Kamala Harris details 2024 run in new memoir

Welcome back to TheTakeout. Thanks for hanging out with us. Former Vice President Kamala Harris' new memoir, 107Days, now available. No need to sift through excerpts anymore. You can buy it yourself if you are so moved. Now begins the media tour, as one, of course, follows the other. Harris says she does not regret refusing to lobby President Biden to forgo a reelection campaign. Listen. I can only take responsibility for myself. And on reflection, and I talk about it in the context of asking a question of myself, was that grace to not bring it up to him, or was it reckless? And on my part, I do reflect on that and feel there was a recklessness.

I want to bring in former Michigan Republican Congressman Fred Upton, who I've known for many, many years on Capitol Hill, and Democratic strategist and CBS News political contributor Chuck Rocha, who I sometimes admit that I've known for a long time. Long time. Chuck, it's great to see you. Fred, it's great to have you at the family table for the first time. Chuck, I'll let you go first, because every losing presidential candidate has a period of time of recrimination. Now we're in the stage of self-recrimination. Evaluate what you've heard from the former vice president. Well, I think it's her trying to keep herself relevant as we look to what she decides she wants to do. We have a presidential election in three years. And she wants to say, this was not my fault. This is what happened. This is how the campaign went. And she reminds everybody on the cover of the book, 107 days, which was exactly what all of her handlers said was the reason that she lost. So she puts it on the cover of the book. And, look, for all of the Democrats out there that are like, oh, she has every right to write the book, and she has every right to go in the book and say how she feels, what I think we're missing as Democrats is the forest for the trees. Because it's not her or the book, but it's all the people that were around her who have now failed up again, who are working on all these Democratic campaigns, running the same campaign again. That's what we should be talking about. Fred, you are very well acquainted with Michigan politics and upper Midwest United States politics, which means Wisconsin and, to a certain degree, Ohio. Ohio is now red, safely Trump. But Wisconsin, Michigan, still up for grabs. What did Democrats miss in both those states in 2024 that if they're going to come back, they need to figure out? And what do Republicans need to keep doing to keep them in the Trump category? Well, they have to talk about governing. So in Michigan, actually, a pretty critical state in all regards, but we're likely going to have a statewide shutdown, like the federal government may have, starting next week. So it will be a double shutdown for Michigan. Nobody wins on this. I've been through a lot, left the Congress in '22, '23. And nobody wins. Everyone still gets paid at the end of the day. But the disruption, no matter how it is--

Is that a symptom of dysfunction in Washington now coming down and trickling down to state-level politics? It is. It is. And with Trump now saying today he's not going to meet with Schumer or Jeffries, how are we going to connect the dots?

How do we resolve this. And the House gets out a week early in July because they don't want to deal with Epstein. It's still kicking around. You're got the special election today in Arizona. They're going to get the 218th vote on the discharge petition.

The Democrats are going to win, right? Yeah. When she gets sworn in next week, assuming that the House comes back. Maybe they don't. All of this suspending, in other words. Are they essential or not. Is Congress essential? A lot of people might stay home.

It's an open question. I want to play for you both one bit of my conversation with Joe Manchin. I want you to listen to it because I think it speaks for itself. Roll it. When does Joe Manchin run for president?

[CHUCKLES] Well, I want to help whoever I can.

No, no. When is Joe Manchin running for president? You are the biggest flirt in American politics when it comes to presidential campaigns. So when are you going to run? Let me tell you, I would have loved to have been-- I was begging the Democratic Party to have a 30-day primary. When Joe Biden decided--

When the president decided not to seek reelection. --please, have a 30-day-- and I would've have loved to have been in that discussion. I would've loved to be in that discussion. Well, they didn't have a 30-day primary, but there'll be a primary in 2028. Joe is trying to-- he's positioning himself like he always has-- A, out front. He's always been out front. I love the question that you asked him. But we were talking about this in the green room. There's a lot of folks in America right now who just feel an anxiety. They don't like the Democratic Party, my party. They didn't like the Republican Party. They don't like what they see in Donald Trump. And they're looking for a safe alternative. And to your question earlier to the former Congressman, is that what we've forgotten to do and what Republicans have done under a mask, in my opinion, with Donald Trump is reach out to workers and say, I feel your grievance. I don't agree with the way that they've done it. But we have to get back to talking to regular folks about regular things that affect their lives every day, and I think that's the window for '28. Fred Upton. At the end of the day, it's going to be a closely-- after the elections, both in '26 as well as in '28. It's going to be really close in the House.

You know Manchin well. I do know. I know Joe really well. I got his cell number. I can call him up. He's a good guy. He was very involved with No Labels. And again, we talked about this in the green room a little while ago. No labels, actually, with a unity ticket, we had a pathway to get 270 votes. Forget about Ohio. Forget Texas was a state that we thought we could win. Michigan was a state that we could win.

But Manchin never pulled the trigger. He never went for it. Manchin wanted in. Our problem was finding a Republican. Ooh. Breaking news right here. So in other words, "keep an eye on Joe Manchin" is what you would say? Yeah, on the Democratic side, I think you're going to have this liberal-progressive fight. I think a liberal wins, prevails, over a progressive. I think you got other candidates that are going to be there instead of Harris. The Pennsylvania governor, the Kentucky governor I think is-- There's going to be a lot of good Democrats. They're going to have JB Pritzker with a lot of money. So it's going to be mighty interesting. You got my governor, Governor Whitmer. She's-- Early handicapping from Fred Upton. Chuck Rocha, always a pleasure to have you at the family table. Remember, the candy does not eat itself. So dig in.