Former President Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection in 2024 destroyed Kamala Harris’ chances of defeating Donald Trump, according to veteran Democratic strategist David Plouffe.
Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and later advised Harris, made the explosive claim in the upcoming book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson.
“And it’s all Biden,” Plouffe said, blaming the former president for staying in the race too long. “He totally f---ed us.” He described Harris’ short campaign against Trump as “a f---ing nightmare.”
The book details how Biden’s visible cognitive decline in 2023 was downplayed by White House staff, who tried to shield him even from his closest aides. One senior White House staffer said they eventually left the administration because they believed Biden should not have sought a second term.
“I love Joe Biden,” the aide said. “Still, it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again.”
Original Sin is one of several recent books examining the collapse of the 2024 Democratic campaign and the toll of Biden’s second presidential run. Another insider account, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History by former “60 Minutes” producer Chris Whipple, also explores how Biden was increasingly isolated as concerns about his health mounted.
One aide quoted in Uncharted said shielding Biden from public interactions worsened his condition: “They allowed his faculties to atrophy… like knives, they have to be sharpened. And they don’t get sharpened by sitting in a drawer.”