Kamala Harris: From Beyoncé to Her Vision for the Future, Read Her Revealing PEOPLE Interview (Exclusive)

Now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, read what she told PEOPLE about her historic role and her hopes for America

Kamala Harris made history even before President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he was dropping out of the 2024 election — and declared that he was giving his “full support and endorsement” to Vice President Harris. In October 2023, Harris sat down with PEOPLE at her home, the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., for a wide-ranging interview. From her marriage to (the first) Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff, to her favorite Beyoncé song to her vision for the future, read the full interview below.

Kamala Harris is vice president “24/7, 365” as her husband of nine years, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, puts it. But on her 59th birthday on Oct. 20, she was planning on a slightly more relaxed day than usual: after a morning interview and photo shoot with PEOPLE, perhaps a few moments in her vegetable garden — where she likes to pick fresh tarragon for salads — followed by a small gathering with family and close friends. An early summons from the president to report to the Oval Office amid the ongoing crisis in Israel and Gaza meant that Harris was thrust into action, with her staff scrambling to rearrange her day.

Of course, for the highest-ranking woman in U.S. history, birthdays — along with nearly everything else — are a distant second to the job.

At the end of each evening, after reading her nightly “binders” of briefing documents (“about this thick,” she explains, placing her hands a foot apart), Harris says she tries to have some “wind-down time.” Still, she admits that the brief respite and a mug of chamomile tea aren’t quite enough.

“I usually wake up in the middle of the night with some thought of what’s going on,” she says. “Then I fall back asleep, and the next day starts.”

Restless nights, hurried days, intense pressure: Welcome to Kamala Harris’ world, in which the triple landmark of being the first woman, first Black person and first person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president carries an unprecedented combination of scrutiny and expectation.

Nearly three years into a role that is notoriously diffuse — “I am vice president. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything,” John Adams famously said — the woman who is a heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the world is determined to take things one day at a time.

She is well aware that in a hyperpolarized political culture, the “comments section” of her life draws both praise and vitriol. The latter, which often veers into racism and sexism, is something Harris has navigated throughout her lifelong career in public service.