Former Biden Official Says President Shouldn’t Have Sought 2024 Re-Election

By Staff, Agencies

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NBC News on Sunday that former President Joe Biden should not have pursued a second term in 2024, adding that Democrats might have fared better if he had made that choice earlier.

Buttigieg commented in response to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ new book, 107 Days, which described Biden’s decision to run again as “reckless”.

He emphasized that the decision was entirely Biden’s to make, saying, “He should not have run. And if he had made that decision sooner, we might have been better off.But it literally was his decision. Nobody else was able to make that decision”.

Pressed on whether he had urged Biden not to run, Buttigieg clarified that he had not been involved in the decision-making process.

“I think I’m not alone in believing that he should have made the decision not to run sooner,” he said, stressing that the focus now should be on shaping a future where Americans feel represented politically and nationally.

Harris’ book excerpt, released by The Atlantic, called Biden’s decision to seek re-election a personal choice that carried stakes “simply too high” to leave to individual ambition. “Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness,” she wrote.

The excerpt drew pushback from several former Biden aides, who suggested Harris was attempting to shift blame. One former official told Axios that Harris “had basically zero substantive role in any of the administration's key work streams” and criticized her for participating in photo ops that highlighted her inexperience.