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Harris’ Shockingly Dubious Plan Had Biden Died as President Turns Heads

April 8, 2025
by The Times Of America

Harris Team Crafted Dubious Plan for Biden’s Death Including GOP Judge ‘Death-Pool Roster,’ Book Proclaims

A former communications director for Kamala Harris developed a detailed strategy to implement should President Biden have died while in office.

This included a controversial spreadsheet of Republican-appointed judges who could swear her in as president, according to a newly released book. The revelation comes from “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” published Tuesday by William Morrow and Company. 

Authors Jonathan Allen of NBC News and Amie Parnes of The Hill report that Jamal Simmons, who served as Harris’s White House communications director, created what the book describes as a “death-pool roster” of federal judges. According to the authors, Simmons worried about Harris’s legitimacy if she were to assume the presidency following Biden’s unexpected death. 

He specifically feared that “Trump people” would go “apes—” if Harris became president. 

The communications director apparently drew inspiration from Lyndon B. Johnson’s swearing-in aboard Air Force One after John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

“Simmons believed Harris would be strengthened by an institutional stamp of approval if she were sworn in hurriedly because Biden had died unexpectedly,” Allen and Parnes wrote. 

To address these concerns, Simmons reportedly created a spreadsheet identifying federal judges who had been appointed by Republican presidents other than Donald Trump.

Fox News outlined that the book states that Simmons “compiled a spreadsheet of those jurists across the country, down to a city-by-city breakdown, and carried it with him when he traveled with Harris.” This unusual preparation underscores the heightened political tensions during the Biden administration and concerns about potential challenges to presidential succession.

The contingency planning appears to have been motivated by memories of the January 6 Capitol riot, with the authors noting that Simmons was recalling “the January 6 effort to stop Biden from being certified as president” when considering potential challenges to Harris’s legitimacy. 

By identifying Republican-appointed judges who could administer the oath of office, Simmons seemingly sought to create a bipartisan validation of Harris’s presidency if such a scenario ever materialized.

Despite creating this contingency plan, Simmons reportedly never informed Harris about the “death-pool roster” before he left her communications team in January 2023. He did, however, instruct colleagues to notify him immediately if something happened to Biden so he could execute his communications strategy. 

Before departing, Simmons left the spreadsheet with another Harris staffer, ensuring the plan would remain available if needed.

Fox highlighted that the authors do not specify which judges were included on this list, leaving readers to wonder about the criteria Simmons used when selecting potential oath administrators from across the federal judiciary. 

The book, based on interviews with more than 150 political insiders, also reveals that former President Barack Obama was hesitant to back Harris in the 2024 election. 

Obama reportedly doubted both Biden’s mental fitness and Harris’s ability to defeat Donald Trump in the presidential race—skepticism that allegedly frustrated Harris and potentially contributed to tensions within the Democratic Party leading up to the election.

Fox noted that Harris, who previously served as a senator from California before becoming vice president, is now represented by CAA Speakers, an agency for high-profile celebrities.

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