Kamala Harris tells BBC she may run for president again

Kamala Harris, former US Vice President, told the BBC that she may run again for the White House.

In her first interview in the UK, Harris said she would “likely” become president one day, and expressed confidence in having a woman in the White House in the future.

In her strongest suggestion yet that she would make another presidential bid in 2028 after losing to Donald Trump last year, Harris rejected polls that cast her as an outsider and become the Democrats’ choice for the next election.

talking to Sunday with Laura KuenssbergHarris also directed her criticism at her former rival, describing Trump as a “tyrant” and saying that the warnings she made about him during the election campaign had proven correct.

As the Democratic Party searches for answers about Republican Donald Trump’s decisive victory one year ago, much of the blame has been directed at former President Joe Biden for not stepping down sooner.

But there were also questions raised about whether Harris could run a better campaign and deliver a clearer message on the first issue, the economy.

In an interview with the BBC, Harris spoke about the possibility of her running again for the White House, saying that her granddaughters would see President “in their lifetime for sure.”

When asked if it was her, she said “maybe,” confirming that she was considering running again for the top job.

Harris said that she has not made a decision yet, but stressed that she still sees that she has a future in politics.

“I’m not done yet,” the former vice president said. “I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it is in my bones.”

In response to her odds as an outsider to win a spot on the Democratic ticket — even behind Hollywood star Dwayne The Rock Johnson — she said she had never listened to the polls.

“If I listened to the polls, I wouldn’t be running for my first office or my second office — and I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Harris also said she believes the predictions she made about Donald Trump acting like a fascist and running an authoritarian government have come true.

“He said he was going to use the Department of Justice as a weapon — and he did just that.”

She pointed to the suspension of late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel by ABC after he made a joke about Republicans’ reaction to the death of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

His removal from the airwaves, which Trump celebrated, came after the Trump-appointed regulatory body threatened Kimmel’s anchors.

“You look at what happened in terms of how he used, for example, federal agencies going after political satirists…His skin is so thin that he couldn’t take criticism from a joke, and he tried to shut down an entire media organization in the process.”

Harris also criticized America’s business and institutional leaders who, in her view, too easily acquiesced to the president’s demands.

“There are many… who have surrendered from day one, who kneel before a tyrant, I think for many reasons, including that they want to be next to power, because perhaps they want to approve the merger or avoid investigation.”

The White House was dismissive when asked to respond to Harris’ comments about the president.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “When Kamala Harris lost the election by a landslide, she should have taken the hint. The American people don’t care about her ridiculous lies.”

“Or maybe she got the hint and that’s why she keeps airing her complaints to foreign publications.”

Harris has just published her account of her rollercoaster campaign, 107 Days, the time she has left to run for president after Biden dropped out of the race following months of speculation about his mental acuity.

In our full interview with the former vice president, which will air in the UK on Sunday at 09:00 GMT (05:00 EST), I pressed Harris several times on whether she should have urged Biden to make room for her sooner.

How much did she really know about his health? The question that may haunt her: Would she be president now, and not Donald Trump, if Biden had withdrawn earlier?

The answer is clear and unknown: “If” could have changed America’s fate.

Among the soul-searching by Democrats, Harris’ candidacy has often been underestimated, with her weaknesses as a leader identified as reasons for her defeat, not just the nature of Biden’s last-minute decision.

When asked what went wrong, instead of going into deep analysis, her argument was that she started too late, and it was almost impossible to win.

But after sitting with the former prosecutor from California in the gilded surroundings of a luxury London hotel — rather than the increasingly gilded surroundings of the Oval Office while Donald Trump dazzles in the decor — the possibility of power is something she’s not willing to leave behind.

Previous hints at her future presidential ambition have seemed coy and noncommittal — “Maybe, maybe not,” or “I’m not focused on that right now.”

Her frankness in our conversation was most striking. She was quick, even eager, to frame herself for another penchant for power. But it stopped short of making any concrete commitment.

This may be surprising given the painful nature of the defeat, which she described as painful. She and her team were devastated by the defeat and it came as a surprise to them.

“My God, my God, what will happen to our country?” Harris says she repeated it when the result came back.

Her attempt to explain this focuses on how narrow the gap in actual votes between her and Trump is.

In fact, the popular vote was very close, as the percentage of votes did not exceed 2%. However, Trump beat Harris in the all-important Electoral College, where each state has a certain number of votes to count.

Harris was willing to drop heavy hints about her future. But there is less willingness than she, or frankly any other top Democrats, to deal with their party’s long-term dilemmas.

How can a center-left party with mainstream leaders take on a right-wing populist leader? Is the answer to focus on Trump? Or is it a matter of arguing more forcefully for Main Street?

When I asked the former vice president why her campaign wasn’t reaching out better to the working class, she said she needed more time to do so, and pointed to a long-term drift away from her party among that group.

She regrets that she did not have enough time in 2024 to make her own presentation on bread-and-butter issues like housing or child care.

But if she had more time next time, it is not certain that her arguments would be more persuasive, or that they would be more pleasantly received.

Kamala Harris still travels with the trappings of an entourage. Aides watch the clock anxiously as every minute is planned with military precision. Non-stop travel, choreographed events in different capitals, and a few carefully planned TV interviews.

This time, Harris is on his way to a book tour, not a presidential race. But maybe, if you get your way, this will be the start of another campaign after all.