Barack Obama Hesitated to Back Kamala Harris Following Biden’s Withdrawal, New Book Claims

When Biden announced his exit, Oba­ma urged Democ­rats to take a deep breath before crown­ing a successor,Jonathan Kar­l’s book

WASHINGTON, DC: Looks like Barack Oba­mawasn’t exact­ly sold on Kamala Har­ris’ pres­i­den­tial prospects.

Accord­ing to a bomb­shell new book, the for­mer pres­i­dent wasn’t keen on giv­ing Har­ris his stamp of approval after Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race. He didn’t think she could beat then-can­di­date Don­ald Trump.

The reluctant kingmaker

When Joe Biden announced he was step­ping aside, Barack Oba­ma urged Democ­rats to take a deep breath before crown­ing a suc­ces­sor. Vet­er­an ABC News cor­re­spon­dent Jonathan Karl spilled the behind-the-scenes dra­ma in his new book ‘Ret­ri­bu­tion: Don­ald Trump and the Cam­paign That Changed Amer­i­ca’.

Karl reveals that Oba­ma want­ed a full “process” to fig­ure out who should car­ry the party’s torch. But the Demo­c­ra­t­ic machine swung into action with­in days, and Har­ris was anoint­ed the new nom­i­nee. 

A senior Biden advi­sor who also served in Obama’s own White House told Karl the real rea­son for his hes­i­ta­tion. The 44th pres­i­dent didn’t think Har­ris could win.

“There’s only one Black Jesus,” the advi­sor remarked.

Obama was blindsided by Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement of Kamala Harris

Things got messy rather quick­ly. Karl writes that Oba­ma lost it when for­mer House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi went rogue and endorsed Har­ris, just one day after Biden exit­ed the race.

The Oba­mas were not hap­py,” a Pelosi con­fi­dant told Karl. “This per­son summed up Obama’s mes­sage to Pelosi as, essen­tial­ly, ‘What the f*** did you just do?’”

Turns out, Pelosi her­self wasn’t exact­ly Har­ris’ biggest fan either. Back in 2020, Pelosi had pri­vate­ly warned Biden against pick­ing Har­ris as his run­ning mate, accord­ing to Karl. But once the domi­noes began to fall and oth­er major Democ­rats rushed to back the vice pres­i­dent, Pelosi had lit­tle room to maneu­ver.

She had no choice,” Karl wrote of Pelosi’s reluc­tant endorse­ment. “No oth­er can­di­dates had stepped for­ward – Kamala Har­ris was it. The only thing Pelosi could do was try to help her win the elec­tion.” 

Failure to communicate

Nan­cy Pelosi’s move blind­sided Barack Oba­ma, who thought they were in agree­ment about how to han­dle Joe Biden’s like­ly exit. Karl says both lead­ers had pri­vate­ly agreed to stay neu­tral, giv­ing the par­ty time to think before declar­ing a nom­i­nee.

They agreed Har­ris should not sim­ply be hand­ed the nom­i­na­tion unchal­lenged,” Karl wrote. “There­fore, Oba­ma and Pelosi — arguably the two most influ­en­tial fig­ures in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty — had pri­vate­ly agreed to abstain from mak­ing any endorse­ments.”

But Pelosi flipped the switch when Biden final­ly pulled the plug.

She report­ed­ly told Oba­ma, “That train has left the sta­tion.”