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Ace Smith
Harris Campaign Adviser
Ace Smith served as a campaign adviser for Kamala Harris’ attorney general and United States Senate campaigns. In his 40-year career, he has also worked on campaigns for California Governor Gavin Newsom and Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. He is currently a partner at Bearstar Strategies.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on July 24, 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Harris’ San Francisco District Attorney Campaign
So let's just start at the beginning.Where does Kamala Harris first come on your radar, as somebody you've heard of, as somebody operating in San Francisco?
In 2003, and there was a reason for that, which is my wife, Laura Talmus, was employee number one, raising money for her district attorney campaign, and so I got to know her quite well.And it was funny.At the time, I wasn't really professionally working on that campaign, but I was so struck.I had never seen anyone work harder than Kamala D. Harris running for district attorney of San Francisco.And you also have to remember, this is at a time in San Francisco politics, very different from today, where running for DA even was almost like a mini-presidential race.It was fascinating.There were newspapers and radio stations and television stations that covered everything, just daily.There were nightly debates.Some nights, there were three debates.And it's kind of funny.People always ask, why do really talented people like Kamala Harris come out of San Francisco?It's because if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.At that time, it was one of the toughest places to succeed in politics.
You said that she worked hard.What does that mean in that race?
Oh, in that race, that means you have to do two things in that race.There were limits of $500 for contributions, and you had to spend somewhere close to a million dollars.So just do the math on that.You have to raise a lot of money from a lot of people, major grassroots effort.At the same time, San Francisco is retail politics central, so you have to knock doors; you have to do block parties; you have to do debates; you have to do candidate forums; you have to do interviews.You can't even imagine.There's nothing like it that exists anymore.But that really and truly was a cauldron that you had to come out of.
Some of the stories we hear about the ironing board and setting up outside the Metro station, that actually happened?
Absolutely.Absolutely that happened.And my wife and daughter and sometimes I would join and would do the ironing boards every weekend at our local Cala Market.
And who was she as a politician in San Francisco, because we've heard she stood out as compared to all of the previous DAs.Who was she as a political figure at that time in the firmament of San Francisco politics?
That's something that really hasn't really changed that much.As you probably know, I was fortunate enough to be involved in some of her later races.But she's very different in this sense: She's not running to be something; she's running to do something.And so when she was running for DA, she had worked in that office, and she knew exactly what she wanted to do, exactly how she wanted to do it.So, in some degree or another, running a race with her is very simple, because you're never going to get the question of, “What should I say?”You're always going to have the actual kind of different experience, which is, “How do we succinctly say all the things she wants to say?,” which is usually profoundly, profoundly full of great policy.
So how big a challenge was it for her to try to break into politics?How daunting, even in that first race, was it?
Oh, it was hugely challenging.She was running against a local legend, a guy named [Terence] “Kayo” Hallinan was his nickname.But it was from a very well-known—the father was a revered trial attorney.Hallinan had been on the Board of Supervisors.This was a serious political power family in San Francisco.
Smart on Crime
What was she running on?… How was she framing herself as a potential DA?
She was running on exactly what she also ran on statewide, the race I was deeply involved in, which was “smart on crime,” which is very different.And her argument used to be that you don't have to make the choice of being soft on crime or tough on crime.It's like, if you actually look at the system and see how you make changes and do things so that people end up safer—and how do you end up safer?You end up safer by basically having better outcomes coming through the prosecutor's office, for instance, people who are going in there as first-time offenders not just ending up in the revolving door and coming back three and four and five and six times.How does that add to public safety?And so she always had her eye on, yes, keeping, maintaining public safety, never took our eye off the ball, but also understanding how you could make the public safer by reforming the system.
So is that something you can say is left or right or ideological?Because as you know, it becomes—people try to look at it in that way in 2020.
