Kamala Harris has revealed she was \u201cangry and disappointed\u201d when Joe Biden called her hours before her US presidential debate with Donald Trump to suggest powerful associates of Biden\u2019s brother refused to support her.<\/p>\n
The former vice-president and Democratic nominee recounts the episode \u2013 and other criticisms of Biden \u2013 in her campaign memoir 107 Days, obtained by the Guardian before its publication next week.<\/p>\n
Harris writes that in September she was in a hotel room in Philadelphia, poised to take on Trump in a potentially decisive debate, when the then president called to wish her good luck \u2013 and to ask if she would be back in Philadelphia before the election.<\/p>\n
Harris wondered why Biden would ask such a non sequitur. According to the book, he told her: \u201cMy brother called. He\u2019s been talking to a group of real power brokers in Philly.\u201d He offered several names and asked if Harris knew them. She did not.<\/p>\n
Harris writes: \u201cThen he got to his point. His brother had told him that those guys were not going to support me because I\u2019d been saying bad things about him. He wasn\u2019t inclined to believe it, he claimed, but he thought I should know in case my team had been encouraging me to put daylight between the two of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kamala Harris\u2019s campaign memoir 107 Days. Photograph: Simon & Schuster\/Reuters<\/p>\n
The then vice-president asked Biden to put the group in touch with her directly. But he was not done with the call. He sought to rewrite the history of his own disastrous debate performance against Trump three months earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe then rattled on about his own former debate performances. \u2018I beat him the other time; I wasn\u2019t feeling well in that last one.\u2019 He continued to insist that his debate performance hadn\u2019t hurt him much with the electorate. I was barely listening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris goes on to reflect that her debate against Trump would be like \u201ca big prizefight\u201d, with huge consequences for America and the world, and she needed to be at the top of her game.<\/p>\n
She writes of Biden: \u201cI just couldn\u2019t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself. Distracting me with worry about hostile power-brokers in the biggest city of the most important state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her husband, Doug Emhoff, \u201ccould see how angry and disappointed I was. \u2018Let it go,\u2019 he said. He knew I had to redirect my focus. \u2018Don\u2019t worry about him. You\u2019re dealing with Trump. Let it go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n