How Biden made Kamala Harris beg for his endorsement

New book takes you inside the wildest days of the Biden & Harris 2024 campaigns

Welcome back to The Red Letter. Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes have a banger of a book about the 2024 election, titled “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.” It hits stands tomorrow, so buy it now. In our riveting conversation, which you can watch above, Parnes and Allen give me the play-by-play of that Sunday in July when Joe Biden dropped out of the race – without giving Kamala Harris any notice. Harris was so blindsided by the decision, that she had to beg Biden for his endorsement to quickly lock up his delegates. But he wanted to hold out to take a victory lap for his patriotism. Congressional Black Caucus powerbroker Jim Clyburn had to step in because Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama were pushing for a mini-primary. Obama thought Gretchen Whitmer was a more formidable candidate.

But even before that, Pelosi and senior White House official Anita Dunn tried to convince Biden not to debate Trump, because they knew he wasn’t up to it. There are so many jaw-dropping details about how those closest to Biden worked to hide his condition. It’s pretty rich too, that after years of gaslighting, “a person close to Biden” sent a background quote to POLITICO to bash Parnes and Allen for not sending a transcript in advance so that they could fact check it.

We get into all of that and more.

Check out the video above and buy the book! The audio version of our interview will drop on Wednesday here.