Well, I would call it smart.I would call it good policy.The thing to understand about Kamala Harris is that she's a tremendous, tremendous, really scholar of policy.And she is remarkable in the sense that she won't just say, “Give me something good, and we'll go hold a press conference.”She'll want to know exactly what it is, what the effects are, go deeply into it and test it out, make sure it works, implement it in a way that she's really paying attention.I think some of that came from her mother, who was, as you probably know, was a scientist.So she really believes in being dispassionate about facts and figures and stats and really making sure that things work in almost a scientific way.
Shyamala Harris, Kamala’s Mother
Did you meet her mother?
Oh, yes, many a time.Remarkable person, a remarkable influence on her life.
What was she like?Why was she such an influence on her?
I think the influence [was] in two ways.She came up in the Civil Rights Movement, and her mother was incredibly involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Oakland and Berkeley.She still tells the story of marching and shouting, even from when she was in a stroller.And so there's that political influence, but there's also the, as I mentioned earlier, the influence of having a parent who is a dispassionate scientist and who understands that you don't just go off and try things willy-nilly, but you actually add a lot of thought and method to what you're doing.
And I guess her mom's also a pretty remarkable life story, of coming from India, of being an immigrant woman in science, in leaving as a teenager.I mean, that must have had an impact on her, too, just her mom's example.
Really and truly, you are right.
In what way would you see that in Kamala Harris, and in what she would get from—how would that shape her?
Well, because it leads to the notion of independent motion, to the notion that you don't have to [be] beholden to all the social norms, and you can actually be a single mother in the world and really accomplish quite a bit.And so it's, I think, to some degree or another, it's a very—it's something that allows you to have a lot of freedom of motion in life.
The Willie Brown Relationship
… Even in that first race, the relationship with [San Francisco politician] Willie Brown comes up, which Donald Trump is talking about to this day.Is that tied into gender, and is that where that issue comes from?
No.I mean, that issue comes from something very simple, and it's the first thing I say to all women who want to run for office, and I said to Kamala D. Harris, which is that if you are one woman running for office, you have to understand that you are going into a political contest, and the contest is such that the rules have been written by men for over 2,000 years, and you will have two things: You will have to work twice as hard, and you will be judged twice as harshly.
And how does she, as a politician, adjust to that and deal with that environment?
Oh, she works four times harder.And you also develop a very thick skin, and you realize that there's a lot of baked in things that you're not going to solve that you just need to get through.
Harris Brushes Off Criticism
That does seem to be a theme of her life, and she talks about it now, with all the scrutiny that she's under and the types of attacks that she's getting from Donald Trump.And she says, “I've been hearing it all of my life, and this is the latest of it,” and she sort of moves on.Can you help me understand that?Because obviously, other people don't do that.They respond to them.They get angry about it.Can you describe how she reacts in a moment in a campaign when she's dealing with that kind of criticism, and how she responds?
The great thing about her as a candidate is that, first of all, she's seen it all.As a matter of fact, that's one of the things that's going to be a huge advantage in the presidential race, is that she's run for all these different offices, but she's also run for president of the United States.And to some degree or another, it's like you can explain to people what it is to run for president of the United States; you can read books about it.But you don't know it until you've actually done it.And so actually, I think that lived experience is going to be so valuable in the next few months.And you can't ever underestimate that.
Harris Serves as San Francisco District Attorney
When she wins the DA race, did you have a sense, then, of the impact of it?How important was that moment in her career?
Oh, it's incredibly important.She's a groundbreaking person holding this office, one of the few who's, even in California, African American women to hold that office.And so again, more scrutiny than you can imagine.But again, here was someone who professionally knew what it was to be a prosecutor because she had been a prosecutor; here's someone who knew that office intimately; and here is someone who had very distinct ideas of what policies she wanted to implement, what she wanted to do with that office.And so she was incredibly effective, and she had a tremendous, tremendous legacy in that office.
And she must have had to convince people, once she gets in, walks in that door as the DA, there must have been some skepticism, especially in the law enforcement world.And she's different, physically different from them.
