Why Kamala Harris Says the U.S. Is Closer to Crisis Than We Think
Summary
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America is entering one of its most fragile moments, with democracy, trust, and basic systems under strain.•
Kamala Harris reveals how internal sabotage and staff politics weakened the Biden–Harris administration and the 2024 campaign.•
She describes Trump’s strategy as gaslighting, misdirection, and fear-based storytelling that outperforms facts.•
Harris shares deeply personal moments of shock, grief, and betrayal from debate day to election night.•
She leaves the door open for a possible 2028 run, warning that democracy will not survive if people disengage.This post is an in-depth breakdown of the video interview “Kamala Harris: America Is At Breaking Point & I’m Deeply Concerned About The State Of The Country” from The Diary of a CEO. It explores Harris’s reflections on the 2024 election, her complex relationship with President Biden, her experience of internal sabotage, and her warning that America is heading toward a political and social breaking point. All events, opinions, and insights are based on Kamala Harris’s own explanations in the conversation.
Who Is Kamala Harris, and Why Does Her Warning Matter?
Before we get into the drama, it’s worth asking a simple question:
“Why should I care what Kamala Harris thinks about the future of America?”
Because her career has put her right at the center of power for decades:
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She served as Attorney General of California, leading the largest state justice department in the U.S.
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She became only the second Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
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She made history as the first female, first Black, and first South Asian Vice President.
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She has sat with 150+ world leaders, from presidents and prime ministers to kings and chancellors.
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She has spent hours in the Oval Office and Situation Room, watching critical decisions play out in real time.
Her personal background also matters:
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Her mother came from India at 19 and joined the civil rights movement in Berkeley.
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Her father came from Jamaica as a top scholar.
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She grew up in a community where justice, equality, and protest were everyday realities, not abstract concepts.
So when someone with that combination of lived experience + institutional experience says:
“America is near a breaking point, and I’m very concerned.”
…that’s not just a campaign slogan. It’s a warning from someone who has seen the system from the inside.
“It May Get Worse Before It Gets Better” – The Emotional Starting Point
Harris doesn’t start the interview with optimism.
She starts with tension.
She describes feeling:
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Grateful for her life and family
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But also extremely troubled, disappointed, and concerned about the state of America and the world
She talks about a constant background emotion many people will recognize:
A low-level anxiety: “What happens next?”
She openly admits she has found herself telling audiences:
“It may get worse before it gets better.”
This isn’t fear-mongering.
For her, it’s a realistic read of:
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escalating hate crimes
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rising political violence
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disinformation spreading faster than truth
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institutions bending under pressure instead of standing firm
From her point of view, America is not just “messy” — it’s structurally at risk.
A Life Built Around Protecting People
A central thread in Harris’s story is her instinct to protect.
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As the older sister, her mother constantly told her:
“Take care of your sister. Look out for her.”
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As a woman of color with an accent-heavy, 5-foot-tall mom, she saw how dignity could be denied in everyday situations.
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As a prosecutor, she handled some of the darkest cases:
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child sexual abuse
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homicide
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fraud targeting vulnerable people
She shares moments where she had to step out of the courtroom and cry in a bathroom because she knew the system couldn’t protect certain children due to lack of evidence. These are not theoretical experiences. They shaped her idea of what “justice” and “failure” really look like.
This is important context:
When she worries about America’s future, she’s not talking about stock charts —
she’s talking about real people who will get hurt when systems collapse or are weaponized.
Stress, Power, and the Weight of Responsibility
Harris also talks very practically about how she holds herself together under pressure:
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She works out every morning, even with little sleep.
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She sees exercise as a mind–body–soul reset, not just physical fitness.
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She holds herself to high internal standards and admits she’s a bit of a perfectionist.
At the same time, she’s learned a few things with age:
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You can’t save everyone.
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You must decide where your effort actually has leverage.
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Experience lets you become more efficient and effective, not just busier.
This combination of emotional intensity + disciplined self-management is part of why her warning feels credible: she is not panicking; she is calculating.
Breaking into Rooms Where Nobody Looked Like Her
A recurring theme is being the “only one in the room”:
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Often the only woman
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The only Black or South Asian person
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The only person with her background and lived experience
She describes simple, painful moments:
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Walking into a room and people asking when her “boss” will arrive
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Realizing they assume she can’t possibly be the one in charge
Her advice for anyone in a similar position is powerful:
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Walk in with your chin up and shoulders back.
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Remember the people who are proud of you but will never be in that room.
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Don’t impose other people’s limited view of you onto yourself.
This mindset is directly connected to how she sees the current political crisis:
for her, a democracy collapses not just when laws change, but when people internalize the message that they don’t belong, don’t matter, or shouldn’t try.
Inside the Biden–Harris Relationship: Loyalty, Affection, and Deep Frustration
This is one of the most eye-opening parts of the interview.
Harris describes her relationship with Joe Biden as:
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Affectionate – she genuinely likes him and is grateful for their shared work.
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Complicated – she has been “greatly disappointed” and angered at times.
She makes it clear:
She ran against him.
She knew she would have to constantly prove her loyalty.
And she understood that some people around him saw her as a threat.
This leads into the next, explosive section.
The Internal Sabotage: “They Decided I Should Be Knocked Down”
Harris claims that some of Biden’s senior staff:
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Fed negative narratives about her
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Refused to promote her accomplishments
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Withheld resources that could have defended her in the media
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Believed that if she shined, Biden would look weaker
She describes it as short-sighted and counterproductive, especially given the stakes:
The Vice President and President rise and fall together.
