On a cold October evening in central London, hundreds of people queued for hours to see Kamala Harris. Security was strict, with airport-style checks, and the event began around 8:30 p.m. TO VIMA was inside to report on the gathering and the former US Vice President’s remarks.
Former US Vice President Kamala Harris has said that democracy remains “extraordinarily strong” but “only as strong as our willingness to fight for it,” during an appearance at the London Literature Festival.
The event, held at the Southbank Centre, marked the first international stop on Harris’s tour for her new memoir, 107 Days, in which she recounts the closing months of one of the most turbulent presidential campaigns in recent American history.
She appeared in conversation with Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Harris interrupted by Gaza protesters in the auditorium
Just seconds after taking her seat on stage, Kamala Harris was interrupted three times by members of the audience who sought to challenge the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Once calm was restored, the former Vice President addressed the issue directly – both in response to the audience and in reference to her new memoir 107 Days.
“Do I believe that our administration should have done more? I believe that we had certain levels that we did not exercise,” she said. “I believe we should have made public statements about what was happening – in particular, around the inhuman nature of what was happening in Gaza.”
Harris recalled that five months after the 7 October attacks she had spoken at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, during the annual commemoration of Bloody Sunday – a landmark moment in the American civil-rights movement.
“On that day, as I had done before, I chose to address my comments to the starvation in Gaza,” she said. “I took an incredible amount of heat within our administration for doing it. But I did it based on my belief that there had to be, at the highest level of our administration, an acknowledgement of what was happening to innocent Palestinians.”
She added that while she welcomed reports of a ceasefire, “however temporary it may be”, attention now needed to turn to “a plan for the day after”.
“That includes what needs to happen around security, what needs to happen around governance, and the rebuilding of Gaza,” she said.
Distrust and division
Harris went on to reflect on the wider social climate in the United States. “One of the aspects of this moment that pains me so is the level of distrust that we are experiencing in our country – between the American people,” she said.
“It’s not simply, ‘Should I lock my front door at night?’ It’s, ‘Can I trust that you are not a threat to my very existence?’ And I fear that that is at a height I’ve never witnessed.”
She said she hoped to remind people “that no one is alone, that we are intentional about building community, and that we work on the deep stuff – the issue of trust”.
Harris linked that distrust to the rise of misinformation and disinformation, amplified by social media. “Please, when you’re thinking about that person who voted the other way, don’t assume you’re working with the same information,” she urged. “Fact remains fact – but don’t impute a different morality.”
What Kamala Harris Said about Donald Trump
Harris addressed her approach to Donald Trump directly when Adichie raised the question of race and misinformation, referencing moments when Trump had questioned Harris’s identity as a Black woman.
Harris said she had chosen not to respond to his comments during the 2024 campaign, explaining that engaging would only serve his purpose.
“There are always consequences to not responding,” she said. “But the consequence, not only can it be harmful in terms of leaving something without rebuttal – it also risks falling prey to his manipulation of fact and reality. You get sucked into this hole of debating nonsense.”
She argued that Trump’s use of controversy was a deliberate tactic to distract voters from substantive issues: “It’s part of the methodology he consciously employs – to distract from the important issues,” Harris said. “I was not going to spend any of those 107 precious days debating him about nonsense.”
Lessons for Democrats
Asked about the Democratic Party’s current challenges, Harris said that while the party had “stood firm” against efforts to cut healthcare and other public programmes, it needed to think more strategically about immediate needs.
Reflecting on the 2024 election, she noted that “one third of the electorate voted for him, one third voted for us, and one third did not vote. Two thirds of the American electorate did not vote for him. So we have a lot of work to do to figure out why that one third did not vote.”
“Our spirit can never be defeated”
Harris ended on a personal and reflective note, recalling moments from the campaign trail when supporters of all backgrounds came together.
“I was raised to think of the children of the community as the children of the community,” she said. “Part of why I wrote the book is so that people who were part of that – in every way – can remember those feelings, not as fleeting, but as something inside us.”
She said that even in defeat, she held onto a sense of shared hope. “Especially in moments of darkness, that’s when that light is so important – to see it in each other, to see it in ourselves, and to keep going. Our spirit can never be defeated.”
Reflections on global leadership
Speaking about the state of global politics, Harris warned against what she described as “the resurgence of the strongman”.
“There is something increasingly happening in the world, which is the resurgence of the strongman,” she said. “And the idea that the strength of a nation is based on the brutality of its leaders. And that does and should concern us all.”
Harris said she had met with “over 150 world leaders” during her time as Vice President. “They would look me in the eye and say, ‘Well, for how long?’ And my response would be with a silent prayer,” she recalled. “Democracy… there’s a fragility to it. When it is intact, it’s extraordinarily strong in terms of what it does to protect the rights of its citizens.”
Beyond one election cycle
In 107 Days, Harris argues that America’s current political turmoil did not appear overnight. “It is a huge mistake for all of the attention to be placed on the one individual who’s in the law,” she told Adichie. “The chaos that we feel is actually a high-velocity event about the swift implementation of a plan that has been decades in the making… from the Heritage Foundation to the Federalist Society.”
She urged audiences to think beyond short-term politics: “The work we have to do is much deeper… it’s about remembering how we got here and correcting a course that is going to be beyond one election cycle.”
Policy work and representation
Asked about work she felt had been overlooked during her time in office, Harris cited her focus on maternal health. “The United States still has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality of any so-called developed country in the world,” she said. “When I came in, only three states were extending health care coverage for postpartum care for women. By the time I left, forty-seven of the states extended postpartum care.”
She also highlighted her efforts to reshape America’s engagement with Africa. “I was doing the work of attempting to reframe the narrative around the relationship in a way that it would not just be about aid but about partnership,” she said, noting that by 2050 “one in four people on Mother Earth will be on the continent of Africa.”
Media, power and accountability
Reflecting on her relationship with the media, Harris shared an anecdote from her campaign, claiming that endorsements from both The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times were withheld. “The billionaires who run them pulled it back,” she said. “Journalists quit… subscribers by the hundreds of thousands pulled their subscriptions.”
She linked this to broader concerns about the media’s proximity to political power. “There is just the, maybe the human frailty of some, of just wanting to be next to power, whatever it does,” she said.
Empathy, honesty and hope
Throughout the discussion, Adichie described 107 Days as “a book of hope, of honesty, of heart,” suggesting it was also “defiant.” Harris replied: “It’s honest. And some people might find it difficult, especially if speaking honestly is something that makes it difficult for some people to hear.”
When asked about her motivation, Harris reflected on leadership and compassion. “True love requires that one knows empathy,” she said. “And when one knows empathy, one may be more inclined to understand kindness, humility, humanity… when one is missing, you might not be able to find the others.”
“Every good fight has to be fuelled by optimism”
Closing the conversation, Harris said that her campaign – though brief – had lasting value. “In those short 107 days, we built something that was not fleeting,” she said. “Every good fight has to be fuelled by optimism – by believing what’s possible.”
She added: “We must be clear-eyed and see the darkness. But we also carry some light in this moment. And that’s the only way we’ll win the day.”
The event ended with a standing ovation, marking a reflective and measured start to Harris’s international book tour – one that sought to balance realism with a call for empathy, and politics with humanity.
107 Days by Kamala Harris, Simon & Schuster UK, £25.00, is out now