Yeah.Well, I think there always will be, and there always was.But I'll tell you, from my experience in the attorney general's race, it's like a huge amount of law enforcement, mainstream law enforcement lined up against her.And her opponent had, like, five columns of law enforcement leaders supporting him.And it would have been very easy, when she won, to have just dismissed all those folks and kind of taken the attitude, “Well, they were against me.Why should I care what they think?”Instead, what she did was quite the opposite.She spent, really, the first few years being attorney general meeting with them all, bringing them together, and creating a bond and working relationship with a lot of people who opposed her.And it's, in retrospect, it really—it was incredibly smart, because it made her office that much more effective.
As you know, one of the things that still comes up is the Officer [Isaac] Espinoza moment.Can you help me understand that, understand as a crisis, understand how she responds to a political crisis and if it affects her or changes her as a leader or a politician?
Well, you don't get anywhere in politics if you don't have grace under pressure.And I've seen it time and again, is this is someone who is incredibly cool under fire.And she dealt with that, and it's something that a lesser person, it could have wrecked their career.
But the heat at that moment was pretty intense.
It always is, yes, absolutely.But she's had to endure that on many occasions.
And she's only like, 100 days in.Do you think that it changes the way that she did—is that a moment of realizing, “Wow, things can get hot fast”?Does it change her?That's what I'm wondering, because that's what we're sort of looking for: Is there a moment that affects her or changes her or teaches her a lesson?
I'm not sure any of that.I think it probably more than anything showed the world that this is someone who is tough under fire.
Because she doesn't back down in that moment.
Yeah. And she was who she was.And it would have changed her if she had overreacted, if she had panicked, if she had done up 100 different things that we could talk about.But she didn't.
Harris Runs for California Attorney General
So tell me about how you get involved in the attorney general race.Does she come to you?Do you come to her?How do you get involved?
Well, we knew each other through politics.And we knew each other—of course my wife was her fundraiser.And it's funny.She was in—in 2008, I was running Hillary Clinton's campaign in California, then in Texas and in North Carolina, and I had, in California, lined up virtually every endorser you could imagine for Hillary Clinton.And the one, like incredibly—she obviously did it because she thought he was the right candidate, but also had the foresight to see the potential of Barack Obama.So she was like one of a handful of people in California who supported President Obama.And so it's kind of funny.We knew each other really as rivals, almost, and I think both of us ended up with a real—with probably a better appreciation of each other as a result.
So does she come to you and say, “I want to run for attorney general”?
Oh, yeah.And then we literally—I mean, the attorney general's race, we talk about it and get organized, and we realize that there is this huge amount of excitement around the election of President Barack Obama, and so we launch her campaign for attorney general very nontraditionally, incredibly early, to try and really capture a lot of that momentum that had been built from that campaign into—and obviously, she was an instrumental supporter, and also really to bring as many folks from that coalition into the campaign.But just like in San Francisco, she—I mean, my goodness, that was a two-year campaign.I can't tell you I’ve ever met anyone who worked harder for two years than she did.And this is a huge state.It requires travel to every corner of it.It requires raising a prodigious amount of money.It requires nonstop interviews and analysis, and that's really—and all at the same time that she's running the district attorney’s office in San Francisco.
And was she—when she announces early, was she ahead?[Had] she assumed that it was going to be an easy campaign by starting out earlier?
No. Ahead? Are you kidding me?There was like—I don't think there were 10 people in California who gave her a chance, who thought she could even possibly win.They may have thought that she could win the primary, but that was not—we got radically outspent in the primary.But I don't think there were 10 people in California who thought she could win in the general.I mean, she ended up running against the moderate Republican pro-choice DA of Los Angeles County who had a huge amount of name ID in the largest population base of the state.
So what do you do?What does she do in an election like that, where you're up against a formidable opponent?
