Former Vice President Kamala Harris argued Tuesday that one of the “biggest” reasons she lost the 2024 election to President Trump was because she “didn’t have enough time” to campaign against him.
“There are many factors, I think, that played into the outcome of that election,” Harris said during an appearance on “The View” when asked by co-host Ana Navarro to name the main reason she lost.
“But I think probably one of the biggest, in my mind, is we just didn’t have enough time,” she argued.
Harris, who is promoting her new book, “107 Days,” titled after the length of her campaign, suggested she was put in a tough spot when former President Biden dropped out of the race three and a half month before the election.
“[Biden] decides not to run. The sitting vice president then takes the mantle, running against a former president of the United States who had been running for ten years, with 107 days until the election,” the former vice president said, describing the “unprecedented” nature of her failed campaign.
She went to describe the 2024 contest as “the closest presidential race in the 21st century.”
The Harris campaign spent an eye-popping $1.5 billion during the former vice president’s 15-week run, only to lose the popular vote, the Electoral College and all seven swing states to Trump.
Harris’ appearance on “The View” marked her return to the program where a disastrous October 2024 interview damaged her campaign.
Co-host Sunny Hostin had asked her whether she would have done anything differently than Biden, and Harris replied: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Harris revealed in her book that she had an answer prepared for that very same question, but didn’t use it.
“I’m not Joe Biden and I’m certainly not Donald Trump,” the former vice president said of what her response should’ve been.
Followed by: “But to specifically answer your question, throughout my career I have worked with Democrats, independents, and Republicans, and I know that great ideas come from all places. If I’m president, I would appoint a Republican to my cabinet.”
“But I didn’t say any of that,” Harris wrote.
Describing the reaction to her botched answer, the former vice president said she had “no idea I’d just pulled the pin on a hand grenade.”
“Stationed at various places around the set, my staff were beside themselves,” Harris wrote.
She also revealed that a staffer handed her a note during a commercial break, “telling me to return to that question and mention that a big difference would be that I would put a Republican in my cabinet.”
“I made that point, but the damage was done,” she explained, describing the gaffe as a “gift to the Trump campaign” that was used to “shackle me to an unpopular president.”
Kicking herself, Harris goes on to write: “Why. Didn’t. I. Separate. Myself. From. Joe. Biden?”
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