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bitchy | George Clooney on Kamala Harris’s candidacy: ‘I think it was a mistake, quite honestly’
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bitchy | George Clooney on Kamala Harris’s candidacy: ‘I think it was a mistake, quite honestly’

by jummy84
written by jummy84

As we now know, for many white Democrats, the problem with Joe Biden’s age was that his vice president was a Black and Indian woman. Their concerns about President Biden’s age were inextricably linked to the fact that if anything happened to him, Kamala Harris would be president. That was what was so bizarre to me last year – I voted for Biden in 2020, knowing that he was already a very old man, but I loved the fact that he chose Kamala Harris as his VP and his successor. Choosing Kamala made me love Biden even more, and it made me more eager to vote for him. But for people like George Clooney, they simply lost their f–king minds at the idea of a Harris presidency or Harris presidential nomination. All of the “Biden must drop out” bullsh-t was tied to the podbro pipe dream of an “open primary” and “contested convention” bypassing Kamala Harris (then the sitting vice president) in August, just a few months before an election. They simply never wanted Kamala to be Biden’s successor, period, the end. Well, George Clooney has returned to his favorite topic:

George Clooney has called out Hunter Biden for “outright lies” in his expletive-laden rant trashing Clooney’s role in pushing former President Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race. An interview on CBS Sunday Morning gave Clooney the chance to address the comments made by President Biden’s son. Hunter, 55, took aim at Clooney, 64, during an interview on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan in July, roughly a year after the actor wrote a consequential New York Times op-ed urging Biden not to seek re-election.

“F— you. What do you have to do with f—ing anything? Why do I have to f—ing listen to you?” Hunter said. “What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f—ing life to the service of this country and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full page ad in the f—ing New York Times to undermine the president…”

Clooney—who has previously defended the op-ed as a “civic duty”—fired back in the interview with Sunday Morning’s Seth Doane, saying, “I could spend a lot of time debunking many of the things [Hunter] said because many of the things he said were just outright lies: Obama didn’t put me up to it, it wasn’t my fundraiser—it was my fundraiser, all the things.”

“But the reality is I don’t think looking backwards like that is helpful to anyone, particularly to him. I don’t think it’s helpful for the Democratic party, and so I’m just gonna wish him well on his ongoing recovery and I hope he does well and just leave it at that. I have many personal opinions about it, but I don’t find it to be helpful to have a public spat with him.”

On Sunday, Clooney again defended his op-ed while calling Biden’s decision to effectively hand then-Vice President Kamala Harris the Democratic nomination after dropping out a “mistake.”

“We had a chance. I wanted there to be, as I wrote in the op-ed, a primary. Let’s battle-test this quickly and get it up and going. I think the mistake with it being Kamala is she had to run against her own record and it’s very hard to do if the point of running is to say, ‘I’m not that person,’” Clooney told Doane. “It’s hard to do, and so she was given a very tough task. I think it was a mistake, quite honestly. But, we are where we are.”

[From The Daily Beast]

We’re now, what? About sixteen months past Clooney’s NYT op-ed, and here are some things I believe about that moment now: I don’t think Clooney wrote it, but he put his name to it because he agreed to the general ideas therein. I also believe that Clooney’s perspective, and the perspectives of the men behind the op-ed and the “open primary/contested convention” pipe dream, are fundamentally anti-democratic. Think about what they’re arguing – that the sitting Democratic vice president should have been ignored and passed over so they could have a sausage-party mini-primary in August, but Kamala wouldn’t be allowed to participate and it was somehow unfair to the bros that Kamala… simply got the support and convention delegates she needed to take over the nomination in a matter of days. Kamala’s name was already on the real primary ballots as well, earlier in 2024. But it was a “mistake” for… people to support her, George swears! The Democrat bros should have run someone else without the support Kamala was getting! Keep in mind, George and his family live in France and Italy now.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

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bitchy | Politico: Democrats are mad about Kamala Harris’s book & her book tour
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bitchy | Politico: Democrats are mad about Kamala Harris’s book & her book tour

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Kamala Harris’s book, 107 Days, came out this week. Various outlets published advanced excerpts, including The Atlantic – go here to read. I’ll admit that I have not sat down and read much from the book yet. I felt the same way in 2017 when Hillary Clinton published her first book after the 2016 election – it simply felt too raw and I didn’t have enough emotional distance from what happened in that election to read Hillary’s recollections. It’s the exact same feeling with Kamala’s book, I was watching it unfold in real time, I know exactly how badly she got screwed over, and I know exactly how badly Americans f–ked up by not electing Kamala president.