Well, she does a few things.She first of all does the exact same thing she did in running for DA of San Francisco, which is she says, “Let me tell the folks of California exactly what I want to do as attorney general, and it's not going to sound like your classic attorney general's campaign,” which have tended to be, who can be tougher on crime?Who can—debates over that.And she said, “Instead, I really want to bring my vision of how we can make the system better, so that, yes, we can make public safety better, but we can also have better outcomes for the people in the system that will, in fact, have better outcomes from the entire state.”And so we made a—she made a very, what people would call a policy-based argument, and I think our opponents didn't quite know what to think of that, because I don't think it had ever really happened in the attorney general's race.And we pulled up to Election Day.We had been outspent by a fair amount of money.But the most curious thing happened towards the end of that race, which was the Republican National Committee had somehow or another, they had figured out that there is this woman of a lot of talent, and they literally were decided they wanted to kill Hercules in the crib.And so out of the blue, they run like a million dollars of ads, kind of like essentially a Willie Horton spot against her.And of course, you know, as we all know, they didn't succeed.She won the race, but no one thought she had a chance.
And that's one of those moments where she just keeps going?
Yep.
Even under—
Even under—I mean, people are coming to her saying, “Don't run.You're going to embarrass yourself,” coming to her saying, “Don't you realize you have no chance?Why should I give you money?There's other Democrats who can win.We don't think you can.”
So why does she win?
She wins because people eventually, over the course of the campaign, realize that she's the real deal, and they like her, and they want to have an attorney general who is not just a bunch of “tough on crime” slogans, but really wants to do something a little bit different.
And the election is pretty close, the election results.
The election is unbelievably close.As a matter of fact, on election night, we are sitting and we're watching the votes come in.They're coming in. They're coming in.And at one point, maybe 9:00 or so, her opponent goes on TV live in LA and more or less declares victory.And everyone's—we're behind in the early counting.And it hits 10:00 or so, and we figure, OK, live TV, we should go out there and say something.And so she goes out there to do one of these very standard, “Love you guys.Thanks for your support.There's a lot of votes to count.We're feeling good about things,” etc., etc.And then I'm with her, and we're walking back into the room, and she notices everyone's crying, and she's like, “What did I say?”And I pull out my phone, and I show her, “Well, the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> has reported that you've lost.”But they don't know what they're talking about, because Alameda County has not reported.And as you probably know, Alameda County, actually where we're sitting here today, is one of the biggest Democratic strongholds in the state.So we're behind, behind, behind a little bit.And then maybe it was 2 or 3 a.m.,Alameda County comes crashing down, like literally like an anvil falling on her opponent's toe, and the thing flips.And we have a lead that, through two long weeks of counting, sustains.
And you brought the headline from that moment?
I did. ...This sits in my office to this day, on the wall.It is the original modern-day Truman-Dewey headline.And someone had clearly prewritten the piece, because they—of course she was going to lose, and they posted it on election night, before her speech.And it's—I keep it on my wall to remind myself and all the other candidates I work with that you always don't ever believe anyone tells you you can't win.
And you think that's something that—a lesson that she took from it?
Absolutely.Because she's walked into—I mean, how many tough arenas has she walked into, again and again and again, and always ultimately succeeds, despite the odds against her.
Harris Serves as California Attorney General
As you look back at that, that time that she is the attorney general, she talked about it in the speech that she gave the other day.“This is what I did as California attorney general.This is who I went after.This was the types of crimes that we prosecuted.”How important was her time as the attorney general of California to who she is, to her political identity?
Oh, I think it was very important.But I would say maybe one of the most interesting aspects of that was something that happened early on in her term, which is, as you probably know, she's elected, and there is this huge mortgage fraud, national scandal that's unfolded, and it's become clear that all the big banks are going to need to pay some sort of a—some form of payout to all the folks that they victimized.And she's brand-new, freshly minted attorney general of California.And she quickly sees that the administration of the man that she's just supported is asking for what she thinks is a lot less money than really is deserved or there should be.And she does, honestly, it's one of the most politically courageous things I've ever seen anyone do, because it's really easy to fight your political foes, people from other parties on things.It's really an act of courage to stand up to your own people.And she stood up to this new administration, and she said, “That's not acceptable,” and she didn't back down until she got the settlement much, much larger.And then she did something else that's worth noting, which is that she went the step beyond.She didn't just go get this money for the victims.She asked the next question, which was, “How do we make sure this doesn't happen again?”And she worked with members of the legislature, and they crafted a series of bills, and they're called the Homeowner's Bill of Rights, to enshrine in California law all the protections so that we don't have to revisit this again, so that these homeowners can't be victimized in the same way.
