Former Vice President Kamala Harris detailed how frustrated she was with her running mate in his debate performance against JD Vance. At one point during the debate, she turned to her husband in shock and asked, "What is happening?" according to her new memoir "107 Days."
Harris wrote in her book that she expected Tim Walz to be the grand "closer" at his debate against Vance. She was not going to have another chance to debate Trump, and was counting on Walz to leave voters with a good impression. However, that never happened.
“When Tim fell for it and started nodding and smiling at J.D.’s fake bipartisanship, I moaned to Doug, ‘What is happening?'” Harris wrote. She said her running mate had been tricked by Vance's “mild-mannered aw-shucks” persona. “I told the television screen: ‘You’re not there to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.’”
The former Vice President went on to say that there was “more riding on Tim’s debate than there should have been,” and that being on a national debate stage was “not a comfortable role” for Walz.
“He had fretted from the outset that he wasn’t a good debater,” Harris wrote. “I’d discounted his concerns. He was so quick and pithy in front of the crowds at our rallies, I thought he’d bring those qualities to the podium.”
“Tim fell into a pattern of defending his record as a governor,” Harris continued. “Then he fumbled his answer when the moderator, predictably, questioned why he had claimed to be in Hong Kong during the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.”
“Tim had been on his way to teach in China that summer but hadn’t yet left the United States on the date of the massacre. Instead of simply stating that he’d gotten his dates mixed up, but that being in China during a period of human rights oppression had profoundly influenced him, he talked about biking in Nebraska.”
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Even so, “Tim felt bad that he hadn’t done better,” Harris wrote.
“I reassured him that the election would not be won or lost on account of that debate, and in fact it had a negligible effect on our polling. In choosing Tim, I thought that as a second-term governor and twelve-year congressman he would know what he was getting into. In hindsight, how could anyone?”
Harris wrote that the constant attacks on Walz had taken a toll on his family, and he was further “outraged by the unfairness.” “For the candidate, the family that is your source of strength can become your weakness in a presidential campaign,” Harris wrote.
“When I was a newly elected DA, an elderly gentleman in Atlanta pulled me aside with a bit of advice: ‘Baby, you be sure and don’t make it look too easy,’” Harris wrote. “He knew it was not. And the higher you rise in the political food chain, the harder it gets. This is not a genteel profession. You must be ready to brawl.”
Walz was not ready.
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