Kamala Harris made history as vice president. The rest didn't go as planned - ABC News
By: ABC News
Kamala Harris has hinted that she wants to stay involved in politics and foreign affairs after leaving the vice president's office, but she hasn't disclosed any plans so far
ByCHRIS MEGERIAN Associated PressJanuary 17, 2025, 12:44 AM
WASHINGTON -- With Donald Trump's return to the White House only days away, Kamala Harris ' staff packed into her ceremonial office to watch her sign the desk, a tradition performed by her predecessors for decades. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, stood behind her to take a photo as she wielded her Sharpie marker.
"It is not my nature to go quietly into the night," Harris said Thursday. "So don't worry about that."
But what is next for her?
"I'll keep you posted," she said.
Harris hasn't made any plans for after leaving office Monday, apart from flying home to California. It will be the first time since 2004, when she became San Francisco's district attorney, that she hasn't held elected office.
There's talk that she'll write a book and speculation that she could run for governor or maybe president again. At 60 years old, Harris is still young in a political world where the last two presidents have set records as the oldest ever elected.
Donna Brazile, a longtime leader in the Democratic Party, recalled telling Harris that she needs to take a break and "learn what it's like to oversleep" for a while. They both laughed, and Brazile said, "Yeah, you'll never go back to being ordinary."
Brazile was campaign manager for Al Gore, the last sitting vice president to run for the top job.
"I've had more people call me about what's next for Kamala Harris than called me about what's next for Al Gore," she said.
Harris' term was both ordinary and extraordinary. Like many of her predecessors, she spent her time tending to a portfolio of issues — migration, abortion rights and maternal health among them — and representing the country overseas. Sometimes she struggled to distinguish herself, a common challenge in a job that comes with little constitutional responsibility.
But Harris also made history as the first woman, Black person or person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. And last year, Harris was thrust into an unprecedented situation when President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed her as his successor.
There were only 107 days left in the campaign, leaving Harris in a sprint for the presidency. She instantly reset the terms of the race against Trump, who is nearly two decades older than her, but was unable to defeat him.
Many Democrats blamed Biden for running in the first place and putting Harris in an impossible position. Harris faced her own criticism, too.
Some said she should have sent a more populist message instead of focusing on Trump's antidemocratic threats by campaigning with Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman. She also failed to separate herself from Biden, who remains deeply unpopular with voters.
Minyon Moore, who chaired last year's Democratic National Convention, downplayed the criticisms by saying "ifa, woulda, coulda, shoulda."
With Harris facing such an unusual campaign, Moore said, "there was no road map for what she should have done."
Harris hasn't answered questions about her loss, nor has she shared her own perspective on the election. Her public remarks have been limited to rallying cries for students and others who are disappointed by Trump's victory, especially after Democrats described him as an existential threat to the country.
"No one can walk away," Harris said in one speech. "We must stay in the fight. Every one of us."
Harris hoped to close out her term with an around-the-world trip to Singapore, Bahrain and Germany, a final opportunity to showcase her role on foreign policy. But she decided to stay in Washington as wildfires spread around Los Angeles. Her own house, in the Brentwood neighborhood, has been in an evacuation zone.
Harris didn't travel to the area because she was concerned about diverting local resources from responding to the fire, according to an official in her office who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss her planning.
Despite canceling her overseas trip, Harris has signaled her interest in remaining involved on the global stage. She's spent time in her final week in office making calls to foreign leaders including King Abdullah II of Jordan, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo.
On Wednesday, she was in the Oval Office to watch Biden give his farewell address. He described her as "a great partner," and they embraced after the speech.
Biden chose Harris as his running mate after her first presidential campaign stalled four years ago. After taking office, her schedule was limited by the coronavirus pandemic and her obligations on Capitol Hill. With the U.S. Senate evenly divided, she was often called on to cast tiebreaking votes, eventually setting a record as she helped advance judicial nominees and landmark legislation.
"She had to find her role," said Joel Goldstein, a historian who has studied the vice presidency. "It took some time to figure it out."
Moore remembered an Oval Office meeting with Harris and other senior advisers as Biden deliberated whom to nominate for the U.S. Supreme Court. Although it was unlikely that a liberal justice would have many opportunities to write majority opinions on a court dominated by conservatives, Moore said Harris focused on which candidate would harness the platform to issue dissenting opinions.