Undermining one weakens the whole ticket — and ultimately the party.
The most frustrating part for her is this:
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She had a long track record: reforms, settlements, crime reduction, corporate accountability.
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But many voters never heard about it, because the megaphone was never pointed at her.
This isn’t just personal resentment; she frames it as a strategic failure that contributed to losing the election.
The Debate Day Phone Call That Broke Her Focus
One of the most shocking stories:
On the day of her historic debate against Trump, after weeks of intense “debate camp” prep, Harris was:
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fully focused
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physically exhausted
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mentally bracing for a high-risk moment
Then Biden called.
At first, she expected the classic sports-movie speech:
“You’ve got this. Go get him.”
He did encourage her — for a moment.
But then he pivoted.
He talked about a group of people in Pennsylvania who were supposedly upset because they heard she was saying bad things about him.
She hung up feeling:
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angry
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deeply disappointed
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and confused why this was even brought up at that moment
Her interpretation was blunt:
The call felt like it was more about his insecurity than her performance or the country.
For a leader who was about to face Trump in front of the world, that was a brutal emotional hit.
Watching the Biden–Trump Debate: “A Car Crash”
Before her own debate, Harris had to watch Biden debate Trump.
Her reaction?
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She describes it as a “car crash” — historically bad.
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She felt that the entire Democratic side was pretending everything was fine, even as it clearly wasn’t.
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She had several interviews right after the debate and knew there was no easy way to spin what people had just seen.
From her perspective:
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Biden didn’t want the debate, and it showed.
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Trump was ready to exploit every weakness.
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The party avoided hard conversations early, and paid for it later.
Trump’s Playbook: Outrage, Storytelling, and Fear
Harris and the host dig into why Trump’s style works.
Key ideas:
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The human brain remembers emotion more than data.
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A wild story about “immigrants eating cats and dogs” sticks longer than any chart about economic recovery.
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A label like “Sleepy Joe” can overshadow years of policymaking.
Harris believes Trump’s strategy is intentional:
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Say the outrageous thing → dominate the news cycle.
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Keep people focused on scandals and rumors → avoid hard questions like
“What’s your actual plan to lower prices or protect workers?”
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Blame powerless groups → prevent people from examining powerful interests.
She calls this gaslighting, a mixture of:
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misrepresentation
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scapegoating
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distraction
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and emotional manipulation
And she says plainly:
This strategy is working.
Her Biggest Media Regret: Skipping Joe Rogan
In a media landscape where podcasts can reach tens of millions, Harris admits:
She wanted to go on Joe Rogan.
But:
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Her camp worried Rogan was pro-Trump.
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They weren’t sure the environment would be “safe” or productive.
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There were time and travel trade-offs leading up to the election.
Looking back, she says:
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She regrets not doing it.
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She believes it could have helped people see her more directly and authentically.
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She sees podcasts and independent media as crucial channels to reach people who distrust traditional news.
This becomes a broader lesson about modern politics:
Being a “glass box” (transparent and accessible) now beats being a “black box” controlled by PR.
Election Night: Shock, Grief, and “My God, My God”
Election night is where the emotional stakes peak.
Harris truly believed they could win.
Her team felt good. Even her husband Doug reported positive energy on the ground.
Then the numbers came in.
A call from her campaign manager:
“We’re short about 200,000 votes. We can’t find them on the map.”
She describes going into a state of shock.
She remembers repeating only one phrase in the room:
“My God, my God, my God.”
The only time she had felt something similar, she says, was when her mother died.
And importantly, it wasn’t about personal ego:
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She felt pain because she knew what was coming.
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She believed vulnerable people would be harmed.
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She could already see the policies that would follow and who would suffer most.
Her husband, meanwhile, had his own quiet crisis:
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A friend at Fox’s internal war room had warned him things didn’t look good.
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He took a shower and prayed, processing that information alone.
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They didn’t really talk about that night until she wrote her book.
It’s a reminder that even at that level of power, people process loss like anyone else — messy, delayed, and deeply human.
“Will You Run Again?” – The Question Hanging Over 2028
The host points out that Harris is still leading in many Democratic polls.
He asks the obvious question:
“Will you run for president again?”
Her answer is not a slogan. It’s a tension:
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She doesn’t want to be purely transactional, always showing up just to ask for votes.
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She knows running for president crushes families and demands extraordinary resilience.
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She believes you need a reason bigger than ego or entitlement.
The core question she uses to guide herself:
“Can I genuinely make a difference?”
If the answer becomes yes, she leaves the door open.
Writing her book was part of that process:
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It helped her process grief.
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It allowed her to be unfiltered and bolder.
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It ensured her version of history is on the record, not just others’ interpretations.
Her Final Warning: Don’t Let Your Spirit Be Defeated
Harris closes with a note that’s both sobering and empowering.
She insists:
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The crisis is bigger than one man or one election.
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Decades-long strategies (court-packing, gerrymandering, education attacks, think-tank agendas) are now paying off.
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The destruction is visible: from lunch programs to special education to healthcare and basic rights.
But her biggest fear is not just policy.
It’s this:
That people will become so discouraged, they give up.
Because if citizens emotionally check out…
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stop voting
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stop asking questions
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stop challenging lies
…then, in her words, “they really win.”
Her message is not “everything will be fine.”
It’s closer to:
“Things are bad. They may get worse. But if we stay awake, stay engaged, and keep fighting, we still have a chance.”