According to a new book on former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, her team insisted that she only be placed in chairs that “met certain specifications.” The rigid seating arrangements were described in detail in an extract from Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” which was published in The Hill.
According to the book sample, “her team required that she be given a chair that met certain specifications: arm height on chairs may not be very high, arms must fall at a natural height; chairs must be firm; leg height no less than 15 inches; floor to top of seat height no less than 18.9 inches.”
About 40 days prior to the required chair criteria, she had been interviewed by the media for the first time after gaining the lead on the Democratic ticket. In a joint interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on August 29, 2024, Harris was accompanied by her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Liberals Have a New Enemy: Kamala Harris’s Chairs
The same book that unearths the Democrats’ “no daylight” strategy reports that the Harris campaign spent weeks obsessing over the height of their candidate’s chairs.⁰⁰According to a pre-released excerpt, the then-vice president… pic.twitter.com/MHR4k6uvEw
— Tony Seruga (@TonySeruga) March 14, 2025
The two sat at a table, but when her colleagues saw that Harris seemed to be under Tim Walz, they issued a fresh directive to ensure that it never happened again.
“Sitting next to Walz in a chair that seemed to place her below him and heaping praise on Biden’s record, Harris did not look like a candidate seeking the highest office in the land,” the excerpt read. “The whole scene reinforced the criticism that the vice president was either incapable, or afraid, of answering tough questions on her own.”
However, Allen and Parnes stated that “the question facing Harris was whether she could build a sturdy platform,” independent of the required chair specifications. The extract also revealed that former President Joe Biden had instructed Harris to stick with his policies.
“What, if anything, would you have done differently over the last four years than President Biden?” Early in October, Sunny Hostin, co-host of “The View,” asked Harris to begin her series of cordial interviews.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I’ve been apart of most of the decisions that have had impact,” Harris began. “The work we have done, for example, capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month for our seniors. It’s something I care deeply about, about allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and bring the cost of prescription medication down for seniors but my intention is to expand that for all Americans.”
According to reports, the president himself put pressure on her to keep her distance from Biden. According to Allen and Parnes’ book, Biden called Harris to offer her some advice prior to her first and only presidential debate against current President Donald Trump.
“For the rest of the campaign, her team required that she be provided a chair that met certain specifications: “Leg height no less than 15 inches; floor to top of seat height no less than 18.9 inches …”
Amazing @jonallendc @amieparnes detailhttps://t.co/AIUSycgRad pic.twitter.com/QlW0583uVE
— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) March 13, 2025
“Whether she won or lost the election, he thought, she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him — especially during a debate that would be watched by millions of Americans. To the extent that she wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so. He needed just three words to convey how much all of that mattered to him,” the book reads.
Biden allegedly remarked, “No daylight, kid.” When Fox News Digital contacted the former vice president’s office, they did not immediately hear back.