Harris wanted "somebody who could think through the nuances of writing those dissensions," Moore said. Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, fulfilling his promise to put a Black woman on the bench, and she's often drawn attention for her sharp dissenting opinions.
One of Harris' original tasks, reducing migration from Central America, became a political burden. Republicans described her as the "border czar" and blamed her for illegal crossings. However, fewer migrants came from the countries where Harris focused her efforts.
She met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Munich shortly before the Russian invasion began three years ago, and she spent a week in Africa to lay the groundwork for renewed U.S. engagement.
Harris also traveled three times to Southeast Asia as the administration tried to reorient foreign policy to confront China's influence.
"She had the perception that we could use even more of an emphasis on this occasionally overlooked part of the world," said Phil Gordon, Harris' national security adviser.
Abortion rights became a defining issue for Harris after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Biden was more hesitant on the topic, and Harris started headlining the White House's efforts.
Lorraine Voles, Harris' chief of staff, said the court decision was "a turning point" for the vice president.
"That opened up a lane for her in a way that maybe wasn't there previously," she said. "People were not focused on the issue of maternal health and reproductive health until people began to see it threatened."
Nadia Brown, a Georgetown University government professor who focuses on Black women and politics, said Harris will "certainly go down in the history books" for breaking down racial and gender barriers in politics.
She said Harris' time as vice president helped expand the views of "everyday Americans who might have misconceptions about what a leader could be or should be."
The only question left is what Harris decides to do now.
"It's not over," Brown said. "But I'm not sure what that next chapter is."
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Oh well and thank God..........now, pull a Copperfield and disappear.
"It's not my nature to go quietly into the night."
That's funny. A great number of Americans firmly hopes she'll just do that. The Americans that voted her out have had enough of her.
Especially given she was told to go away TWICE.
4 years later and she hasn't found her role.
She was chosen because she was a woman and who, as an extra bonus, was black. Expecting her to succeed at anything else was asking too much.
Harris had no qualifications other than being a racial minority and female?
Those were the only qualifications Biden was looking for.
You actually believe that? You believe that Biden would have just as soon pick the first female minority off the street? That he gave no consideration to experience, education, demeanor, integrity, etc.?
Belief has nothing to do with it. It was HIS statement.
The fact that Biden sought a female VP has never been in dispute.
You need to pay attention.
The dispute is that Biden only cared that his VP was a female minority ... that he did not care about any other factor.
So, again, ...
You believe that Biden would have just as soon pick the first female minority off the street? That he gave no consideration to experience, education, demeanor, integrity, etc.?
And yet here you are.
Yes, here I am arguing that those were (obviously) not the ONLY criteria for selecting his running mate.
You, et. al. have yet to put forth an argument that Biden did not care about integrity, education, experience, demeanor, etc. and that he literally only cared about gender and race.
It is patently ridiculous to think that a nominee would only consider gender and race when picking the person who could serve as VP. How is it advantageous to you to put forth such an obviously ridiculous claim?
According to Biden, she didn’t need any other qualification.
We’ve been through this many times.
Biden probably thought she was just a little less dumber than Bass, the other finalist.
Back up your claim.
Stating an intent to favor a minority female is not the same as stating that the only criteria for running mate is a human being who is female and a minority.
The fact that it was choice between those two should be setting off fire alarms in the Democratic Party. Harris was an epic failure and she was still probably the correct choice between the two.
Yet 3.1.3 shows it was.
What I put forth was what Biden stated. The rest seems to have come from your imagination.
Yet again, you fail to show that these were the only criteria Biden used.
You are actually claiming that Biden did not care about any factors other than race and gender. That he would have been happy with anyone who met that criteria.
See the video in 3.1.3.
No, Jeremy, show us in the video where Biden states that the only criteria he will use to determine his running mate is gender and race.
You have made that outrageous claim, so you need to back it up.
You wanted proof that he stated that and I provided it.
Totally false. I did not ask for proof of Biden's stated intentions. I know what he said.
I am asking for you to back up the stupid claim that the only thing Biden cared about in terms of qualifications for the vice presidency was gender and race. That Biden literally did not consider any other factors such as experience, education, name-recognition, intelligence, demeanor, etc.
Facts say otherwise.
Don't need to do anything.
Jeremy is handling things quite well.
Then you can deliver a quote from me where I ask you to prove that Biden had announced his intention to have a female running mate and likely a minority.
Deliver that quote.
I have asked you to show that these are the ONLY criteria that Biden used. You know, back up the non-sensical notion that a nominee would not care about education, experience, name-recognition, integrity, demeanor, etc. for the person who could be the next VP.
