Washington, D.C.- Former Vice President Kamala Harris is getting a lot of flak after her new book, 107 Days, came out and talked about how she chose her running companion for the 2024 presidential election. Harris thought then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was her “first choice” for the job, but in the end, she chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz because she was afraid the American public wouldn’t be ready for a ticket with a Black woman and a gay man.
Harris says in a piece that the Associated Press published, “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, and a Black woman married to a Jewish guy. I wanted to say, “Forget it, let’s just do it.” But it was too large of a risk because they knew what was at stake.
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC asked Harris about the statements during an interview about the book. Harris answered, “That’s not what I said,” when Maddow claimed it was “hard to hear” that Buttigieg couldn’t be on the ticket “because he was gay.” She went on to say that because she was a Black woman and Buttigieg was a gay guy, they were both at “real risk” in a very tough election against Donald Trump.
Political Backlash and Response
There has been a lot of pushback over the comments. Scott Bessent, who is now the U.S. Treasury Secretary and a strong supporter of the Trump administration, said that Harris was more interested in “identity politics” than quality. Bessent also talked about Buttigieg’s time as Transportation Secretary in an interview with Fox Business. He called him “the worst person to hold the post in history” and said he was a “failure on merit.”
Bessent remarked, “She judges him based on who he is and what he does.” “Let’s look at the facts. And I can tell you that he’s a failure based on merit, and she’s a failure based on merit.
Buttigieg, on the other hand, was surprised by Harris’s logic. He told Politico that his time in politics has taught him that voters often judge politicians based on what they “think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories.” The news has also caused problems inside the Democratic Party, especially since both Harris and Buttigieg are viewed as possible candidates for the 2028 presidential nomination.