Former Vice President Kamala Harris has revealed the one reason why she is not running for governor in California, in her first major interview since rival President Donald Trump took office.
Harris spoke with Stephen Colbert on his Late Show Thursday night to discuss all things election, Trump, the possibility of running for California governor, and her new memoir, 107 Days.
“Are you saving yourself for a different office?” Colbert asked, as cheers erupted from the studio audience.
“No, no,” Harris replied with a smirk.
“It’s more, perhaps, basic than that. I am a devout public servant. I have spent my entire career in service of the people. And I thought a lot about running for governor. I love my state, I love California,” she continued.
In May, it was widely reported that Harris was considering a run at the gubernatorial bid in her home state but was also weighing all of her future political options.
“But to be very candid with you,” she said Thursday. “Recently, I made the decision that I just, for now, I don’t want to go back into the system. I think it’s broken,” she said.
Harris went on to praise teachers, firefighters, scientists, and other public servants, bemoaning that elections are “not about them.”
“I always believed that, as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think, right now, that they’re not as strong as they need to be.”
“You can never let anybody take your power from you?” she said, while drilling down on her points.
“This book is basically what I would offer as a ‘behind the scenes’. It was an intense experience,” she said, speaking on the lead-up to election day in November.
Harris explained that she wanted the book to instill people with self-belief in the face of adversity.
Colbert probed Harris on “the abuses and the abhorrent corruption” happening in politics, highlighting that things were completely different just 12 months ago.
“I think it’s really important that we never let a circumstance, situation, or person defeat our spirit – you can’t let that happen,” she continued, referencing her defeat to Trump.
“You can’t give up your belief in what can be and what can be better,” she said.
Harris described the day Trump was inaugurated “a rough bleeping day for me.”
Harris warned her followers to be “clear-eyed” about the political turbulence but also to be involved. “Let’s not be defeated,” she urged. The former VP then praised her team, likening them to her vital organs during her campaign against Trump.
Speaking of former President Joe Biden, she said, “I have an incredible amount of respect for him. We had a President who believed in the rule of law, who believed in the importance of aspiring to have integrity, and to do the work on behalf of the people.”
Colbert then lauded Harris’s efforts in the pre-election debate with Trump, saying, “You smoked him like a ham!”
However, Harris forlornly said that while she was able to predict many of Trump’s next moves, she could not anticipate “the capitulation.”
“I think there are a lot of people who are riding out the storm in an excuse to be feckless,” she continued.
The half-hour-long interview then ended with a punchy line from Colbert, who cheekily asked, “Who’s leading the Democratic party?”
“There are a lot of leaders. I’m not gonna go through names because I’m going to leave somebody out – and then I’m going to hear about it,” Harris said.
“It’s really on all of our shoulders,” she added.
Since her defeat in November, sources close to the former senator said that he had been ramping up her private outreach, holding meetings and phone calls with Democratic officials, strategists, and allies, according to CBS News. Her focus reportedly shifted away from the possibility of her next campaign and became more rooted in the future of the Democratic Party.