While I’m not consuming much from Kamala’s book, I 100% support her right to talk about all of it, from how Joe Biden’s staff treated her, to how she felt forced to dim her shine in service to President Biden, to how tough it was to run a national campaign in that short amount of time. We’re more than three years out from the next presidential election, if we’re even having those anymore. Now is actually the time for Kamala to tell her story. I genuinely hope the book prompts some self-reflection from the Obama bros in particular, as well as Biden’s senior staffers. Win or lose, Kamala’s candidacy should have been a major housecleaning moment for the Democratic party, but it doesn’t sound like any of that is actually happening. Not when some Democrats can run to Politico to bitch about how Kamala’s book is distracting from… something??

Kamala Harris’ media blitz is doing little to temper the frustration bubbling among Democrats over her retelling of the 2024 election. Over the last 24 hours, the former vice president insisted she isn’t burning bridges in her own party, rejected the idea that her infamous interview on “The View” tipped the 2024 election and didn’t rule out another run for political office.

“In an era where Democrats need all hands on deck in the fight to protect the country and the constitution from the lawlessness of the Trump administration, she had a real opportunity to be a critical voice in the resistance,” said Michael Hardaway, a Democratic strategist who served as a senior adviser to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “This book seems to be unhelpful and divisive in a way that makes it hard for her to be the face of the party as we look to the future.”

More than six months after her losing election — and with Harris now back in the spotlight — her book, “107 Days,” has reopened wounds in a party still divided over who or what is primarily to blame for their sweeping losses and President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Harris, for her part, argued on ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday that though “there were many factors,” ultimately, “we just didn’t have enough time.”

It’s not the first time a political memoir has prompted eyerolls. Hillary Clinton’s book tour in 2017 triggered a collective groan among infuriated Democrats, including one top donor who told POLITICO at the time “she should just zip it.” Biden, struggling to sell his post-presidency legacy, is expected to release his own White House memoir. Democrats privately worry the parade of scab-picking, backward-looking books isn’t helping the party move on, especially as its brand sinks to new lows in public polling.

“At a time when people are looking for a vision and leadership … and want to see leaders rise to the level of threat facing the country, it’s pretty crazy she chose to write a gossip book that prioritizes the pettiness of her politics,” said an adviser to a potential 2028 candidate granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “It’s embarrassing for her, and for all Democrats, considering she was the leader of the party less than a year ago.”

[From Politico]

“…Has reopened wounds in a party still divided over who or what is primarily to blame for their sweeping losses…” The wounds weren’t closed, therefore Kamala isn’t “reopening” anything. Democrats were and are still bleeding, and I see Kamala’s book as a sort of political triage, and a necessary one at that. It’s wild to argue that Democrats are still fighting over the last election, and that’s why the literal Democratic presidential candidate shouldn’t put her two cents in about what went wrong and what Democrats could do better. Kamala understands that you have to actually assign blame to begin to figure out what went wrong – from what I’ve seen, she addresses some mistakes she made, and some of the mistakes the Biden administration made in how they used her. But she’s also just… telling the truth about a stagnated and outdated Democratic political class which is also to blame.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

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Kamala Harris Admits She Was ‘Reckless’ in Not Challenging Former President Biden’s Decision to Run for Reelection
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Kamala Harris Admits She Was ‘Reckless’ in Not Challenging Former President Biden’s Decision to Run for Reelection

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris Admits She Was ‘Reckless’ in Not Challenging Former President Biden’s Decision to Run for Reelection

Former VP #KamalaHarris regrets not challenging Joe Biden’s decision to run again for reelection.

**do you think she should’ve challenged the former Presidents decision?** ABC News


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Kamala Harris, In Rachel Maddow Interview, Hails Jimmy Kimmel's Return
TV & Streaming

Kamala Harris, In Rachel Maddow Interview, Hails Jimmy Kimmel’s Return

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Kamala Harris, in her first news interview since leaving office, hailed ABC’s decision to return Jimmy Kimmel to the air.

