With “107 Days” and “Independent,” Two Black Women Fight Over the Custody of Joe Biden’s Legacy: A Review

While on the presidential campaign trail, one of her staffers brought Kamala Harris in on a little secret: “People hate Joe Biden.” This had apparently not occurred to the vice president, even after the formation of the Uncommitted Movement, or the then ongoing college protests, or the dozens of disruptions at various political events in response to Biden’s unfettered support of Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Gaza Strip. Or not even as she stood in the midst of her history-making run for the White House. “It was hard for me to hear that,” Harris writes. 

In her new memoir, 107 Days, Harris devotes an extensive amount of time to writing about her relationship with President Biden, as she assumed the position of Democratic nominee for president after Biden’s abysmal performance at the presidential debate in June 2024 heightened criticisms around his age and cognitive health. “The rapport between Joe and me was genuine. For two people who seemingly couldn’t have been more different, our values were incredibly aligned,” she writes. 

It's a significant shift from when people first saw the pair interact in 2019 on the debate stage, where Harris zeroed in on Biden about his views on busing and desegregation. It was one of the early moments in her campaign that made the California senator seem like the destined choice to become the party’s nominee. In the years that followed, however, after Harris ended her first campaign for president before primary voting even began and later became Biden’s vice president, some people have used that moment in the debate to question her fealty to the president.