As Democrats dig in for a lengthening US government shutdown, former Vice President Kamala Harris is cheering them on as she travels the country touting her presidential campaign memoir amid speculation about another White House run.

The Democratic 2024 nominee told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that she remains in contact with Democrats on Capitol Hill, encouraging them to maintain their demands that President Donald Trump and the Republican congressional majority address looming spikes in Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums.

“The Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. They control the White House. They are in charge, and they are responsible for the shutdown,” she said.

Democrats, she said, “are doing the right thing by standing up for working people and not allowing the Republicans to carry a tax cut for the wealthiest people in our country on the backs of working people in America.”

It was just one example of Harris using her book tour to urge Democrats to lead a consistent, aggressive resistance to Trump while at the same time recommitting to reaching working- and middle-class voters who supported the Republican or stayed home last November.

Over the course of the day, Harris sat down for an hourlong conversation with five Black college students, spoke to the AP and held two book discussions in Alabama's largest city. Paid ticketholders filled downtown Birmingham's Alabama Theatre, where Harris discussed her campaign, the Democratic Party and the course of the nation with radio host Charlamagne tha God.

Through it all, Harris projected the aura of party elder and future candidate. She expressed concern for the country’s direction and outright incredulity over many of Trump’s actions. When VIP ticketholders told her in a photo line how disappointed they had been by her loss, she played it forward.

Harris, 60, maintained she has made no decision about her own political future. But she made clear that running again in 2028 is still on the table and that sees herself as a player in the party and a voice in the national discourse.

Later this month, she plans to campaign for California’s “Yes on Prop 50,” the ballot measure that would allow a Democratic-led redraw of the state’s congressional districts to counter Republican gerrymandering in Texas and other Republican-controlled states.

Harris rejected conventional political wisdom that she lost in part because of Republicans’ sustained attacks on cultural and social issues, especially transgender issues. She said economics, notably inflation, was the bigger factor.

She praised the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments but said household-level policies such as child tax credits, family leave and first-time homebuyer credits should have come before a sweeping infrastructure program and the CHIPS semiconductor manufacturing law.

Harris said Friday that she never doubted former President Joe Biden's ability to serve, even when he ended his re-election bid because of concerns about his age. That's different, she explained, than discussions about whether the 82-year-old could have served another term.

“He and I have been playing phone tag actually in the last couple of days,” Harris told the AP when asked whether she still talks to Biden, who is undergoing prostate cancer treatment. “I’d invite everyone to say a prayer if that’s what you do for his well-being and health right now.”