‘The View’ Host Admits She ‘Knew It’: Her Question Torpedoed Kamala’s White House Bid

Sunny Hostin admitted on Tuesday that she had known in real time that her question — about what she might have done differently than then-President Joe Biden — could cost then Vice President Kamala Harris the 2024 presidential election.

Harris joined the hosts of ABC’s “The View” for their midday broadcast, where they discussed her upcoming memoir titled “107 Days” — which details the short-lived and ill-fated campaign upon which she embarked just hours after Biden announced his plan to withdraw from the race.

Cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin raised the question about the overall mood of the country at the time, asking whether Harris and her team might have missed signs indicating that Americans were desperate for a seismic shift away from Biden — and already viewed her, his vice president, as an extension of his presidency.

“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.

“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,” Harris replied. “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, and, you know, in the campaign full-time I was pointing out the differences.”

WATCH:

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

Hostin, who initially asked Harris the question heard around the world — what might Harris have done differently from Biden — said that she had understood the weight of the vice president’s non-answer in the moment.

“You write you had no idea you just pulled the pin on a hand grenade. In the moment, I knew,” Hostin said, and then argued that the real problem wasn’t Harris and her inability to answer the question, but the way that Trump’s campaign had made use of it. “The Trump campaign weaponized your answer against you; my question.”

Hostin asked Harris whether she felt like that question — and her answer — had tipped the election.

“Because Sunny doesn’t want to take the blame,” Joy Behar quipped.

“I absolve you,” Harris said to Hostin, but also said that she didn’t believe that one moment had cost her the presidency.