fast, director of the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making at the USC Marshall School of Business, said Harris’ talk of “getting back out and listening” is consistent with her wanting to reclaim a prominent national role. That could mean another presidential run, he said, but it could also mean something else — particularly in the short term, where she has work to do recasting people’s perceptions of her.
“If she can create a compelling narrative about who she is, what she’s done, what happened in the last election and where she’s headed next,” Fast said, “she’ll be more likely to succeed.”
Fast said his bet is that she runs for president, but he could also see her going the route of Gore — who, after losing the presidential election, decided to move in a different direction to have worldwide impact by addressing climate change.
“I can imagine someone like Harris taking on artificial intelligence and saying, ‘My whole thing is trying to influence the national conversation around what’s going to happen with AI,’” Fast said.
Artificial intelligence was part of her portfolio as vice president and is a topic Harris cares deeply about, said a source familiar with her thinking who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about her next steps.
Harris also will have to tread carefully as she works to reassert her influence in the Democratic Party, which is still reeling from a second loss to Trump, experts said.
Democrats have struggled to unify the disparate elements of their party and settle on kitchen-table messaging that appeals to voters about the everyday challenges they face, said Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College.
After she lost to Trump, a convicted felon targeted with several other criminal investigations, “Harris exemplifies the inability to thread that needle.”
Whatever Harris does to break through, it won’t be easy in today’s saturated media and political marketplace, which is so vastly different from what other former White House occupants faced.
After he declined to run for reelection in 1928, former President Coolidge wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Today, Harris would be more likely to launch a podcast — but whether it will catch on nationally is anyone’s guess.
Winger said Harris does have massive name recognition, and Fast said she has many of the important forms of “capital” for a leader to continue being successful and influential — including financial and social.
Still, “it’s tough,” Winger said. “It’s a very different media ecosystem just because of how crowded and how fractured it has become.”
Kyle Lierman, who worked for more than six years in the Obama White House, is now chief executive of Civic Nation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that houses several education, gender equity and voter initiatives — including When We All Vote, the voter initiative Michelle Obama launched in 2018.
Lierman said he is excited to see what Harris does next, as it’s likely to show her “best side.”
“When you’re at the White House, you are working on a dozen different topics every day, and you are trying to make as big an impact as possible before the clock runs out,” Lierman said. “And when you leave, you have an opportunity to step back, think longer term, and go deeper on a few issues that you’re particularly passionate about. And I think that’s liberating in some ways.”
Former Sen. Laphonza Butler, a longtime friend of Harris’, said the former vice president might draw from the blueprints laid out by her recent predecessors.
“Whether you’re talking about the Clinton Global Initiative or When We All Vote … or the work that’s happening at the Obama Foundation, I think there’s plenty of examples,” Butler said.
Many former presidents have leveraged their experience in foreign affairs — and existing relationships with foreign leaders — to continue holding sway in international relations, particularly when members of their own party return to power. President Clinton, for instance, used President Carter in that way.
Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, said Harris could be “really effective” in bolstering organizations that work for racial justice and to elect women, but said “that’s not what she was organizing her political career around” before the 2024 election and it may not be the path she chooses now.
Gillespie said she read Harris’ statement as indicating that she was most interested in finding a way to force change outside of government. She said she could see Harris — who is already in California, and whose husband Doug Emhoff is an entertainment lawyer — moving into production and podcasts like the Obamas.
Gillespie said she also could see Harris working closely with Howard University, her alma mater in Washington, D.C., on fundraising or building out a new center of study, as Joe Biden did at the University of Delaware.
“She’s still relatively young, and still could have a good 15 to 20 years of active engagement ahead of her,” Gillespie said, “in whatever form she wants that to take.”
By closing one door, Kamala Harris has left another ajar.
Running for California governor in 2026, which she ruled out Wednesday, would almost certainly have precluded another run for the White House in 2028 — something Harris explicitly did not rule out.
There were significant hurdles to attempting both.
To have any chance of being governor, Harris would have almost certainly have had to swear off another presidential bid, convincing California voters that the state’s top political job was not something she viewed, blithely, as a mere placeholder or springboard to the White House.
There also would have been the practical difficulty of running the nation’s most populous state, a maw of endless crises and challenges, while at the same time pursuing the presidency. No California governor has ever done so successfully, though several tried.
