‘The View’ Host Admits She ‘Knew It’: Her Question Torpedoed Kamala’s White House Bid
Sunny Hostin confessed Tuesday that she knew immediately her question to then-Vice President Kamala Harris might have doomed Harris’s already-uphill 2024 presidential bid.
Harris had appeared on ABC’s The View to promote her new memoir, 107 Days, which chronicles her brief and ultimately disastrous campaign for president after Joe Biden exited the race. During the interview, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked Harris if she had underestimated how much the American public wanted a clean break from the Biden era.
“Understanding that many people saw you as an extension of Joe Biden, were there glaring warning signs that, when there’s only two options to vote on, that you missed going into election day?” Griffin asked.
Harris admitted she didn’t do enough to differentiate herself from Biden. “I’m a loyal person, and I didn’t fully appreciate how much people wanted to know there was a difference between me and President Biden,” she said. “I thought it was obvious, and I didn’t want to offer a difference in a way that would be received or suggested to be a criticism.”
But it was Hostin’s question that became the defining moment. During that same appearance, Hostin had asked Harris what she would have done differently than Biden. The answer — or lack of one — spread quickly across social media and was later used by President Trump’s campaign to portray Harris as weak, indecisive, and politically tethered to Biden’s unpopular legacy.
Looking for absolution, Sunny Hostin laments asking Kamala the infamous question that sunk her campaign.”You write you had no idea you just pulled the pin on a hand grenade. In the moment, I knew. The Trump campaign weaponized your answer against you; my question,” she whined.… pic.twitter.com/efxlvwqZDy
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 23, 2025
“You write you had no idea you just pulled the pin on a hand grenade. In the moment, I knew,” Hostin said to Harris, referring to a passage in the vice president’s book. She added, “The Trump campaign weaponized your answer against you — my question.”
Harris didn’t directly blame Hostin but did acknowledge the fallout from her vague answer. The segment turned introspective when co-host Joy Behar joked, “Because Sunny doesn’t want to take the blame.”
The viral moment marked a turning point in Harris’s campaign, which struggled to gain traction and eventually lost both the Electoral College and the popular vote in a landslide to President Trump.
Harris’s interview on The View may have been intended as part of a book promotion tour, but it also served as a postmortem on a campaign that never found its footing — and a reminder of how one televised moment can change the course of a national election.