During an appearance on The View on Tuesday, former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke candidly about her state of mind last November upon realizing she'd lost the 2024 presidential election to President Donald Trump, comparing the "grief" she felt to the way she felt when her mother died.
Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, died of colon cancer in 2009 at age 70. Harris has often spoken about her mother’s profound influence, crediting her with shaping both her personal values and her career path.
Harris said the following while promoting her book 107 Days, which details the truncated presidential campaign she ran after former President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her to be his successor:
"A mutual friend of ours who was over at Fox News in 'the war room' had been hearing about data that suggested things were not looking great in Pennsylvania. And the way I write about it, my poor husband [Doug Emhoff] didn't want to put that on me. He went upstairs and went into the shower and prayed it was not going to be a bad night."
"My family was there, my friends were there. I've always on election night done family and friends and dinner. But that night, I grieved in a way that I have not since my mother died."
"The pain was not at all about losing a race. I knew what it was going to mean for the country. I knew what it was going to mean. I knew."
"All I could say over and over again was, 'my God, my God, my God.' It was very difficult."
You can hear what Harris said in the video below.
Harris' grief resonated with many who described their own heartbreak after Trump won a second term.
Harris also criticized Trump during her appearance on the program, stressing that “It’s important as we move forward to realize that they did what they said they were going to do," pointing to Trump's promises of “weaponizing the Department of Justice, silencing critics against him,” and using federal power to “fulfill whatever his fragile ego needed.”
Harris stressed that Trump "has been a useful tool for an agenda that is much broader than the individual.” Indeed, last year she said that if Trump wins, “he’s going to sit there, unstable and unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution, creating an enemies list.”
At the time, she also reiterated the danger the country faces after Trump suggested the possibility of using the military to address what he referred to as "the enemy from within," which he described as "radical left lunatics" who, in his mind, are more dangerous to our country than any foreign threats.
We're all grieving and wishing what could've been with a Harris presidency.
@sama/X