Unlike others — Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to name a few — Harris has never burned with a fever to be California governor. She had a clear shot at the position in 2016, but opted instead to run for the U.S. Senate, in part because the role seemed like a better launching venue for a try at the White House.
Privately, several of those closest to Harris questioned whether she had much appetite to deal with the myriad aggravations of being governor — the stroking and hand-holding of recalcitrant lawmakers, the mind-numbing drafting of an annual budget, the endless march of disasters, both natural and man-made.
Not least, many wondered whether Harris would be content returning to the small stage of Sacramento after traveling the world as vice president and working in the rarefied air of politics at its peak.
There is every possibility that Harris will retire from public life.
Sean Clegg, a longtime Harris advisor, noted the Democrat has spent more than two decades in elected office. “I think she’s interested in exploring how she can have an impact from the outside for a while,” Clegg said.
For her part, Harris said she looked forward “to getting back out and listening to the American people [and] helping Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly.”
Doesn’t sound like life in a cloister.
If Harris did run for president, she’d start out as a nominal front-runner, based on her universal name recognition and deep nationwide fundraising base — advantages no other contestant could match. But she won’t scare away very many opponents; the Democratic field in 2028 will probably be a large and expansive one, as it was the first time Harris ran for president in 2020. (And notably crashed and burned.)
Charlie Cook, who has spent decades as a nonpartisan political handicapper, said he would view Harris “as a serious contender, but no more so than a handful of other people would be.”
Normally, Cook went on, her status as the party’s most recent vice president would give her a significant, if not overwhelming, edge. “But I think the desire/need to turn the corner and get some separation from Biden probably strips away any advantage that she would have,” Cook said.
Harris got a small taste of the Biden burden she could carry in the 2028 campaign when two of her prospective gubernatorial rivals — former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra — suggested she was complicit in covering up Biden’s mental and physical frailties.
“She could say she didn’t know,” Villaraigosa taunted in a May interview. “They can’t prove that she did. But last time I looked, she had lunch with him pretty regularly. … She had to have seen what the world [saw] over time and particularly in that debate. The notion that she didn’t? Come on. Who’s going to buy that?”
A strategist for one potential presidential rival suggested Democrats were eager to turn the page on Biden and, along with him, Harris.
“There’s a lot of respect for her taking on the challenge of cleaning up Biden’s mess in 2024,” said the strategist, who asked to remain nameless to avoid compromising an as-yet-unannounced candidate. “But I think it’s going to be a hard sell. She lost to Donald Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony counts and run out of D.C. in shame. There is some blame there for his return.”
Should Harris make a third try for the White House, it raises the intriguing possibility of facing her fellow Californian, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been effectively running for president for the last several months. The two, who came up together in the elbows-out world of San Francisco politics, have had a decades-long rivalry, sharing many of the same donors and, once upon a time, the same set of strategists.
If the two ran, it would be the first time since 1968 that a pair of major Californians faced off for their party’s presidential nomination.
That year, Gov. Ronald Reagan made a late, failed attempt to overtake Richard Nixon, the former vice president and U.S. senator from California.
At it happened, Nixon had waged an unsuccessful 1962 run for California governor after leaving the White House. While that failure didn’t stop him from eventually winning the White House, it certainly didn’t help. In fact, Nixon left California and moved to the East Coast, taking a job at a white-shoe law firm and using New York City as his political base of operations.
Harris’ announcement Wednesday promised “more details in the months ahead about my own plans.” She said nothing about relocating or leaving California behind.
The Democrats running for California governor have spent the spring and summer working to win over the powerful donors and interest groups who could help them squeak through a competitive primary election.
But the candidates, and many deep-pocketed Democrats, are still waiting for the decision that will have the biggest impact on the race: whether former Vice President Kamala Harris is running.
Since Harris lost to President Trump in November, the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom has been in suspended animation, with candidates trying to plan their campaigns without knowing who their biggest opponents will be. A few are making contingency plans to run for other offices. And some major donors are waiting to write big checks.
The Democrats in the race are talking to many of the same potential donors, Thurmond said, and most have the same question: “Is she going to run?” The only answer, Thurmond said, is an unsatisfying one: “We don’t know.”
Since leaving Washington in January, Harris has mostly stayed out of the public eye, settling back into her Brentwood home with her husband, Doug Emhoff, and talking to close friends and confidantes about what she should do next. She is weighing whether to leave politics, run for governor or run for president for a third time. She is expected to make a decision about the gubernatorial race by the end of summer.
