Biden planned to just exit presidential race, Kamala Harris pleaded for a prompt endorsement
A forthcoming book on Kamala Harris’s presidential election which already hit the headlines because of the sensational revelations it made has claimed that Kamala Harris had to plead former president Joe Biden for a prompt endorsement for her as the presidential candidate. Biden’s announcement was only about his decision to step away from the presidential fight.
“You need to endorse me,” Harris begged Biden in the moments before the ticket switch-up, as reported by The Hill’s Amie Parnes and NBC News’s Jonathan Allen in excerpts from “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” which is set for release Tuesday.
The book revealed that Harris knew that the nomination was coming her way but she did not want a bigger gap between Joe Biden’s exit and his statement of support for Kamala Harris.
“She knew that if Biden stepped aside without explicitly backing her, it would be taken as a statement that he lacked confidence in her ability to win or to do the job — or both,” according to the book. “That could mean crib death for a battle that she had not yet begun to fight. She also knew that a failure to throw his weight behind her would suggest that he had made the wrong decision in choosing her as his number two in the first place.”
Harris told Biden ‘this is important for your legacy’
The book revealed that Harris told Biden that endorsing his straightaway would be important for Biden’s legacy that he has absolute faith in his VP. When Biden suggested waiting a couple of days after his exit announcement to make the endorsement, Harris said “too much daylight” would risk “mischief and confusion”, the book said.
When Biden ran his statement by Rep. James Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat said “there’s something missing” and stressed the president couldn’t “leave the field without endorsing a successor,” Parnes and Allen reported. Clyburn had the same apprehension like Harris that if Biden leaves without endorsing a name, it would lead to a vacuum.
“Obama’s going to try to rope me into some kind of mini- primary,’ Clyburn thought. ‘It will be easier to fend him off if I’ve already endorsed Harris.’ When Obama called that evening, the conversation lasted less than a minute. Clyburn said the party should unify behind Harris and that ‘anything else will lead to a real tough convention, which will lead to defeat at the polls.’”