Harris told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “Talk about the power being with the people and the people making that clear with their checkbooks as it relates to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, it moved a decision in the right direction.”

Harris last week called out companies for caving to the Trump administration.

She wrote on social media, “What we are witnessing is an outright abuse of power,” Harris posted. “This administration is attacking critics and using fear as a weapon to silence anyone who would speak out. Media corporations — from television networks to newspapers — are capitulating to these threats. We cannot dare to be silent or complacent in the face of this frontal assault on free speech.”

Harris sat down with Maddow in studio as the kickoff for her book tour for 107 Days, her account of her truncated presidential campaign last year.

In the interview, Maddow called Harris the “patron saint of ‘I told you so, in terms of people understanding the warnings and predictions about what Trump would be like.” Maddow noted that Harris wrote in the book, “I predicted all of that. I warned of it. What I didn’t predict is the capitulation, the billionaires lining up to grovel, the big media companies, universities, so many major law firms.”

Harris told Maddow, “I always believed that is push came to shove, these titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions. And one by one by one, they have been silent. They have been — I use the word feckless. It’s not like they’re going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons.”

The Walt Disney Co. announced earlier that Kimmel would return to the schedule on Tuesday. The network said last week that it was pulling his late-night show indefinitely, amid the furor over a remark he made about MAGA’s effort to define the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The network’s announcement came after a warning from the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, and a statement from station group Nexstar, which said that it was pulling the show from its ABC affiliates.

Harris referred to Donald Trump as a “tyrant,” and talked not only about the administration’s pressure on Disney over Kimmel, but the president’s efforts to install loyalists as U.S. attorneys to prosecute his opponents.

“Perhaps it is because they want to please him and nominate him for a Nobel Prize,” Harris said of corporate leaders. “Perhaps it’s because they want a merger approved, or they want to avoid an investigation, but at some point they’ve got to stand up for the sake of the people who rely on all of these institutions to have integrity, and to at some point be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy because of a fragile ego.”

Harris’ book already has generated headlines for what she wrote about Joe Biden‘s decision to run for reelection and stay in the presidential race until July, 2024. In an excerpt that ran in The Atlantic earlier the month, Harris wrote, “‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”

On Maddow’s show, Harris said, “I realized that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on. And so when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything I am talking about myself. There was so much, as we know, at stake. As I write, where my head was at the time is that … it would come off as completely self serving.”

Maddow asked whether she meant telling Biden that it was not a good idea for him to run again.

“Or even if he should question if it is a good idea,” Harris said.

Maddow also asked Harris if she would consider running in 2028, but she didn’t give away much in terms of her future plans.

“That’s not my focus right now. That’s not my focus, at all,” Harris said. “It really isn’t.”

The book, Maddow said, is surprisingly candid. She referenced Harris’ revelations of text messages she got from other top Democrats after Biden dropped out and she got into the presidential race. Gavin Newsom wrote, “Hiking. Will call back.” “He never did,” Harris wrote.

“Gavin has a great sense of humor, so he is going to be fine,” Harris told Maddow. The former vice president said that Newsom’s redistricting effort, which will be on California’s November ballot, is “absolutely the right way to go.”

The measure is a response to Texas’ move to draw new district boundaries in order to make it more probable that Republicans will pick up five additional seats in next year’s midterm elections. Opponents of California’s Proposition 50 say that the way to respond should not be to suspend California’s redistricting commission, set up to try to take politics out of the process.

Harris disagreed.

“Part of what we have got to challenge ourselves to accept is that we tend to play by the rules. But this is a moment where you have got to fire with fire,” she said.

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Kamala Harris Set To Lose Secret Service Protection Sept 1; Newsom Steps In
TV & Streaming

Kamala Harris Set To Lose Secret Service Protection Sept 1; Newsom Steps In

by jummy84
written by jummy84

With the looming termination of Kamala Harris‘s Secret Service protection in the next few hours, the security of the former Vice President of the United States has become the latest battlefront in the political war between Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump.

About to start a 15-date book tour on September 24, one day after her 2024 campaign memoir 107 Days comes out, the ex-VP saw Trump revoke her extended Secret Service protection on August 28.

The usual six months of Secret Service protection an ex-Veep receives had been extended to 18 months by Joe Biden in the last days of his presidency for his former running mate. That semi-secret order came in no small part I’m told by the threats the first woman and first person of color to hold the office had been subjected to in the pretty polarized America we live in.

