Former Vice President Kamala Harris disclosed in her new memoir that her inner circle created a detailed plan to replace President Joe Biden called the “Red File” a full year before Biden withdrew from the 2024 race.
Harris reveals in “107 Days,” released Tuesday, that her brother-in-law Tony West developed the contingency plan because “it would be malpractice on my part to be unprepared if, God forbid, something should happen” to the elderly president.
The “Red File” included lists of the first calls to world leaders and political colleagues, timing for Harris’s first statement, and transition rules should Biden be removed from office.
West had “thought through the first twenty-five calls I would need to make to world leaders, the first twenty-five to political colleagues, when to make my first statement, and what the rules of transition are,” Harris wrote.
The plan expanded after Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump. Harris wrote that West “pulled out the Red File and started adding to it” following the June debate that ultimately led to Biden’s withdrawal.
Harris described Biden during the debate as someone who “striving for accuracy, often stopped midsentence to correct himself, which left him sounding hesitant and garbled.”
Biden announced his withdrawal on July 21, 2024 after he was pressured by other Democratic Party leaders. West was the first person Harris spoke to after hanging up with Biden. “If this isn’t handled right, he will crap all over his legacy,” Harris recalls West telling her.
Biden endorsed Harris 27 minutes after announcing his withdrawal.
“You’re gonna do great, kid,” Biden told Harris after she promised, “I will do you proud.”
The memoir has caused anger among some Democrats who say it is causing worse divisions at a low point for the political party.
“Salt, meet wound,” one Democratic strategist said. “Couldn’t come at a worse time for our party.”
Harris regularly bashes Biden in the book, saying he shouldn’t have run for reelection and revealing he called her minutes before the Trump debate to chide her for criticizing him behind his back.
“I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself,” Harris wrote.
The book has also drawn criticism from potential 2028 Democratic rivals. Pete Buttigieg pushed back after Harris wrote he would have been “the ideal partner” as running mate if he had been “a straight white man.”
“My experience in politics has been that the way you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” Buttigieg said.
Josh Shapiro, whom Harris considered for vice president, said Harris will need to explain “how she was in the room and yet never said anything publicly” about Biden’s condition.
West is currently senior vice president at Uber and previously served as associate attorney general under President Barack Obama. He married Harris’s sister Maya after law school. Harris describes him as a “political thinker, working on campaigns since he was a teenager.”
The “Red File” allowed Harris to quickly launch her 107-day presidential campaign after Biden’s withdrawal, though she ultimately lost to Trump in November.