You've probably seen the accounts of her time as attorney general, people say she was very cautious; she didn't want to weigh in on controversial issues.What do you think of that portrayal?
It's absolute nonsense.The history of attorney generals [sic]—and this is something very specific to California—is that they write these things called the title and summaries in the books.And to some degree or another, you're like a judge who's not going to prejudge a case, in this case, because you're actually going to have to adjudicate it.So that's just an absolute nonsense charge.
Yeah.So you don't think she was trying to avoid taking a political—
No.She was actually—she was taking her job seriously, is what it—that's the only thing that tells you.
Harris’s Prosecutorial Experience
You've dealt with a lot of different politicians, and they come from different backgrounds, and they come from different professions.And she came from the profession of being a prosecutor.How does that shape her as a politician, as we're about to talk about her moving on into the Senate and national politics?Why is she different from other politicians who might not have that background?
Well, being able to argue a case in court takes a lot of mental discipline and an enormous amount of talent.It's probably something that you rarely see these days because so much of what's done is done in computer pleadings and other virtual ways.But she really came up in the day where there were Clarence Darrows walking the world.1And there is, I think, kind of to be mentally prepared to walk into a courtroom and present a case to a jury and a judge and persuade them to your side is an incredible skill to have, and she mastered it.
1
Britannica: Clarence Darrow
And is this part of that need to be prepared for everything, to understand what it is she's about to talk about?Does that come from that?
Oh, 100%, a lot of it comes from that.And if you—and also what comes from that is your ability to really, when she's questioning people, like if you've watched the [Brett] Kavanaugh questioning, right, so here she is, a young senator, and because she's the newest, she's like the last one to get to ask questions—she asked the toughest, best question of Kavanaugh that anyone asked that day, and that's because of that.She understands.She understands how to frame questions, how to ask them, how to cut to the core of things in a way that you can't do if you've never done that job.
Does she do that to you when you're coming to her with advice about the campaign?
Oh, she's—I mean, look, and God bless her.She's never going to just flippantly say yes to anything.And she's going to want to know, just like she should, why are we doing something, and what's the benefit?In my experience, campaigns that lose are campaigns that wake up every day and don't know what they're doing and why they're doing it.And I've always believed that.And that's something that—you know, we had a good fit, because I have the same perspective she does, so that was never any source of friction between us, because if you can't tell someone why you're doing something, you shouldn't be doing it.
The Decision to Run for Senate
Tell me about the decision to run for Senate, because you had just won.She had just won reelection and suddenly faces this moment of decision.Can you help me understand what happened in that moment?
Well, what happened in that moment is there is an opportunity to really, really take her skills and her talents and go to the national level, and she wanted to take a shot at it.And she was, once again, incredibly successful.
Was there a debate inside about, do you run for governor?Do you go for Senate now?
No, she always wanted to—she wanted to run for Senate.And that was—it was a great decision.
Why did she want to run for Senate as opposed to the other opportunities?
Because she thought she could make the greatest impact there.
In what way?
Oh, in every possible way.She believed that she could take a lot of the things that she learned working in the criminal justice system and start having a national impact on those things.She thought she could take her knowledge of the banking system and what had happened as a result of the mortgage crisis and take that knowledge and protect a lot more people.And going all the way back to her passion for civil rights, she thought she could make the biggest impact on issues around civil rights and civil liberties from the U.S. Senate.
Was that a hard campaign, the Senate campaign, by that point?
Well, I don't think it was ever—you can't ever have a harder campaign than the attorney general campaign.Look, all campaigns are hard in California.And she's one of those candidates who could be up 99 points in the polls, and she would work just as hard as if she was down five.Just who she is.
