Page 23 of 107 Days

In the morning, as usual, Doug was up before me. He likes to make his coffee from scratch. I’ve pointed out to him that there are machines that grind the beans and make the brew so that it’s all ready for you when you wake up, but he’s not interested. He likes his system.

I was standing there in my bathrobe, waiting for the noise of the grinder to stop.

“Honey,” I said. “Have I made the right choice?”

I hate being indecisive, but there I was. Doug turned and gave me a look. “Your gut is always right. Trust it.”

I knew very well that wheels were already in motion. Sheila had assembled a small, trusted team who were en route to Minnesota to brief Tim and get the whole family ready for the rally that night. Ink was already flowing onto hundreds of Harris–Walz posters.

I recalled an earlier conversation with Barack Obama. He’d also narrowed it down to three finalists: Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, and Tim Kaine. I asked him how he’d finally decided on Joe.

“I chose Joe because we were very different,” he said. “Different types, different sets of experience. You cover more ground.”

That accorded with my thinking and made me feel good about my decision.

While I worked out, I turned on the television to see what the American people were watching.

So much political punditry feels to me like high-class gossip, usually based on speculation with minimal facts.

That morning’s chatter was no exception.

It was time to call Tim. I got my campaign videographer ready to film the call for social media. Then I sat down at the table and tapped in his number. It went to voicemail. I called again. Same.

Tim, at home in Minnesota, saw “blocked number” on his cell phone and figured it was a spam call. He didn’t pick up. He didn’t want his line to be busy, just in case I called.

I had to get Sheila to text him and tell him to pick up the damn phone.

The cat out of the bag, Gwen, his wife, videoed the call on their end. She caught him sitting down by the window in his camo baseball cap as he finally answered.

“Hi, this is Tim.”

“It’s Kamala Harris, good morning, Governor… Listen, I want you to do this with me. Let’s do this together. Would you be my running mate? And let’s get this thing on the road?”

“I would be honored.”

My next job was to quickly contact Josh and Mark.

The news had already started to leak, and they should hear this from me, not the media.

Dana Remus later let me know that Josh had been trying to reach me earlier that morning.

The only reason I could imagine for him calling was that he’d intuited he wouldn’t be the choice and wanted to withdraw first, so it would be seen as his decision.

But nothing was said about that, and he graciously offered to introduce us in Philly.

I’d been concerned that holding the rally there, as long planned, would seem disrespectful to him, since so many had expected and wanted him to be my choice.

But he dismissed those concerns and said that he knew such a major event couldn’t be relocated at the last minute, even if he had wanted me to, which he did not.

It would, he said, be a great opportunity to show party unity around the newly decided ticket. I appreciated his leadership.

Mark Kelly was equally gracious, promising that I had his support and that he and Gabby would do everything they possibly could. He lived up to that promise throughout the rest of the campaign.

Of course, the world had not conveniently paused as I managed the VP process.

The White House sits at the center of a hailstorm of events, national and global, and that barrage doesn’t stop for an election.

As I’d been interviewing and making my decision, I was acutely aware of the rising tensions between Iran and Israel.

That afternoon I headed to the Situation Room, where the president had convened a meeting of the national security team.

My first duty as vice president was to be there to help assess the intelligence and advice, and to offer the room, and the president, my perspective.

I’m only the eleventh sitting vice president to run for president.

When speaking on the campaign trail or facing Trump on the debate stage, the gravity of moments in the Situation Room weighed heavily on my heart and mind.

I will never discuss, here or anywhere else, the conversations in that room, the middle-of-the-night calls to gather there, the dramas that unfolded.

Unlike the current national security team, we did not hash out our plans on Signal.

America’s national security relies heavily on classified information that our adversaries try very hard to acquire.

Why make it easy for them? And where is the professionalism, where is the self-discipline?

As soon as I became vice president, I disabled the text capability and even the camera on my phone.

For four years, I didn’t receive or send a text message of any kind, official or unofficial.

As for matters of national security, whatever the hour or the day of the week, the president and I and our entire team hauled our asses out of bed and into a SCIF—a sensitive compartmented information facility—or the Situation Room.

Sometimes, in the middle of dinner or watching a show, I would receive a certain call and immediately get up and leave the room.

Doug would say, “There she goes again,” aware that he’d never know from me what crisis had interrupted us.

Our task that afternoon was to assess current intelligence and make sure we were doing everything we could to calm tensions.

Back in April, Iran had launched more than one hundred ballistic missiles at Israel.

It could have led to an uncontrollable escalation.

It hadn’t, thanks to intense diplomatic efforts by our administration.

We and our regional allies had rallied to Israel’s defense and limited the damage.

We have not had diplomats or a CIA station in Iran for almost a half century, since students occupied our embassy and took our people hostage in 1979.

We know the threat posed by the regime of the ayatollahs, but the United States has not always aligned with our Israeli allies on how best to contain it.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal painstakingly brokered by the Obama administration, had paused Tehran’s march to the bomb and given us the ability to see into Iran’s nuclear program through regular International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

Netanyahu had encouraged Trump to tear up the plan, which he did in 2018, shutting down that ability and unshackling Tehran.

Differences of opinion existed even within our national security team.

As with every national security issue, the president would hear from the generals.

He would challenge the heads of the intelligence community.

He would seek a global view, teasing out how any given action we might take in one region would be perceived by our allies or our adversaries elsewhere.

His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed in those discussions.

He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.

My job was to sit at his right hand, hear all views, test assumptions, ask hard questions, and help him make the best decisions he could.