Harris and Walz were a failed duo. They came nowhere close to winning the 2024 election against Donald Trump and JD Vance.
And Tim Walz is filled with rage after hearing what Kamala Harris admitted about him.
In a stunning admission from her new book 107 Days, Kamala Harris pulls back the curtain on Tim Walz’s disastrous debate flop against JD Vance, painting a picture of a running mate who crumbled under pressure and left her fuming on the sidelines.
Harris reveals she was counting on the Minnesota governor to seal the deal in that October 1, 2024, showdown, especially since she wouldn’t get another shot at tangling with Donald Trump on stage.
But as the debate unfolded, Harris couldn’t hide her irritation, turning to her husband Doug in disbelief as Walz got played like a fiddle.
“When Tim fell for it and started nodding and smiling at J.D.’s fake bipartisanship, I moaned to Doug, ‘What is happening?’” the former vice president wrote, exposing how she saw Vance’s folksy charm as nothing but a trap that Walz walked right into.
She even vented at the TV, frustrated that her partner was getting too chummy with the enemy.
“I told the television screen: ‘You’re not there to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.’” That’s Harris laying it out plain—Walz was supposed to fight, not fraternize.
The former VP doesn’t mince words about the stakes, admitting there was way too much hanging on Walz’s performance, a role he clearly wasn’t cut out for in the big leagues.
“He had fretted from the outset that he wasn’t a good debater,” Harris said. “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.”
Yet, Walz bombed, getting suckered by Vance, whom Harris blasts as a slippery operator who whines.
“Tim fell into a pattern of defending his record as a governor,” Harris said. “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.”
Instead of owning up to the mix-up, Walz rambled incoherently, as Harris recounts: “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.”
The whole mess was so cringeworthy it inspired a Saturday Night Live parody, with Harris and Doug portrayed as horrified viewers—though Harris clarifies she didn’t actually spew wine, the rest hit too close to home.
Walz was crushed afterward, feeling like he’d let the team down, but Harris tried to downplay it, insisting the debate barely moved the needle on polls and wouldn’t decide the race.
“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 also opens up about pushing Walz to toughen up amid the brutal campaign hits, noting how the smears on his record hammered him and his loved ones hard. “For the candidate, the family that is your source of strength can become your weakness in a presidential campaign,” Harris stated. She added that Walz was “outraged by the unfairness.”
Drawing from her own climb, Harris shared wisdom from an old-timer in Atlanta: “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,’” she 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.”
On the veep pick itself, Harris dishes on the behind-the-scenes wrangling, ultimately going with Walz over other choices like Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Arizona’s Mark Kelly, and Pete Buttigieg.
Her top aides were all in for Walz, and even her godson, sister, and brother-in-law threw their weight behind him. “Doug and I went back and forth,” Harris stated. “He had known Josh longer and leaned that way. It was always going to have to be my decision. I told my staff and family that I didn’t want any more input, and I went to do something practical: I made a tasty rub and seasoned a pork roast. By the time I went to bed, I’d decided on Walz.”
