Kamala Harris tells BBC she may run for president again

Former US Vice President Kamala Harris told the BBC she could run for the White House again.

In her first interview in Britain, Harris said she “may” one day become president and expressed confidence that there would be a woman in the White House in the future.

Making her strongest bid to date that she would make another presidential bid in 2028 after losing to Donald Trump last year, Harris rejected polls that suggest she is an underdog and could become the Democratic nominee in the next election.

Talking to Sunday with Laura KuenssbergHarris also attacked her former rival, calling Trump a “tyrant” and said warnings she made about him on the campaign trail were true.

As the Democratic Party searches for answers to Republican Donald Trump's decisive victory a year ago, much of the blame is being placed on former President Joe Biden for not resigning sooner.

But questions have also been raised about whether Harris could have run a better campaign and delivered a clearer message on issue number one – the economy.

In an interview with the BBC, Harris mulled the prospect of running for the White House again, saying her great-nieces would “probably see a female president in their lifetime.”

Asked if it would be her, she replied, “Maybe,” confirming she was considering another shot at the top job.

Harris said she hasn't made a decision yet, but stressed she still sees her having a future in politics.

“I’m not done yet,” the former vice president said. “I’ve lived my entire career as a life of service, and it’s in my bones.”

Responding to the odds that she would be an underdog in the race for the Democratic ticket (even behind Hollywood actor Dwayne The Rock Johnson), she said she never listened to the polls.

“If I had listened to the polls, I wouldn't be running for my first or second office – and I certainly wouldn't be sitting here.”

Harris also said she believes her predictions that Donald Trump would act like a fascist and run an authoritarian government have come true.

“He said he would weaponize the Justice Department—and he did just that.”

She pointed to ABC's suspension of late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel after he joked about Republican reactions to the death of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

His removal from the airwaves, flagged by Trump, came after a Trump-appointed regulator threatened Kimmel's broadcasters.

“You look at what happened in terms of how he weaponized, for example, federal agencies going after political satirists… His skin is so thin that he couldn't handle criticism for a joke and tried to shut down an entire media organization in the process.”

Harris also criticized business leaders and institutions in America, which she believes have bowed too easily to the president's demands.

“There are many… who capitulated from day one, who bowed the knee to the tyrant, I think, for many reasons, including they want to be close to power because they want to maybe get a merger approved or avoid investigation.”

The White House was dismissive when asked to respond to Harris' comments about the president.

“When Kamala Harris lost the election by a landslide, she should have taken the hint: The American people don't care about her absurd lies,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.

“Or maybe she got the hint and therefore continues to express her dissatisfaction to foreign publications.”

Harris just released her campaign report on “107 days,” the time she had left to run for president after Biden withdrew from the race following months of speculation about his mental acuity.

In our full interview with the former vice president, which will air in the UK on Sunday at 0900 GMT (0500 EST), I asked Harris several times whether she should have called on Biden to make way for her sooner.

What did she really know about his health? And the question that may haunt her is whether she would be president now, rather than Donald Trump, if Biden had left earlier?

The answer is obvious: a great “if” that could change America's destiny.

Among Democratic soul-searchers, Harris' candidacy is often snubbed, with her defeat blamed on her weaknesses as a leader, not just on Biden's last-minute decision.

When asked about what went wrong, instead of going into deep analysis, she responded that because she started so late, it was almost impossible to win.

But having sat with the former California prosecutor in the gilded surroundings of a luxury London hotel rather than the increasingly gilded surroundings of the Oval Office while Donald Trump decked out the decor, she is unwilling to leave the possibility of power behind.

Previous hints about her future presidential ambitions have seemed coy and noncommittal—”maybe, maybe not” or “I'm not focusing on that right now.”

Her frankness in our conversation was even more striking. She hurried and even willingly put herself in the frame for another blow to the authorities. But she made no specific commitments.

This may seem surprising given the extremely painful nature of the lesion, which she described as traumatic. She and her team were devastated by the defeat, which came as a surprise to them.

“My God, my God, what will happen to our country?” Harris says she repeated it when the result came back.

Her attempt to explain this centers on how narrow the gap in actual vote totals was between her and Trump.

The popular vote was indeed very tight: less than 2%. But Harris was defeated by Trump in the all-important Electoral College, where each state has a certain number of votes that are counted.

Harris was ready to drop some major hints about her future. But she, like every other senior Democrat, has less desire to address her party's long-term dilemmas.

How can a center-left party with mainstream leaders stand up to a right-wing populist leader? Should we focus on Trump? Or is it to take a stronger stand for Main Street?

When I asked the former vice president about why her campaign wasn't doing a better job of reaching out to working people, she said she needed more time to do so and pointed to a long-standing shift away from her party among that group.

She regrets that in 2024 she did not have enough time to speak out on vital issues such as housing or childcare.

But if she had more time next time, this is no guarantee that her arguments would be more convincing or more joyful.

Kamala Harris still travels with her entourage. The assistants look at their watches with alarm: every minute is planned with military precision. Constant travel, choreographic events in different capitals, a small number of carefully planned television interviews.

This time, Harris is going on a book tour rather than entering the presidential race. But perhaps, if she gets her way, this will be the start of a new campaign after all.