Saturday, March 29, 2025
A newly released book has revealed that Biden’s delay damaged Harris campaign efforts and left her presidential bid in disarray. David Plouffe, a senior Democratic strategist and former Barack Obama campaign manager, bluntly blamed Joe Biden for the chaotic state of Kamala Harris’s short-lived run against Donald Trump in 2024.
Plouffe, drafted to advise Harris after Biden exited the race last July, called her 107-day campaign a “fucking nightmare,” according to Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
“He totally fucked us,” Plouffe told the authors, blaming Biden for staying in the race too long despite widespread doubts about his mental fitness and energy.
Plouffe revealed that Harris started her campaign from what he described as a “deep hole.” Donors and insiders had repeatedly raised concerns over Biden’s declining cognitive ability well before he dropped out. Despite this, Democratic leaders and White House officials assured supporters he could still win.
The book notes that after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with Trump, pressure mounted for him to step aside. But he held on for over three more weeks, worsening the Democratic Party’s internal crisis. During that time, Harris’s team scrambled to rebuild a campaign amid a crumbling timeline and plummeting morale.
The authors interviewed nearly 200 insiders, including members of Congress, White House aides, and campaign staff. Many admitted that Biden had shown increasing signs of cognitive decline since 2022.
One former senior aide confessed:
“We attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023.”
Others said it was a failure of leadership for those close to Biden—including his family—not to urge him to step aside sooner.
Prominent figures in the Democratic Party voiced strong criticism in the book. One strategist went as far as saying, “He stole an election from the Democratic Party; he stole it from the American people.”
Former President Obama reportedly visited Biden in 2023 to deliver a stern warning:
“Just make sure you can win the race.”
Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel also confronted Biden’s circle, demanding a Plan B. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer privately warned Biden that if he lost, his legacy would be destroyed.
Original Sin argues that Biden’s late departure on July 21 and endorsement of Harris came far too late to turn the tide. By then, Harris had inherited a fractured campaign, depleted resources, and little time to mount a strong challenge against Trump.
While Biden has since made public appearances and hired a top PR strategist to rehabilitate his image, the book paints a grim picture of a presidency in decline. It asserts that Biden’s reluctance to step down earlier directly led to Trump’s return to the White House—an outcome Biden had hoped most to avoid.
