Harris says Newsom avoided her call after Biden dropped out of race for president
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Kamala Harris writes in her explosive new book that California Gov. Gavin Newsom avoided her call the day Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and she was soliciting support from other Democratic lawmakers.
Why it matters: Newsom is one of many potential rivals for the 2028 Democratic nomination that Harris throws under the bus in her upcoming book "107 Days," a copy of which was obtained by Axios.
Driving the news: Harris recounts calling dozens of Democratic lawmakers in the hours after Biden dropped out on July 21, 2024, and endorsed her for the nomination.
- Quoting from her notes that day, she writes of trying to reach Newsom: "Hiking. Will call back" and then adds: "(He never did.)"
- Newsom had spent the previous year publicly supporting Biden but also building his national brand in moves that suggested White House ambitions.
Other Democratic governors immediately endorsed Harris when connecting on the phone, but people like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer initially demurred.
- Harris wrote of her call with Pritzker: "As governor of Illinois, I'm the convention host. I can't commit."
- Both ultimately decided not to challenge Harris for the nomination and Newsom posted his endorsement of Harris hours after Biden's withdrawal without connecting on the phone.
During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago a month later, Newsom mocked how Harris clinched the nomination so quickly.
- "We went through a very open process, a very inclusive process. It was bottom-up, I don't know if you know that. That's what I've been told to say!," he told Pod Save America.
- A spokesperson for Newsom did not respond to a request for comment.
Between the lines: Harris hasn't ruled out running for president again in 2028, and in the book she takes swipes at potential other candidates besides Newsom.
- Harris writes that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro acted presumptuously by musing about art he could get from the Smithsonian as vice president, if she had chosen him as her running mate. Harris worried that Shapiro "would be unable to settle for a role as number two, and that it would wear on our partnership. I had to be able to completely trust the person in that role."
- Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder responded that it's "simply ridiculous to suggest that Governor Shapiro was focused on anything other than defeating Donald Trump and protecting Pennsylvania from the chaos we are living through now."
Harris also said she wanted to pick Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to be her vice president but felt that his being gay was too big of a political liability.
- Buttigieg told Politico on Thursday that he was "surprised" at that and that "my experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you're going to do for their lives, not on categories."
Harris writes that she thought Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona didn't seem ready for primetime.
- "He also hadn't yet had an 'Oh sh*t' moment in his relatively short political career…I realize that I couldn't afford to test Mark Kelly in that ugly grinder."
- A spokesperson for Kelly declined to comment.