Not the first and likely not the last of the former Celebrity Apprentice host’s such moves against rivals and critics, Trump ended all that in a very short letter last week to the Department of Homeland Security: “You are hereby authorized to discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorized by Executive Memorandum, beyond those required by law, for the following individual, effective September 1, 2025: Former Vice President Kamala D. Harris.”

This isn’t the first hit Trump has taken at Harris since taking office again. Back in the spring, Trump pulled the former VP’s security clearance, along with those of Joe Biden Hilary Clinton and others

Circumspect to a fault as always, Harris’ office kept its public reaction short. “The Vice President is grateful to the United States Secret Service for their professionalism, dedication, and unwavering commitment to safety,” Harris aide Kirsten Allen said of the end of the protection detail by Trump. Harris’ office did not respond to a further request Deadline for comment today.

However, that initial curt response may be in part because it appears that persistent Trump troller Newsom, who has taken on the role of Leader of the Opposition in the minds of many against POTUS’ increasingly authoritarian rule, has ordered a security arrangement for his long time ally Harris. Nothing has been made public yet, but reports that the California Highway Patrol, will take over protection tomorrow for Harris have been confirmed to Deadline by law enforcement sources.

“Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” Gov Newsom’s Communications chief Izzy Gardon has said, holding the official line. “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses,” he added.

Still, in what a state insider termed “a matter of conscience and decency, as well as an effort to diminish Trump” by Newsom, a combination of CHP and LAPD protection for Harris has been given the greet light.

To that, the former Veep will have the protection level that a dignitary like the Governor, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis enjoy. While an insider cautioned not to read too much into it, there is no word on how long the CHP and LAPD protection for Harris, who recently announced she would not run for Governor of the Golden State in 2026, will last. Discussions about protection for the former VP when the ex-state Attorney General and Senator is traveling outside California are ongoing and “complicated,” I’m told.

Kicking off in NYC late next month, Harris’ 107 Days book tour has only two stops in her home state right now. The 2024 Democratic Party candidate for President will be at LA’s Wiltern on September 29 and in San Francisco on October 5. The tour ends in Miami just before Thanksgiving on November 20.

California Highway Patrol officers arrest a protester on the 101 Freeway during an anti-ICE protest in downtown LA on June 8, 2025 (Photo by BENJAMIN HANSON/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

It should be noted that CHP officers played a contentious role containing and arresting protestors on the streets of DTLA back in June. They also played a widely applauded role in maintaining order in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires that ravaged LA in January.

Contacted by Deadline, the Secret Service, which is a part of DHS, referred us to the White House for comment and clarification on the whys and hows of the discontinuation of Harris’ detail so soon before she is about to make her first significant public appearances since leaving office on January 20. The White House did not respond our request for comment or insights into Trump’s seemingly sudden and very public swipe at his 2024 election opponent.

Yet, with a preamble of political neutrality, more than one federal law enforcement official told Deadline that Trump’s yanking of Harris’ detail was no more unusual that the extension the ex-VP had been given. In fact, there were no reports of significant threats against Harris, sources says. There were, however, some concerns her upcoming nationwide book tour, which also has stops in Canada and the UK, could strain her detail.

Six months of Secret Service has been the norm for Vice Presidents since Congress legislated the protection in 2008. While past VPs like Al Gore have asked for extensions of their agent detail, it was President Barack Obama’s executive order for Dick Cheney in 2009 that truly put the process in motion. Cheney, called Darth Vader by many for his ruthlessness, was granted a further six months by DHS that saw him covered until January 2010. He currently has no Secret Service protection, nor does Trump’s first VP Mike Pence, who was denied an extension by the Biden administration.

There is also another factor that plays into all this underneath the partisan rancor, one federal law enforcement source stated. “Don’t forget about the U.N.,” he said deadpan.

In less than 10 days, the U.N. General Assembly is set to begin in New York City, with leaders from all over the world in attendance and Trump scheduled to his first speech to the organization since returning to office. “it’s a heavy lift, with over 100 heads of state receiving Secret Service protection,” the source said, noting how the September 9 – 29 U.N. General Assembly requires extra resources and agents be pulled from all over the DHS unit.

