By Lisa Lerer, Tyler Pager, Shane Goldmacher and Erica L. Green | New York Times
Kamala Harris felt forced to talk about what President Trump was doing to the country.
But not enough to attack him by name.
Two days before, the law firm that the husband, Doug Emhoff, with a billionaire salary had reached an agreement in the White House to avoid paralyzing sanctions, an agreement with the agreement that Emhoff had objected in advance in private conversations.
Now, Harris wanted to let him know that he felt uncomfortable with such acquiescence.
“There is a sense of fear in our country,” he told a black women’s audience on April 3, in some of his most overwhelming comments since November. His voice increased, he added: “We are seeing those who are clearly unconstitutional threat chapters.”
Five months after being expelled from the public office for the first time in more than two decades, the former vice president feels carefully to follow. While suddenly his next movement is sailing among a president who is using his executive branch to crush those he sees as his strongest adversaries and the restricted Democrats who want their leaders to be the image of the challenge.
Friends, former assistants and advisors say that Harris, 60, still thinks he would have defeated Trump if he had had more than 107 days to campaign, the involvement is that former Joseph R. Biden Jr. should have renounced the race before.
However, some of its closest allies say that it is supported against another White House in 2028 and, instead, towards a campaign for Governor of California in 2026. His political choice is binary, he has Tut Mehunns.
Harris, who jokes to his friends who is first unemployed, has also explored options beyond following the electoral position. Hired the Agency of Creative Artists to evaluate the interest in speaking in the commitment and a potential book. An assistant has held preliminary conversations with universities about the establishment of a policy institute, thought that some warned that they could complicate their political aspirations.
But she has rejected early opportunities to return to the game. While other prominent Democrats, including Governor Tim Walz from Minnesota, his former formula partner has affirmed in the fight of the party to draw a path to a return, with Hall events, podcasts, speeches and television appearances, Harris has not given interviews and has Largellightt.
In his few public departures, he has only entered cautiously into the fray.
“I’m not here to tell you like that,” he told the audience at Dana Point on April 3, who breaks herself and the crowd.
The interviews with more than three boxes of Harris advisors, former assistants, allies and friends reveal to a politician, known, as much as anything, for their precaution, standing in perhaps at their most fateful crossroads so far.
After 22 years as an elected official, he must decide White, or how, to continue his political career in an environment in which he was remote for his defeat.
Leaving behind last year does not have an easy leg.
Harris has told friends and allies that he is still processing the result of November, in which he lost all Swing states and saw a record number of black and Latin voters, historical among the most reliable Democrats, reject it.
The garage of his house in Los Angeles is full of boxes and containers that must still be unpacked, some of them intact since he first run for president in 2019.
But there is work to be done and a deadline ahead: former vice presidents receive only six months of federal funds for an office, which means that Harris will need a new source of income at the end of July to keep their small team of assistants employee.
She and her husband are weighing every new opportunity with the possible political setback in mind.
One possibility: establish a policy and ideas institute. Brian Nelson, Harris advisor since she was the Attorney General of California, has approached the idea with several universities, including Howard and Stanford. But some allies have indicated that raising money for this center, depending on donors, create liabilities in future races. For this reason, Harris has been touched on a paid speech commitment, one of which is to attract it to Australia at the end of this month.
Emhoff has also hired CAA to talk about commitment, according to two people informed about the matter. And he has resumed his legal career, prohibited an association in Willkie Farr & Gallagher who has said he is paying around $ 6 million, according to three people informed about those conversations.
That does not have a soft leg navigation: before Willkie’s agreement to avoid the bee punished by Trump was made public on April 1: he promised $ 100 million in pro bono legal work for reasons that the president has defended: Emhoff urged the leaders of the firm to fight.
In comments separated on April 3, Emhoff told a crowd in Los Angeles that he was in sincere with Willkie’s decision to resolve what he called a “evidently unconstitutional potential executive order.”
“I think we must continually continue Ashlves if the accommodation strengthens or weakens the bases we swore,” he said in a benefit to Bet Tzedek, a non -profit that executes free legal clinics.
However, since some Democrats have argued that Emhoff should give up so that their work becomes a responsibility for Harris, a talk that an assistant said that the Goths return to the couple.
