Kamala Harris says she's on a 48-game Wordle streak and uses the same starting word every day
The vice presidents, they're just like us: obsessed with Wordle.
Vice President Kamala Harris chatted with The Ringer about her love of Wordle after revealing she plays the game at night when she "can't sleep." The online sensation, which was bought by The New York Times, involves trying to guess a new five-letter word each day. Harris told The Ringer the game is "genius" and she loves it because "for me it's a brain cleanser."
"So it's in the middle of very long days, back-to-back meetings on a lot of intense issues," she said. "If I have a break, let's say that people are running late or my little 25 minutes for lunch, sometimes while I'm eating I'll figure out Wordle."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
While Harris said Wordle "gets put aside" when she's traveling, she admitted, "I must have played it when I was in Poland. But we won't talk about that, right?" She says her current streak is 48, although like some other players, it "got messed up when it got moved over to The New York Times."
Regular Wordle players can either start with the same word every day or mix it up, but Harris falls into the former camp, revealing her starting word is always "notes" because it has "a healthy mix of consonants and vowels."
She doesn't just play Wordle, though. The vice president is also a fan of the Times' mini crossword and Spelling Bee — but she's forced to play the "cheapy free version" because her phone doesn't allow her to subscribe to anything. Plus, Harris can't share her Wordle scores with anyone because "my phone doesn't let me text anybody, which is sad."
When asked for any examples of stressful moments where she played Wordle to relax, Harris said, "They're all classified. Sorry."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Read the full discussion with the White House's own Wordle fiend at The Ringer.
Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago.
-
‘Never more precarious’: the UN turns 80The Explainer It’s an unhappy birthday for the United Nations, which enters its ninth decade in crisis
-
Trump’s White House ballroom: a threat to the republic?Talking Point Trump be far from the first US president to leave his mark on the Executive Mansion, but to critics his remodel is yet more overreach
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