That's easy:
3.1.18
Asked and answered.
I wanna know who the hell said “only”. Number one and two are all that was stated. He never said anything about other criteria and that came later. Trying to tell people what they said, twisting all the way, is a diversionary tactic used by those trying to save face
That's what happens when one doesn't like a response and they move the goalposts.
And it seems to happen a lot.
Kamala isn't even a smart whore, most of them figure out when their sell by date expires.
What is with this over-the-top misogyny? Are you going to spend the next four years calling Melania a dumb whore too?
I wasn't fucking stupid enough to vote for Kamala, and i don't think anyone was dumb enough to vote for Melania for anything either. It's not my fault the democrats picked an unelectable hooker with only 1 attribute. I passed the California bar on the first try, and the Arkansas and Missouri bars on the first try, how many times did it take Kamala again? it's harder to pass when you can't sleep your way through it.
You think that those who do not pass the Bar exam the first time are stupid??
On what basis do you label Harris a hooker?
And since when does one need to be running for office to be deemed a dumb whore?
They aren't somebody i would be stupid enough to vote for the office of the Presidency, It appears i'm in the majority there.
Hookers make there living off sexual favors for money or gifts, I give you Kamala's entire career as an example.
Who said they did, no more responses for stupid fucking questions like this.
It appears democrats overwhelmingly support first time failures.
What, specifically, are you referring to? The woman was a successful prosecutor, became the DA of San Francisco, was twice elected AG of California. Was elected Senator, was elected VP, was the D nominee for PotUS.
Given you are in such acute judgment of Harris, how do your accomplishments stack up to that?
Oh, yeah, I forgot that you are going to look at this through partisan lenses. Here are some R examples: Governor Pete Wilson, Congressman Harold Ford Jr., Governor Charlie Crist, Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Are these men all stupid in your eyes?
If you were trying to make some bullshit point you failed epically, 3 out of 4 are democrats. pathetic.
People are stupid enough to vote for someone who has been judged libel for business fraud, not to mention his 20 million dollar settlement with the "students" he defrauded, in some cases out of their life savings, with his bogus "Trump University".
Strike Daley, that was a mistake.
Pete Wilson is an R, Harold Ford, Jr. is an R, Charlie Crist was an R then turned I.
Now is that all you have? Nit picking?
I asked you several questions which you conveniently ignored. The reason is easy to surmise.
Trump is a moron. That has a certain appeal to his followers though. "He's like us".
No he's not.
There is a very long list of people in congress that have convictions for everything from fraud, bribery, receiving illegal gifts, hush money to assault.
You want to cry about one you need to cry about ALL OF THEM.
July 24, 1956 (age 68) Altoona, Pennsylvania , U.S.
affiliations
Republican (before 2010)
They were stupid fucking questions that got all the response they deserved, as will all your future stupid question.
Again, nit-picking. Not the point.
Let's see you defend your claim:
Harris had no qualifications other than being a racial minority and female?
Yes, he was an R. Presumably he took the bar as an R.
Again, you spend time on irrelevant factors instead of dealing with my questions:
What, specifically, are you referring to [@4.1.3 ☞ "I give you Kamala's entire career as an example."] ? The woman was a successful prosecutor, became the DA of San Francisco, was twice elected AG of California. Was elected Senator, was elected VP, was the D nominee for PotUS.
Given you are in such acute judgment of Harris, how do your accomplishments stack up to that?
And is everyone who does not pass the Bar first time stupid?
This is what you consider a cogent rebuttal? You think "the prosecuting attorney just asked a bunch of stupid fucking questions ... I ask the jury to just ignore them" would work in a court of law?
Now you're getting it. That was his two utmost qualifications. He said so himself. He did what she ultimately did. Pick a VP who was of lesser intelligence than he or she. No competition.
The fact that Biden wanted a minority female is not in dispute.
What is in dispute is that this is ALL he cared about.
If you want to rebut then rebut what I have actually argued.
Then why did you make it?
had no qualifications other than being a racial minority and female?
That's why she was chosen. She succeeded at being those things. She did not succeed at anything else.
Prove otherwise please......................they were #1 and #2
JD degree, passed the CA bar, prosecuting attorney, district attorney, twice-elected AG for CA, elected Senator, elected VP, D nominee for PotUS.
To claim that Harris is unsuccessful is absurd at its face. What is the point of making such a ridiculous claim?