Harris as a U.S. Senator
… Can you help me understand who she becomes in the Senate and as a politician, when we talked about the prosecutor and how we come to know her in those Trump years, and the hearings and the back-and-forth?Who do you see there?
Well, she's someone who takes all of her skills and all of her talents and all of her knowledge, and she applies them to the office of Senate.So it's different than most of the people who go into the Senate, who a lot of times ascend from the lower house or other legislative, so she didn't really have the typical legislative background, and so she takes a very different approach.And you can look at all the hearings.No one made a deeper mark and more impact in all those hearings than she did with her tough questioning and really putting on the map, I think before it was apparent to most people, really what was up at stake here in America, especially with the Supreme Court.
Just as somebody who's watched politics, how surprising is it that a freshman senator becomes somebody who, outside of California, people know in just those two years?
Well, you have some talent to do that, don't you?Look, as you know, news and information generally flows in this country east to west, and so of course people back east don't have a great idea of who this attorney general of California is until she gets back east and they can actually see it in person.And I think people were actually kind of stunned to see such a really, a deep, amazing talent.
Were you surprised by the reaction on the right to her, the social media attacks on her, the sort of right-wing focus on her as a central figure that they identified as a target?
No, that's part and parcel of politics in America today.I mean, there's nothing surprising about any of that.It's just something you have to put in the equation and understand what it is and be ready to deal with it.
Do you think being the second Black [female] senator, being who she is, made her more of a target?
Of course it did. Of course it did.But again, going back to what they tried to do with her when she was running for attorney general, and they decided that there was this incredibly talented person coming up that they were just going to essentially politically eliminate, again and again, they underestimate her.And they will underestimate her again, which is why she'll be elected president.
The 2020 Run for President
Can you help me understand the decision to run for president in 2019 and 2020, of what motivates her, having only been in the Senate for two years but deciding that's the moment to do it?
Well, you say only been a senator for two years; she had been working in the vineyards for decades.And I don't think working in the U.S. Senate for 20 years is any better than actually doing hard work in a prosecutor's office and in a law enforcement office in California.So I don't think that's a real equivalent.I think she thought that she had a unique perspective on things because of her very different background, her very different experiences and her different approaches to many policy things, and she thought it was worth offering to the American people.And also, knowing that running for president is an incredibly hard, low-percentage thing.It just is.How many tens of thousands of people have run for president, and how few have there been?It's just—you just have to understand that that's what it is and be able to take that on.And she did.
Was Donald Trump being the president, was that part of it?
Clearly. Clearly.Because she had seen firsthand what the country had wreaked as a result, and she thought she was the best person situated to take that on, take on Trumpism.
Can you just bring me sort of inside, and was there a moment where she first talked to you about it or said that she was going to—that she was considering this?
She thought about it for a while, and she did her usual deep dive into what it is and asked—talked to a ton of people to really figure out what was involved, and God bless her, she really does have very much a Socratic method when she delves into something like this.And so she just didn't jump in willy-nilly.She literally did a full survey of not so much her chances of winning, but, like, what this really entailed, and in terms of travel, fundraising, support, wear and tear on your family, on your personal relationships, all of that.And then she decided that she was going to do it after a few months of really thinking it through, which is, I think, pretty admirable.
… Does she tell you, “I'm going to do it,” at some point?
Yeah, there's a point where she tells a whole group of people that, “We're going to do it,” and we get together, and you may have seen the tape of this huge launch in front of Oakland City Hall with, I don't know, 10,000 people or so, and laying out what she wanted to accomplish and what her campaign was going to be about, and really from that day forward, she campaigned incredibly hard.But listen, running in a primary for president of the United States, I don't care who you are, that is like one of the most difficult things you could ever do, because you're running against people who are highly skilled, who have lots of resources and have been around a long time.And so you're running in the most competitive environment possible.And you're also running in an environment where you have to really campaign nonstop and debate nonstop and deal with the press nonstop.As I said earlier, the great blessing about that campaign was that she now knows exactly—and very few people know exactly what it is to be a candidate for president of the United States, and that is going to serve her incredibly well as we go into the election.
