When Kamala Harris told the hundreds of audience members who had gathered to watch her kick-off her months-long book tour in New York City on Wednesday that she was not, in fact, president of the United States, a huge cheer erupted—as if somehow that was a good thing.
Harris super fans clutching copies of her new memoir 107 Days dutifully attempted to drown out multiple protesters decrying Harris’s record on Gaza during the event at Manhattan’s Town Hall. “Shut up,” they cried. “Get out!”
At first, Harris urged the roughly 1,500 occupants of the hall toward peace. “Let’s bring the temperature down,” she said “—unlike the current president of the United States!” And the crowd was overjoyed again.
Not long after, a second protester started shouting, and then a third, and finally, Harris seemed to have had enough. “I’m not president right now, there’s nothing I can do,” she sighed, and the audience exploded into applause.
That particular clapback isn’t new. On Wednesday, it felt like a sordid rerun of Harris’s remarks at a rally in Detroit in August 2024, when she’d chastised Gaza protesters by saying: “I am speaking now.” That viral moment was a hammer struck into the giant nail splintering her base. Some of her supporters saw Harris’s dismissal of protesters as a bold refusal to be intimidated, while others saw it as a dangerous betrayal of the Palestinians and their advocates—and a sign that Harris would not govern significantly differently than her then-boss, President Joe Biden.
That remark was also yet another reminder of the incoherence that plagued of much of Harris throught the summer and fall of 2024—she claimed to care more deeply about the issue than Biden, but was often condescending and dismissive to those who cared passionately about it. The issue summed up her campaign: Harris insisted she would be different from Biden but struggled to articulate precisely how. Faced with a difficult issue that cleaved the base, she tried to please everyone, adopting a cautious, mealy-mouthed approach that ultimately left many confused about where she really stood.
In the nearly eleven months since Harris lost the presidential election to Donald Trump it’s still not entirely clear where she stands on many issues—or what she thinks the way forward is for her party. Maybe she didn’t feel that was in her job description either. Her fans didn’t seem to mind.
If many outside of the venue believe Harris deserves a share of blame for her failure last fall, inside she was uniformly adored—once the protesters were removed. The audience delivered more than the obligatory “whoops” at the appearance of proper nouns, like Howard University and P-Town, and “awws” at mentions of family members like “Dougie” Emhoff who sat three rows back from the stage. Young girls shrieked with delight when Harris boarded the stage, and chipper aspiring influencers scurried around the theater to get a closer look.
Harris spent most of the evening responding to questions from her interlocutor, 26-year old influencer and independent journalist Aaron Parnas, with light-hearted personal anecdotes about her family and friends that were ostensibly included in the pages of her book. On the one hand, that was hardly surprising: This was an event to promote a memoir, after all. And yet, it was also somewhat jarring, given that the memoir in question is rife with bitterness and blame.
Harris also issued a brief assessment of the present moment. When asked by an audience member what her most urgent priority for the Democrats was, she advised that the party needed to get over its “messiah complex.”
“There’s gonna be no one savior,” Harris said. She mimed a hapless pundit searching the stage. “‘Where is the silver bullet, where is the silver bullet?’ We’re all in the room, look at each other! We’re all there! So, let’s see the power of everyone that’s in the room and work toward that.” What exactly we should do together was not exactly clear—nor was it clear that Harris had any idea what that work should look like.
It was also a strange remark to make in a room of steadfast supporters, many of whom are members of the K-Hive, the group of fans who treat Harris like she was the messiah. If they were seeking a glimpse of Harris’s next move—perhaps a presidential run in 2028—they didn’t get it. If they were looking for a hero, Harris made clear that she was not it.
Instead, the former vice president alluded to others who would take up the torch, like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani—who she granted a somewhat perfunctory endorsement this week. She made no mention of her political future, and gently encouraged the audience to get involved in vague organizing efforts. “The greatest power is with the people, and so that is about what folks decide to do in whatever way you’re ready, and feel like doing it,” she said.
While her call to action remained largely abstract, attendees attested that they’d felt inspired by her leadership in the face of an arduous campaign, and the resilience she’d demonstrated afterward. They were less certain about what came next, though.
Yvonne Cardenas, from Cedar Grove, New Jersey said that Harris had inspired to “model what the other side of the aisle is really like” for others in her community, which she said leaned conservative. “I still haven’t watched her concession speech because I just don’t have it in me,” she admitted.
But Cardenas’s young daughter Leora was inspired by Harris’s strength after the election. “Even after she lost she was still, like, being strong, and telling everyone not to give up hope,” she said. Leora said she hoped Harris would run again. “Even if she wasn’t in the government then she would still bring so much power, and presence, and new ideas that this country really needs,” she said.
Another attendee, Jolie Carmichael, who’d immigrated to the U.S. from Poland more than two decades ago, said that Harris had given her the strength to get through a difficult divorce. “She was put in a horrible position. She didn’t have enough time,” said Carmichael, hoping Harris would consider running again.
Kevin Dent, an attendee who said his daughter worked for former vice president, hoped Harris would continue in politics, but wouldn’t “get too political.”
“It’s a really difficult political climate right now, and I’d rather she focus on her own leadership and next steps, as opposed to being like, some of the stuff that’s dividing the country right now,” he said.
After the conversation with Harris ended, smartly-dressed attendees organized for a brief meet-and-greet photo-op with the vice president. From the lobby, one could clearly hear chanting and banging on drums outside—roughly a dozen protesters had landed on the sidewalk, including those removed from the event hall.
“Go to Trump tower! She’s not the president!” shouted one attendee, as she waited to enter the theater for the evening’s second book-talk.
One protester, who said they were the first to disrupt Harris’s event and who did not wish to be identified, laughed off the criticism. “I was at the U.N. yesterday, and I’ll be protesting Trump on Friday as well. I’m protesting every single person that’s responsible for the genocide in Gaza,” they said.
Another protester said they’d chosen to disrupt Harris’s event that evening because they’d lost family members in Gaza. Israel’s military assault has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, and displaced nearly two million.
When asked about Harris’s next move, they said: “I want Kamala to stop being in politics.”
Harris had said she hoped her book could help people to remember how they’d felt during her campaign, and use it for fuel in the ongoing fight. There was certainly a palpable fighting spirit on Wednesday—but it’s possible that fire was felt more strongly outside of Harris’s book event than it was inside it.
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