Biden touts ‘close’ relationship with Harris, but ‘not surprised’ by her election loss

Former President Joe Biden, in a wide-ranging interview on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, said he was not surprised by Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss in the 2024 presidential election, but not because of her qualifications as a candidate — instead, pointing to sexism and racism he said had been leveled against her.

“I wasn’t surprised, not because I didn’t think the vice president was the most qualified person to be president … I wasn’t surprised because they went the route of — the sexist route, the whole route,” Biden said.

He continued: “I’ve never seen quite as successful and consistent campaign, undercutting the notion that a woman couldn’t lead the country — and a woman of mixed race.”

But Biden, separately, said he still thinks he would have beaten Trump if he had stayed in the race.

“Yeah, he still got seven million fewer votes,” Biden said of Trump, noting by how much he beat Trump in the 2020 election popular vote.

His comments come after several months out of the spotlight for the former president as he and Democrats look to sort out his role post-presidency. Last month, Biden emerged from private life to deliver a speech on Trump’s potential impact on Social Security and made an appearance at Harvard University.

Questions persist on the party’s priorities and who may be the best to message and communicate on the Democrats’ behalf — questions that extend to both Biden and Harris.

Biden, for his part, told “The View” that he’s in the midst of self-reflection — and, to that end, writing a book.

“Things are moving along and we’re getting squared away trying to figure out what the most significant and consequential role I can play, consistent with what I’ve done in the past,” he said.

The former president also addressed his relationship with his former running-made-turned-candidate, saying that he and Harris had spoken as recently as Wednesday. Yet, he quickly stopped himself from addressing specifics of their “frequent” conversations, including side-stepping any chatter about Harris’ possible gubernatorial or potential presidential ambitions.

Sources have told ABC News previously that Harris may be mulling a run for governor of California, her home state; others have speculated she could mount a run for president in 2028 — a controversial notion within the Democratic Party.

Many of Harris’ longtime national supporters told ABC News in March that they are lukewarm on her potentially running for president in 2028; others have called for a full break from the Biden-Harris administration and for the party to consider new standard bearers.

But on Harris’ broader political future, Biden said he was hopeful that she stayed involved in some significant way, but stopped short of sharing which route he hopes she takes.

“She’s got a difficult decision to make about what she’s going to do. I hope she stays fully engaged. I think she’s first-rate, but we have a lot of really good candidates as well. So, I’m optimistic. I’m not pessimistic,” Biden said.

Biden’s remarks don’t seem to have mollified progressives who felt he hamstrung Democrats’ chances in 2024. Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green said in a statement after the interview that the former president is in “denial” over both his and Harris’ viability as strong candidates on the 2024 ticket, suggesting that anti-establishment Democrats would fare better to lead the party.

“Joe Biden is in denial about the fact that neither he nor Kamala Harris should have been the 2024 Democratic nominee if we wanted to defeat Donald Trump. In this moment, voters demand authentic anti-establishment figures who will shake up a broken political system and economic status quo rigged for billionaires against working people, and that’s not Biden or Harris.”

Asked on “The View” to respond to claims that he should have dropped out of the race and endorse Harris sooner, Biden said that Harris still had a long period to campaign and that they worked together “in every decision I made.”

Biden also denied reporting that claimed he had advised Harris to suggest that there was no daylight between the two of them — saying that they were partners and worked together.

“The View” co-anchor Sunny Hostin brought up Harris’ comments on “The View” in October, toward the end of her presidential campaign, when asked if she would have done “something differently” from what Biden had done over the last four years. She responded, “there is not a thing that comes to mind,” a moment widely seen as one that hurt her among voters who felt she needed to make a cleaner break from the Biden White House.

“I did not advise her to say that,” Biden said, adding that he thought Harris meant she would not change any of the successes that the Biden-Harris White House had achieved.

“She was part of every success we had. We’d argue like hell, by the way,” Biden added, stressing that the disagreements were all signs of a positive working relationship.

Even though he indicated no tension between himself and Harris, Biden did not answer directly when asked about tension between him and other longtime supporters, including former President Barack Obama, whose administration he served in as vice president.

Asked about what his relationship with Obama is like now, and how he addresses concerns Obama and others reportedly raised over his ability to serve a second term as president, Biden pivoted to why he got out of the race — and did not mention Obama.

“The only reason I got out of the race was because I didn’t want to have a divided Democratic Party … I thought it was better to put the country ahead of my interest, my personal interest,” Biden said.

Biden did say, in his response, that concerns over his age — 81 during the campaign — were valid, but pointed to what he still accomplished at the end of his presidency as evidence against claims he had cognitively declined.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler and Zohreen Shah contributed to this report.