Were there things you think that she learned from?Were there mistakes that she made that she would have learned from going into this time?
Oh, look, everyone makes mistakes in campaigns.That's just what campaigns are.I don't think it's—I don't think you learn from the mistakes per se.I think what you learn from is how you rebound from the mistakes, and that's something she's always been incredibly good at.And you can look at the presidential race, and no matter what was thrown at her, she rebounded.And at the end of the day, there was a lot of people who like to give grades on, “Well, did she run a good race?What was that?”But to some degree or another, to a large degree, politics is like sports or finances.Like, did you do a good job?Well, did the Boston Celtics win the world championship?Yeah.Did she become vice president of the United States?Yeah.So was that campaign ultimately a tremendous success?Absolutely.
Harris Takes on Biden in the Primary Debate
And the moment that, if you ask people about it, that they would remember, would be the debate moment when she says, “That little girl was me.”And I understand you were involved in preparing her for it and in doing some of the research in preparation.Can you just tell me the story of how it came together?
There's really no big story about that.That's standard debate prep, which is figuring out whether that had become an issue in the presidential race and figuring out, talk about something that's really become a live ball.And she went out there and used all of her skills and delivered quite persuasively.
Some people say that for her, it's hard to talk about.In fact, she said it herself, that it's hard to talk about herself, to talk about her past; that she's more comfortable talking about being a prosecutor than she is her childhood.Was it difficult for her to talk about it in the debate or in general?
I don't think that much.I think your larger point is true, which is, she does not like to talk about and kind of puff up herself.And she's rather unique in that sense.But I don't think that's what that was.That was a matter of really talking to something that was, like I say, was a live ball in the race at that point.
And when you saw it, did you realize the impact of it?
Yeah.If you missed that, I don't know what you were watching.Yeah.
And what was the effect of that on the campaign?
Well, the effect was clearly in the polls.She really became noticed as a top-tier candidate almost immediately.But these presidential races are really tricky, because there's always so many, like in the course of them, so many ascents and descents of different people that you know you're going to cycle up, you're going to cycle down, and hopefully at the end, you end up in the right place, which is what she did.
Is there a story that you tell about it?Because I've read different stories about it.One of them is, it was a bad year to be a cop, as they say.Is that true?How do you see the way that the campaign went?
Oh, I actually think the way the campaign went had nothing to do with the campaign that she or actually any of those other folks ran.It had nothing to do with that.It had to do with the fact that people in the Democratic Party wanted essentially the most reliable, solid way to beat Donald Trump possible, and they eventually decided that, hey, there's this 1964 Dodge Dart out there that is not shiny and flashy, but it's going to get us there, and we're going to ride that.And people eventually came to the conclusion that Joe Biden was the best person—and they were right, by the way—was the best person to beat Donald Trump.And you could say that about anyone else running in the race.That was really the greater dynamic in that race.
Harris as Vice President
And he comes to the conclusion that he needs Kamala Harris by his side.Why?What did she bring to the campaign as a vice presidential nominee?
Well, she brought incredible talent and dynamism and charisma and an incredible speaker.… To some degree or another, you can pick a vice president that is boring and staid because they're from the right state, and I don't know what that gets people, or you can pick someone who is dynamic and interesting and is going to light up a room, and that's what he did.Smart decision.
What did you think when they win, and she's sworn in?And you knew her way back when, when she was still setting up the ironing boards.Give me your perspective on that moment and on her rise to the vice presidency.
The perspective on it?The perspective on anyone ascending is always a little bit—it seems to be almost unfathomable and unbelievable.But at the same time, in her particular case, if you've ever worked with or known Kamala Harris, you kind of scratch your head and you go, “Oh, that's actually not so surprising, is it?”
Did you stay in touch with her as she went into the White House and became the vice president?
