Former Vice President Kamala Harris has revealed details in her new book of a phone conversation she held with President Donald Trump after conceding the 2024 presidential election.
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email Thursday night for comment.
Why It Matters
Harris’ concession, her phone call with Trump and the new memoir, 107 Days, due out this month, carry political and historical significance.
The book documents the end of a 107-day campaign that placed the sitting vice president atop the Democratic ticket after former President Joe Biden withdrew, and offers an inside account of strategic decisions that shaped the race—notably Harris’ choice of running mate and calculations on electability and coalition-building.
These decisions, and how she recounts them, could shape how Democrats assess strategy moving forward.
What To Know
According to excerpts of the book reviewed by The New York Times, Harris said that during her concession phone call, she asked Trump to help bring the country together but knew in the moment it was “a lost cause.”
According to the Times, Trump said, “I am going to be so nice and respectful.”
“You are a tough, smart customer, and I say that with great respect. And you also have a beautiful name. I got use of that name, it’s Kamala,” Trump said, per the Times.
Harris said that Trump also pronounced her name correctly on the call after mispronouncing it while campaigning, the outlet added.
The former vice president also highlighted her selection of a running mate, saying she felt the world was not ready for a Black woman and a gay man on one ticket, so she did not choose former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“He would have been an ideal partner,” Harris wrote, “if I were a straight white man. But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk,” per an excerpt reported by the Times.
She said Buttigieg had been her first choice for running mate but she instead chose Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, and they lost the election.
Buttigieg told Politico on Thursday that he was surprised to read how Harris explained her decision, adding that he believes in “giving Americans more credit” than assuming they couldn’t vote for a Harris-Buttigieg ticket.
“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” Buttigieg said.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Emerge 20th Anniversary Gala in San Francisco on April 30. (Photo by CAMILLE COHEN/AFP via Getty Images)
What People Are Saying
Conservative commentator Scott Jennings, on X Thursday: “Kamala Harris claims she couldn’t pick Pete Buttigieg as her VP because he’s gay, so she settled for buffoon Tim Walz. So to her, being gay is a bigger liability than endorsing taxpayer-funded sex changes for minors?! This logic is incoherent. Voters made the right choice.”
Buttigieg told Politico: “You just have to go to voters with what you think you can do for them…Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things.”
What Happens Next
107 Days will be released by Simon & Schuster on September 23.
Update 9/19/2025 1:00 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include more information.