Again, Jim, you are clearly ignoring that that I have acknowledged repeatedly that Biden intended to have a minority female as VP. You keep trying to rebut that which I have never asserted.
You, et. al. claim that these are the ONLY criteria Biden used to select his running mate. That is your claim, so back it up.
Harold Ford Jr is a D just as his dad was.
Charlie Crist flipped flooped depending on the wind. His last failure at governor he was a D.
George is right.
Will you admit you were wrong about Ford and Crist party affiliation?
Yes on Ford, no on Crist. Crist was an R ... likely was an R when he took the Bar.
Now, are we done with the pointless nit-picking?
Do you support George's contention that someone who does not pass the CA Bar exam the first time is stupid?
I'm more concerned about all these peoples hyper obsession with Harris and Biden. You won the election, you have what you deserve in the White House. Can it be they are so guilt ridden they have to keep trying to convince themselves how inadequate Harris is long after she is gone?
Here is the response your questions deserve.
You don't know what the subject of the article is about?
Funny. The same thing happened in 2020. You won the election and yet you all STILL cried about the loser of that election. Why is that?
It is strange. It did not surprise me when she was running. But to now issue such an over-the-top attack on Harris ... calling her a stupid whore ... arguing that she has accomplished nothing other than being a minority female ... is amazing (to me).
What is the point other than to illustrate irrational animosity for the Ds?
Pretty much what I expected given your first non-response.
Clearly you cannot defend your claim.
‘Do you support George's contention that someone who does not pass the CA Bar exam the first time is stupid?’
I really don’t care.I don’t live in California, never will.
Not going down a rabbit hole you created with someone else.
She did succeed at getting elected in a state where a pile of dog shit can get elected with a D after its name. se generally Adam Schiff as well as Kamala.
I thought someone would say that. Trump tried to steal the 2020 election, then when he saw the coast was clear a few weeks later he started running for president again. He never went away, unfortunately.
That's what happens when one realizes the whole investigation would amount to nothing. It took 4 years and it was all just dropped. It was never about the law.
[deleted][✘]
Where did I say only? I stated "top two".
Of course, you avoid the question.
Quite a bit more than that:
Harris earned a JD, passed the CA bar, was a successful prosecutor, became the DA of San Francisco, was twice elected AG of California, was elected Senator, was elected VP, was the D nominee for PotUS.
You are trying to rebut the point I made that Biden clearly did not consider ONLY race and gender.
So if you recognize that Biden clearly considered factors beyond merely race and gender, why are you trying to rebut what I have written?
No, I decided to not opine on subject matter I find trivial and not worth opining to.
But you don't know
Do you think someone who fails to pass a Bar exam on the first try is necessarily stupid?
This is a general question that is easy to answer. The obvious answer is 'no, of course not'.
Your non-answer will be an answer.
Really? What major felony cases did she try as first chair and obtain convictions in? What criminal appeals did she argue and win?
That it is a silly question not worthy of a response or what 4.1.39 already stated
You sure have a narrow criterion on which to judge success. So if an attorney has never tried a major felony case or did not get a conviction you deem them a failure??
Anyway, on Harris as a prosecutor (not going beyond that even):
One would have to be blind to consider someone with Harris' accomplishments, even in her first job as a prosecutor, to be unsuccessful.
Of course. Clearly there will be all sorts of 'answers' on nit-picky crap but when it comes to dealing with the tough questions where clearly you, et. al., do not have a good answer ... the cliche response is that the question is not worthy.
What a joke.
[✘] There is no information that says he was a D before he was an R. The info only says that he switched from being an R. Common sense suggests that he was an R when taking the Bar.[✘]
I answered your petty question and will do it again.
I don't give a shit and you throwing insults will not change that. Matter of fact, it will make it ever more so that I don't give a shit.
Stop demanding we answer your asinine questions.
[✘]
You claim you answered my question and then tacitly admit that you did not.
As noted, given you dodged such an obvious question you clearly know (but refuse to admit) that it is ridiculous to consider someone who failed the Bar on the first try to be necessarily stupid.
Make up your mind. You stated the question was " a general question that is easy to answer" and now it is a tough question.
What I find a joke is when people that don't answer every question they are asked have a problem with others doing the same thing.
Not all questions asked are worth answering just like all comments made are not worth responding to. Reading more into it seems to be an ego thing.
What I did was refuse to answer to your infatuation with something no one cares about.
Get over it.