Still, already in the anti-Trump trenches over the masked ICE raids and abductions that the administration unleashed purposefully on LA earlier this year and the stationing of troops in the city over protests following the detentions of the undocumented, green card holders and some US citizens, Mayor Karen Bass quickly said what many thought of the Trump action against Harris. The ex-Congresswoman and longtime Harris ally called the move late last week “another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation” by Trump. “This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles.”

LA mayor Karen Bass & the VP Kamala Harris during a march for abortion rights in Los Angeles, April 15, 2023 (Photo by APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images)

A Hollywood producer who has been a major donor to Democrats over the years, was a big contributor to Harris’ short campaign last year, and is no big fan of Bass vehemently seconded the Mayor’s remarks by calling Trump “a would-be dictator who thinks he can bully and scare everyone into submission.” The deep-pocketed producer added Trump “clearly doesn’t know Kamala Harris very well if he thinks that’s going to work.”

As the Secret Service pull their agents (some of whom have been with the former VP since the 202 campaign) and equipment out of Harris’ Brentwood home tonight ahead of that September 1 deadline, state officers from CHP’s Dignitary Protection Unit are already moving in place, I’m told.

That’s just step one.

“DPS also provides, as directed, protective services to national and international dignitaries who are visiting California on official business,” the unit says of its mission. “This includes: the advance security assessments of sites and locations to be visited, safe and secure transportation, protection at designated venues, collaboration with allied agency law enforcement, and other services as required.”

In short, it’s no Secret Service, but its not nothin’

Aside from four years at the VP’s official home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC, Harris and her husband, ex-Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff (who lost his Secret Service detail a couple of months ago too) have had their house on the West Side of LA as their primary personal residence for years. That house has had a Secret Service presence since 2021. That protection didn’t seem to stop two individuals all in black from getting onto Harris’ property in the early morning last January during the wildfires curfew. Harris herself was not at the house and LAPD were called to the scene and detained the duo.

A state of affairs that will now be the new normal for the ex-Veep.

For the record, former Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden have lifetime Secret Service protection, for now.

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bitchy | Donald Trump terminated Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection
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bitchy | Donald Trump terminated Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection

by jummy84
written by jummy84

In the pre-Donald Trump era, former presidents, former vice presidents and former first families would all get Secret Service protection and that protection was never politicized. President Biden never politicized the protection given to Trump’s extended family after 2020, just as President Obama never politicized the protection given to the Bush family. You just… let the Secret Service do their jobs, and if they feel that certain people need protection, so be it. Presidents can also issue directives or executive orders for extended protection for any length of time. Which is what Joe Biden did for Kamala Harris – he extended her protection out of office via an EO. Well, now Trump has revoked it.

President Trump has terminated former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday that will end Ms. Harris’s protection as of Monday.

The Secret Service usually protects a former vice president for six months after they leave office, but President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had signed an order extending Ms. Harris’s protection beyond that, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. Without that extension, Ms. Harris’s protection would have concluded in July.

“The Vice President is grateful to the United States Secret Service for their professionalism, dedication, and unwavering commitment to safety,” Kirsten Allen, a senior adviser to Ms. Harris, said in a statement. The White House declined to comment. The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The end of Ms. Harris’s protection comes just before she is set to embark on a nationwide tour to promote her new book about her presidential campaign. The book, titled “107 Days,” is scheduled to be published Sept. 23.

Since taking office, Mr. Trump has ended Secret Service protection for a number of people. Within hours of being sworn in, he removed the security detail for John R. Bolton, one of his former national security advisers with whom he had a falling out. He also revoked protection for Mike Pompeo, one of his former secretaries of state, and Brian Hook, a former aide, despite warnings that the men faced ongoing threats from Iran. In March, Mr. Trump also ended Secret Service protection for Mr. Biden’s children, Hunter and Ashley. Mr. Biden had issued an executive order that extended protection to them.

[From The NY Times]

Trump is not simply politicizing who gets protection and who doesn’t, he’s actively putting targets on his “enemies” and trying to create situations where his violent wingnuts harm those people. I hate that the first Black woman to serve as VPOTUS will now have to pay for her own security. I would also assume that in Kamala’s case in particular, California’s state police might pick up some of the slack when it comes to her security. She was the state’s senator and attorney general, after all.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.

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