Always stayed in touch with her, yep.One of the remarkable things about Kamala Harris is, no matter what her position, no matter where she is, no matter what she's involved in, she always stays in touch with her friends.Like on any given day, she'll be calling people to wish them happy birthday.She'll be following their family.She'll be following their children.I can't tell you the number of times she's done events or raised money for or helped out charities or nonprofits.And I'm talking about a ways back, but never expecting a press release, never expecting a press notice, never expecting a TV news story.Truly a remarkable person.
As you're watching her adjust to the vice presidency, and you know there's lots of stories about her, and there's the Lester Holt interview, and especially in those first year or two, what are you thinking as you hear sort of the Washington take on her, on her vice presidency?
Oh, I'm thinking that, when you go back east, and you're a Westerner, you're going to get hazed for the first two years or so.And then people will eventually come around and acknowledge your talent.And I think she really hit her stride, coming out as the person, really in the midterms and before the midterms, on the issue of choice, and becoming the national voice on that, and I think people finally turned their heads and took notice of that.But VP is just like one of the tough—you can go back through history and look at all the VPs.Every VP has gotten skewered at one point or the other.That just comes from the territory.That's not the question now.The question is, can you ascend from kind of the natural hazing and skewering that just comes from that office and actually make it into something bigger?And she did that.
I think it might be helpful.Can you tell me why it's such a hard job to walk into, to be the vice president of the United States?
Because first of all, you don't have hardly any power.You are always going to play second fiddle to the president.And for whatever reason, nationally, we always love to kind of poke at our vice presidents.That's just always been the—it's always been the history of it.I don't know why.
Harris After the Dobbs Decision
It does seem a little that the narrative changes after the Dobbs decision.And to some extent, as it gets on, as there's questions about Joe Biden's mental acuity and other things, did you see—you sort of answered this, but let me ask you it again: Did you see her coming into her own in those last two years?
Oh, there's no question.She completely came into her own.She hit her stride.She hit her issues.She was talking about something that she was familiar with.But more than anything, she was talking about something that—and this really animates her more than anything—that has a profound effect on people across the United States, in this case, women who were really, for the first time since the Roe decision, looking at having this fundamental right taken away from them.And she's ultimately a fighter.And when she gets in fighting mode, watch out.
Harris Becomes the 2024 Democratic Presidential Nominee
… She's stepping into a tremendous moment of crisis for the Democratic Party, from her perspective for the country and the stakes in the election.Can you help me understand her in this moment and everything that you've seen?Who’s the Kamala Harris who's becoming the nominee of the Democratic Party?
Oh, if there was a right person for a moment, this is the right person for the moment.And you kind of have to ask yourself a fundamental question.And excuse me for getting a little technical here about electoral politics, but if you go back and look at what happened in 2016, why the polls were wrong and why Donald Trump won despite all the polls, it was because he got in there, and in that particular moment in time, he animated and energized a huge number of people who weren't normally in the political process, and he brought them in.And that's, again, why the polls were all wrong, because essentially, he added a whole bunch of new people to the equation that none of the pollsters, none of the people on the Clinton campaign saw coming.That's what she's going to do.She is—her energy, her charisma is going to—and her fresh look at all these things is going to animate, is going to really have the countervailing reaction to what happened in 2016.You're going to see more new people register.You're going to see more new people get involved into the process and vote.And I don't know what the polls are showing now, but I promise you, they're going to underestimate her.
And analyzing it from a political perspective, it's a different year than it was in 2020, and now a lot of people point out, she has pointed out prosecutor/convicted felon.Is this time, this moment in history, a different one for Kamala Harris?And how does her past play into 2024?
Well, she gets to prosecute the case against Donald Trump.I think that's pretty perfect.
The last question we ask everybody is, what is, from your perspective, what's the choice voters face in November?
The choice is division, hate and chaos and with no soul versus getting back to a country where we can actually start having conversations again about politics without people hating each other, and actually move forward on things together, as a country.
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