A staff member for former Vice President Kamala Harris pleaded with the hosts of “The View” to revisit a question during an October 2024 interview. They wanted to see if Harris would provide a different response on how her actions would have varied from President Joe Biden, according to insights from a new book.
“As the widely-shared footage from ‘The View’ shows, she gives a specific answer, and our book details how her aides were seen backstage, visibly frustrated with their heads in their hands. They attempted to persuade the hosts to ask the question again, in hopes Harrison might change her response, which ultimately didn’t happen,” Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, noting Harris’ reluctance to set herself apart from Biden.
The book titled “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” penned by Dawsey, Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnsdorf, and New York Times reporter Tyler Pager, was published on Tuesday.
Harris sat down with the co-hosts of “The View” in October 2024, as liberal host Sunny Hostin asked the former vice president if there was anything she would have done differently than Biden over the course of their administration to date.
Harris responded, “there is not a thing that comes to mind.” Her response quickly went viral and was widely viewed as a misstep, given Biden’s unpopularity and Harris passing up a chance to create some respectful distance.
Hostin initially asked Harris about the biggest specific difference between a potential Harris presidency and Biden’s presidency. The then-vice president said the two were obviously two different people and said she planned to focus on home healthcare.
The new book explains that Harris aide Stephanie Cutter asked two of the co-hosts to try asking Harris the question again.
“Backstage on The View’s set in Manhattan, Rob Flaherty, a deputy campaign manager, put his head into his hands and swore. During the next commercial break, Stephanie Cutter went to cohosts Whoopi Goldberg and Ana Navarro to ask them to try the question again, but Harris didn’t get a second chance. After the interview, Harris knew she’d messed up and asked how big the problem was,” the authors wrote.
An adviser said her answer on the liberal ABC talkshow was “the defining error of the campaign,” the authors reported.
Harris didn’t give the answer she prepared with her aides, which according to the authors, praised Biden and emphasized that she didn’t want to look back and critique their administration.
The prepared answer also acknowledged that she was her own person.
Her aides also encouraged her to mention that she planned to appoint a Republican to her cabinet, which the former vice president did mention towards the end of the interview.
Dawsey said during the MSNBC appearance on Tuesday that Harris didn’t want to create public distance from Biden.
“She thinks it won’t be authentic, she believes that it wouldn’t work,” he said.
