Kamala Harris
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Kamala Harris was Vice President under Joe Biden and the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential nominee. John Kiriakou says Harris was installed as the party's 2024 nominee without a competitive primary process, despite having been unpopular enough within her own party that she dropped out of the 2020 presidential race before even reaching the Iowa caucus. When Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, Kiriakou says, party insiders had at one point planned four regional primaries, covering the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West, with three potential candidates, Harris among them, expected to compete. Instead, the party bypassed that process entirely and simply selected Harris without allowing any vote.

Not a progressive

Kiriakou's objection to Harris predates the 2024 campaign and is not about process. Asked in early 2021 how bad a Harris presidency might be, his answer begins by rejecting the premise that she is on the left at all: "first of all, Kamala Harris is no liberal, she is no progressive. Remember, this is a woman who spent most of her career as a prosecutor." What he holds against that career is specific, "imagine how many lives she ruined, how many families she ruined, by seeking the longest possible sentence for first-time non-violent drug offenses. So let's not pretend that she's some enlightened liberal. She's not."

The Cheney endorsement

Kiriakou notes that Harris spent the final weeks of her 2024 general-election campaign campaigning alongside the Cheney family, promoting the idea that the Cheneys embody American values such as the rule of law and respect for the Constitution.

For him this was disqualifying, and personally so. "I decided not to vote for Kamala Harris when she actively sought and then received the endorsement of the Cheney family." He sent an email to the campaign that he assumes nobody read, telling them that the endorsement was not a boast but something to be ashamed of: "I would be ashamed to have the support of Dick Cheney. I think Dick Cheney is a monster."

He treats the episode as one symptom of a larger realignment rather than a single bad decision, a slower rerun of 1932, in which the Democratic Party has taken up the national security state while conservative Republicans ask why civil liberties are being surrendered. The consequence he draws is personal: it leaves traditional progressives like him with nowhere to go.

The vice-president's problem

Kiriakou identifies a structural trap for any sitting vice president seeking the presidency, and uses Harris as the worked example. The first question reporters ask is when the candidate disagreed with the president, and the candidate cannot answer it without committing political suicide, "it's a question that's asked of every sitting vice president who's running for president." He applies the same reasoning to J.D. Vance's prospects in 2028, expecting the nomination to go to Marco Rubio instead.

Asked in a one-line rapid-fire round for his verdict on Harris, he gives it as "loser with a capital L on her head."

See also

- Joe Biden
- Dick Cheney
- J.D. Vance
- John Kiriakou