The Democrats who are already running for governor lack Harris’ star power, and her entry could upend the race. But the former vice president would also face questions about her 107-day sprint to the White House, what she knew about President Biden’s decline and whether someone who has run unsuccessfully for president twice really wants to be California’s governor.
“She is looking closely where is the best place to put her energy and focus and her time,” said Debbie Mesloh, a longtime Harris ally.
Harris had originally planned to take a two-week vacation at the end of this month but has canceled her trip, according to someone familiar with her plans.
Harris has also been in New York, where she attended Broadway plays and the exclusive Met Gala; in San Francisco, where she dined with her niece Meena at the high-end Japanese restaurant Shoji; and in Los Angeles, where she has shopped for groceries at a 99 Ranch Market in Westwood and the Brentwood Farmers Market.
As the months have worn on, some gubernatorial campaigns have started to think that Harris’ victory feels like less of a foregone conclusion than if she’d announced in January after leaving office.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Biden Cabinet secretary Xavier Becerra and former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine have said that they will stay in the race no matter what.
Veteran state Senate leader Toni Atkins of San Diego said she is also staying in if Harris runs, saying in a statement that “while the vice president has her own path, our campaign is moving full speed ahead.”
Former state Controller Betty Yee said in an interview this week that even if Harris runs, she is staying in, too.
“No, no, no,” Yee said, of the possibility of seeking another statewide office. Being governor, she said, “is what I feel like I’ve prepared to do. I will be staying in the race and really leaning into my fiscal and financial background.”
Yee said when she talks to donors, they want to know two things: how California can push back against the Trump administration, and what she will do if Harris enters the race.
Dan Newman, a political strategist who’s worked for Newsom, Harris and several of the gubernatorial candidates, said that the race is at an odd inflection point, with candidates who “don’t know who their potential voters are, because they don’t know who they’re running against,” and some donors who are waiting — at least for now — to write big checks.
“They’ve got a good excuse to not give, because even if they are a big fan of a candidate who’s in the race now, they don’t know if the candidate will stay in the race,” Newman said. “Then there are others who don’t want to give to someone who might run against her.”
Eric Jaye, a political strategist who previously worked for Villaraigosa’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign and advised Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco, said he’s hearing “frustration” from donors who are ready to see the race pick up speed.
“They’re not going to wait much longer,” Jaye said. “There are going to be donors who say, ‘We have to go. We’re not going to wait for you.’”
But even if Harris entered, that wouldn’t be a guarantee that donors would back her again, including those who are angry that she spent nearly $1.5 billion in campaign funds in her compressed campaign for the White House in 2024.
“The money is very, very upset with her,” said gubernatorial candidate Stephen Cloobeck, a businessman and Democratic donor who is running for California governor. “They’re my friends. I’m part of that money. Everyone is thoroughly reeling.”
The amount of money that candidates raise is one way to gauge their support — and prospects. That picture remains a little fuzzy, though, since gubernatorial candidates have until July 31 to report their fundraising hauls from the first half of the year.
The only candidate to release numbers so far is Becerra, who said he raised $2.4 million since entering the race in early April, including a $1.1-million transfer from his congressional campaign account. Becerra’s campaign has $2 million on hand, including the largest contributions allowed by law — $39,200 — from the politically connected Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and Pechanga Band of Indians.
Campaigns are required to report contributions of $5,000 or more shortly after they receive them. Those figures don’t represent total fundraising, but can still show a campaign’s trajectory.
Three of the eight candidates have raised less than $100,000 this year in chunks of more than $5,000 at a time, state data show. Yee reported $71,900 and Thurmond, $32,500.
Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis reported raising $70,000, including $5,000 from Google. Her campaign said Kounalakis, who has been raising money since entering the race in April 2023, has $9 million on hand.
“I want to be clear that I’m in this race to win,” Kounalakis said.
Villaraigosa, who entered the race last summer, has raised almost $1 million this year through large donations, data show. Atkins reported about $381,000 this year, and Cloobeck, about $132,000.
Porter, who entered the race in March, reported almost $475,000 in larger contributions, according to state data. She also transferred $942,000 from her U.S. Senate account to her gubernatorial account, according to federal filings made public Tuesday.
