Harris Book Ignites Tensions with Potential 2028 Presidential Rivals

Patrick Svitek and Maeve Reston / The Washington Post

10:58 JST, September 20, 2025

Former vice president Kamala Harris’s forthcoming memoir is igniting new tensions in the emerging battle for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, offering unflattering assessments of potential rivals that have drawn some swift rebuttals.

Two prospective presidential candidates, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and former U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, pushed back Thursday against excerpts from the book involving them, making clear they would not defer to their party’s 2024 presidential nominee.

In “107 Days,” set be published Tuesday, Harris recounts the presidential campaign she ran after then-President Joe Biden’s last-minute exit from the race, offering at times blunt observations of top Democrats she interacted with during the contest. The book has carved some fresh fissures into a party already divided over its future and has prompted an unusual round of public criticism and rebukes.

Harris, who for much of her political career had been more circumspect in her public comments, mentions an array of top Democrats in stark detail in the book, sometimes with anecdotes about their private interactions. The former vice president has left the door open to another presidential run in 2028.

“We should appreciate her story,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a fellow California Democrat who called Harris a “trailblazer,” noting how she had broken racial and gender barriers. At the same time, Khanna, who has encouraged his party to not gloss over its shortcomings in the last election, said it would be “most productive” for Democrats to listen to Harris and then focus on putting forward a “better vision” for the country.

Both Buttigieg and Shapiro expressed disagreement with excerpts from Harris’s book where she described what she saw as the downsides of picking them as her running mate, a role that ultimately went to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Harris portrayed Shapiro as overly ambitious and confident, a characterization that a Shapiro spokesman, Manuel Bonder, called “simply ridiculous.”

Shapiro himself scrutinized Harris in a podcast interview released Thursday when asked about another excerpt where she described Biden’s decision-making process for his reelection campaign as “recklessness.”

Harris will “have to answer to how she was in the room” with Biden and did not publicly raise concerns about his fitness for office at the time, Shapiro said. The governor suggested he was not as close to Biden but that he did his part behind closed doors to sound the alarm.

“I was very vocal with him, privately, and extremely vocal with his staff about my concerns about his fitness to be able to run for another term,” Shapiro said. “I was direct with them. I told them my concerns.”

Buttigieg told Politico on Thursday he was “surprised” to see an excerpt where Harris said she wanted to pick him as her running mate but considered him too risky because he is gay. Harris expressed doubt that America was ready to “accept” both a Black female president and a gay vice president.

Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Arizona) said Friday morning on CNN that he disagreed with Harris’s apparent calculus.

“She needed to pick the person who [she] thought, number one, could replace her if anything were to happen, to pick the best person,” Stanton said. “And an individual’s sexual orientation should have nothing to do with it. And do I think the American people would be willing to vote for someone who happens to be gay? I do.”

Other potential 2028 candidates were noted in Harris’s book. Harris characterized both Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker as having been reluctant to immediately back her as the Democratic nominee after Biden ended his reelection bid.

Whitmer wanted to “let the dust settle” before making a public statement, Harris wrote, and Pritzker was noncommittal and cited the fact his state was hosting the party’s national convention.

As for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Harris wrote that he told her he was hiking and would “call back” but “never did.”

All of them endorsed Harris in the coming hours and days, but her book suggests she was watching closely to see how quickly they lined up.

A spokesperson for Pritzker declined to comment, while a representative for Whitmer did not respond to a request for comment.

Newsom addressed the excerpt during a news conference Friday in California, downplaying any tension with Harris and ribbing a reporter for asking about it.

“Trivial doesn’t even begin to describe how inconsequential my comments are about to be,” Newsom said, going on to confirm he was hiking and saying he missed a call from an unknown number. “At that exact same moment, [I] was working with my team to put out a statement to endorse her. I assume that’s in the book as well.”

The book does not mention that, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post.

Harris considered running for California governor earlier this year but said this summer she would not do so, keeping the door open to another presidential bid.

Harris released another excerpt from the book on Friday as part of her debut on Substack, the online newsletter platform. In the excerpt, Harris disputed that Trump was elected with a “mandate,” argued his first-term actions have vindicated her warnings from the election and suggested she wants to remain involved in politics – but outside the “system” for now.

“I’ll no longer sit in DC in the grandeur of the ceremonial office,” she wrote, adding that she “will be with the people.”

Harris’s book had already caused a stir inside the party. In the first released excerpt, she expressed regret that Biden’s decision to seek reelection at age 80 was left up to him and first lady Jill Biden. That prompted Buttigieg to offer his clearest post-election position yet on whether Biden should have run for another term.

“He should not have run, and if he had made that decision sooner, [Democrats] might have been better off,” Buttigieg said during a recent interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Buttigieg was less definitive on the question in May, saying Democrats “maybe” would have done better in the election if Biden had not sought another term.

While Shapiro had campaigned for Biden, he was not among the Democratic leaders who minimized the disastrous June 2024 debate performance that precipitated Biden’s exit from the race. Shapiro called the debate “bad” and “not a good look” but urged Democrats to stay focused on beating Trump.

“Start working and stop worrying,” Shapiro said on MSNBC the day after Biden’s debate.