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Vice President Kamala Harris’ inner circle crafted a “Red File” contingency plan in the event something “traumatic” happened to President Joe Biden, the former vice president revealed in her new memoir “107 Days.”
While the Biden campaign maintained that he was running for re-election until the moment he suspended his campaign, Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, created a succession plan long before the president’s consequential announcement, according to Harris.
“A year earlier, he had started what he called the ‘Red File,'” Harris wrote in her book. “With a president in his eighties, he suggested, it would be malpractice on my part to be unprepared if, God forbid, something should happen.”
West had made a list of the first dozen calls to world leaders and political leaders, a plan for when to release her first statement and the rules of the transition. The “Red File” only grew as the pressure for Biden to drop out intensified, Harris said.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris (right) admitted in an excerpt from her new book that it was “recklessness” to allow President Joe Biden to run for re-election in 2024. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In the event of “such a traumatic moment,” Harris said, West explained to her that it would be “prudent to have a plan for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours, so people don’t have to make a lot of decisions in the pressure of a crisis.”
Harris said she didn’t want to think about such a reality, despite being the vice president to a president in his eighties, so she “left it in his hands.”
Because Harris didn’t want to be involved in such discussions, she said West met with four members of her core team during one family weekend.
“Let’s assume he’s dropping out tomorrow,” West said, according to Harris.
Brian Fallon, Harris’ communications chief, who she said participated in the meeting, said Biden dropping out was “not going to happen,” because the president was meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that week.
Then-President Joe Biden speaks at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington on Friday, May 17, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
News broke that Biden was dropping out on July 21, 2024, as Harris’ team discussed the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Her team didn’t realize then that Harris would be the candidate to formally accept the Democratic nomination at the convention.
When Harris hung up the phone with Biden, West was the first person she spoke to.
“If this isn’t handled right, he will crap all over his legacy,” Harris recalls West telling her after momentarily staring at each other, shocked and in disbelief.
After Biden told his former running mate that he was endorsing her, Harris said she thanked him and said, “I will do you proud.”
“You’re gonna do great, kid,” Harris said Biden told her.
Twenty-two minutes later, Biden announced on X that he was dropping out, Harris said.
“Twenty-seven minutes after that, he endorsed me as the Democratic candidate president of the United States.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is seen as a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in New York City on July 31, 2025. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)
While Harris did not want to be involved in the “Red File” discussions, her inner circle’s shadow plan allowed the vice president to quickly launch her 107-day presidential campaign.
West became one of Harris’ “chosen committee of advisors,” as the campaign launched into full-gear. The committee was involved in critical decisions, like choosing Harris’ running mate and debate prep.
West is currently the senior vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary at Uber. During President Barack Obama’s administration, he was twice confirmed by the Senate to serve as a senior official, including as associate attorney general of the United States.
He met Maya Harris during law school, and they married soon after graduation, according to Harris’ book.
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Harris described him as a “political thinker, working on campaigns since he was a teenager.”
“Doug and I have taken to affectionately calling him our fifty-year-old teenage son, given how much we love taking care of him when he stays with us,” Harris wrote.
Biden’s team declined to comment on the book when reached by Fox News Digital.