Harris and Emhoff have found time for fun, in Broadway “Gypsy” and “Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical.” They considered a bicastal life, only choosing a rental apartment in New York, but decided that they are ready to sign a lease.
In Los Angeles, Harris has spent time with friends, attending a party against the Oscars and dinner at Hollywood restaurants that attract Paparazzi. She was photographed by buying in an Asian supermarket; The conservatives pounced in their use or plastic bags.
But she has joked with her husband that she should not get the battery of so many homemade meals.
Out of public hearing, Harris has been busy, meeting with followers in Hillcrest, the Los Angeles Golf Club, where her husband is a member, organizing donor meetings at her home in Brentwood and speaking by phone with confidence operations Likea Moore and the Jeike Emily list. His call list also includes Hillary Clinton, Biden, Pete Buttigieg and billionaire Reid Hoffman.
Mackler said Harris expected Harris to resume his political career. “Not anywhere. It is deeply committed to leadership in this country,” he said.
Harris has focused on some pressing problems that the Democrats face, according to friends and assistants: how to connect with the voters who share their values, but not on all their liberal ideas, and how to modernize the organization of the party and recover the laundry and recover Thain Laationly and recover those who conducted it to the condition to the condition of the condition and record that the condition and recovered that the condition and recovered that the condition and recovered that the condition and recovered. Republicans
She has been with David Shor, a Democratic pollster who conducted a broad analysis of the 2024 elections, spoken to billionaire Chris Larsen for discussion of artificial intelligence and with media figures that include the sacred of the New York Times column, which manages. “
His team has also monitored the political movements of other prominent democrats. The staff members have asked Walz attendees about their recent Town-Hall Tour and how it has been received, according to a participant in those conversations.
But as the practice of the Democrats begs their elected officials to gather a more forceful opposition to Trump, Harris herself has not been almost anywhere.
In a rare movement, he spoke with Zoom on the eve of the elections of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin on April 1 to some 100 workers and democratic organizers in the state, praising their efforts in their campaign and before the judicial jurisdiction.
“I know that everyone will never give up, and that we will continue to fight this fight, in the voting cabin and in the courts and in the public square,” said Harris, according to a participant in the call.
However, in a revealing way, Harris’s sacrifice to visit Wisconsin was rejected as a possible distraction that advocates the early vote, according to the people informed about the discussions. And Zoom’s call remained private until after the surveys closed, at the request of the Wisconsin Democrats, who feared that the reports of their participation divert the attention of Elon Musk, the primary objective of the Democratic campaign.
However, staying out has allowed Harris for enough time to consult his next movement.
The next presidential race could be launched just after the intermediate works of 2026, if not before. Already, some applicants have started planning campaigns.
Some Harris assistants believe that the broker would automatically be in a primary field full of people, thanks to their recognition name and a wide network of donors and followers.
But many more Democrats argue against another offer of Harris-For President: The 2028 elections will be a contest for the future of the party in which it would be perceived as a figure of the past, the reorganization. Others say that Democrats will not name another woman, fearing that the country is too sexist for her to win.
On the contrary, some people close to Harris believe it would effectively slide to the Governor mansion of California when the open year of the seat. Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, a close friend, is expected to leave the race if Harris enters it. And former representative Katie Porter, Orange County Democrat who announced her campaign for governor last month, said Mrs. Harris would probably have a “cleaning effect close to the field.”
Others are less safe. Xavier Becerra, former Biden Secretary of Health and former Attorney General of California, entered the race last week and said he would not retire if Harris joined.
Another Democratic candidate, former mayor Antonio Villarigosa de los Ángeles, who gave the field to Harris when he ran for the Senate in 2016, has publicly pushed her to decide. He has said that Primary 2026 would not be a “coronation.”
Harris has good reasons to lean towards a career for the governor, according to the people who have talked to her. She has watched with horror how institutions care about Democrats (universities, law firms and more) have been given under pressure. And she believes that, as governor of the most popular blue state in the nation, she would have a powerful platform from which to retreat against Trump and her policies, and defend democratic priorities and values.
He was also confused, said people, so he saw how the slowness and insufficiency of the initial response to the forest fires of the angels of this year by democratic leaders in their native state. Harris has watched the response to fires, meeting with firefighters and evacuated and touring the damage. His own four bedroom house in Brentwood was inside the evacuation zone, but did not suffer significant damage.
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