Kamala Harris has told the BBC that she may run for president again

Former US Vice President Kamala Harris has told the BBC that she may run for the White House again.

In her first UK interview, Harris said she would “possibly” be president one day and believed there would be a woman in the White House in the future.

In her strongest indication to date that she will make another bid for the presidency in 2028 after losing to Donald Trump last year, Harris dismissed polls that placed her as an outsider to the Democrats’ pick for the next election.

Talking to Sunday with Laura KuensbergHarris also fired back at her former rival, branding Trump a “tyrant” and saying her warnings about him on the campaign trail have been vindicated.

As the Democratic Party searches for answers to Republican Donald Trump’s decisive victory a year ago, former President Joe Biden has been largely blamed for not standing up sooner.

But questions have also been raised about whether Harris could have run a better campaign and delivered a clearer message on the economy as number one.

In an interview with the BBC, Harris entertained the possibility of a second run at the White House, saying her grandchildren would see a female president “in their lifetime, for sure.”

Asked if that would be her, she said, “Possibly”, confirming that she is considering another run at the top job.

Harris said she hasn’t made up her mind yet, but underscored that she still sees herself as a future in politics.

“I’m not done,” the former vice president said. “I’ve lived my entire career as a life of service and it’s in my bones.”

Responding to the odds placing her as an outsider to win a spot on the Democratic ticket – even behind Hollywood actor Dwayne the Rock Johnson – she said she had never heard of the polls.

“If I had listened to the polls, I wouldn’t have run for my first office or my second — and I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Harris also said that she believed her predictions about Donald Trump acting like a fascist and running an authoritarian government.

“He said he would arm the Justice Department — and that’s what he’s done.”

She pointed to the suspension of late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel by ABC after he joked about the Republican reaction to the death of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

His removal from the airwaves, celebrated by Trump, came after a Trump-appointed regulator threatened Kimmel’s broadcaster.

“You look at what’s happened in terms of how he’s weaponized, for example, federal agencies going after political cartoonists… His skin is so thin that he can’t take criticism from a joke, and in the process he’s tried to shut down an entire media establishment.”

Harris also blasted America’s business leaders and institutions who, in her view, have bowed too easily to the president’s demands.

“There are many…who have surrendered from day one, bowing at the feet of the tyrant, I believe for many reasons, including wanting to stay ahead of power, because they might want to get the merger approved or avoid investigation.”

Asked for a response to Harris’ comments about the president, the White House declined to comment.

“When Kamala Harris lost the election, she should have been warned — the American people don’t care about her stupidity,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.

“Or maybe she took a hint and that’s why she’s airing her complaints to foreign publications.”

Harris recently published an account of her rollercoaster campaign, 107 Days , the time she had left for the presidency after Biden withdrew from the race after months of speculation about his mental acuity.

In our full interview with the former vice-president, which airs Sunday at 09:00 GMT (05:00 EST) in the UK, I pressed Harris several times about whether she should have urged Biden to make an early exit.

How much did she really know about his health? And a question that may haunt her — if Biden had withdrawn earlier, would she now be president, not Donald Trump?

The answer, clearly, is the unknown—the great “if” that could have changed America’s destiny.

In Democratic introspection, Harris’s candidacy is often denigrated, with her weaknesses as a leader cited as reasons for her defeat, not just the last-minute nature of Biden’s decision.

When questioned about what went wrong, rather than delve into a deeper analysis, her contention is that because she started so late, winning was almost impossible.

But sitting with a former California prosecutor in the gilded surroundings of a luxury London hotel — rather than the increasingly gilded surroundings of the Oval Office as Donald Trump shines in decor — the prospect of power is something she’s not ready to leave behind.

Earlier hints of her future presidential ambitions sounded coy, non-committal – “maybe, maybe not”, or “I’m not focused on that right now”.

Her candor in our conversation was even more striking. She was quick, even eager, to put herself in another position of power. But she stopped short of making any concrete commitments.

This may come as a surprise given the severe nature of the defeat, which she described as traumatic. The defeat left her and her team devastated, much to their surprise.

“My God, my God, what will happen to our country?” Harris says she repeated when the results came in.

Her attempt to explain this has focused on how narrow the actual vote gap is between her and Trump.

The popular vote, indeed, was very tight, at less than 2%. However, Trump defeated Harris in the all-important Electoral College, where each state has a certain number of electoral votes.

Harris was willing to drop heavy hints about her own future. But there is little willingness from her or any other senior Democrats to grapple with their party’s long-standing dilemmas.

How does a centre-left party with a mainstream leader cope with a right-wing populist leader? Is focusing on Trump the answer? Or want to argue harder for Main Street?

When I challenged the former vice president on why her campaign didn’t connect well with working people, she said she needed more time to do that and pointed to a shift away from her party in that group.

She regrets that she didn’t have enough time in 2024 to make her own pitch on bread-and-butter issues like housing or childcare.

But if she had more time the next time, there’s no guarantee her arguments would be more compelling or more entertaining.

Kamala Harris still travels in a gang trap. Assistants watch the clock anxiously as her every minute is planned with military precision. Non-stop travel, choreographed shows in different capitals, number of carefully planned TV interviews.

This time, Harris is going on a book tour, not a presidential race. But maybe, if she has her way, this is the start of another campaign.