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Courtney Subramanian
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The FRONTLINE Interviews
Courtney Subramanian
Los Angeles Times
Courtney Subramanian is a supervising editor for BBC News. She was previously a White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and USA TODAY, and has reported extensively on Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on August 6, 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Covering Kamala Harris
When did you first come across Kamala Harris?
During the 2020 primary, I was a White House reporter covering the Trump administration, and like most White House reporters, getting drawn into the other side and trying to get a better sense of who could actually take on Donald Trump at that point, so got pulled into the Democratic primary coverage a bit.And then, when she joined the Biden ticket, I covered her there, and then obviously when she became vice president.
I was a reporter at <i>USA Today</i> at that point, but then made the jump over to <i>LA Times</i>, and so covered her a bit more closely and dug a bit deeper into her California roots, her career and her ascent across the state, and sort of really tried to focus on what catapulted her to the national stage.
How hard is it to figure out who is Kamala Harris?
I think it's an extremely challenging task for any reporter covering Kamala Harris.She is somebody who rose through the political ranks relatively quickly in California.She's somebody who would rather you focus on her record and her policies than her personal life.And for any politician, we want to unpack who these people are and why they make the decisions they make, and that was really challenging.
So it does take a lot of conversations with the people around her.She keeps a very tight-knit circle of friends that have been with her since her San Francisco days.And just taking time to sort of [understand] why she is the way she is, why she's so guarded and what makes her tick, those are things that she doesn't give up easily to the public.
Harris Does Not Struggle With Her Identity
… As you dug into who Kamala Harris is, was there something you found that surprised you that most people don't realize or you hadn't realized before you started to look into her life?
… I think the thing that I find most surprising is people think she struggles with her identity, both as an Indian and Black woman, but also her ideology and this constant sort of balancing act between being a progressive and more of a pragmatic centrist.
But I think on the identity front, in terms of her background, she's never wavered.She's never been publicly introspective about her race and ethnicity.And I think that's a source of frustration for her.It's a question she's had to continue answering since she came on the national stage.It's not a question that she really felt dogged by in California, and I think she credits that to growing up in the Bay Area, which is very multicultural.
When people look at other biracial candidates or politicians, like Barack Obama, that's somebody who really publicly explored his background and his identity, and they just assume she is somebody who should do the same.And she has said in the past, "I've never had an identity crisis.People think I should have an identity crisis."
And so a lot of those questions and expectations are imposed on her, and I think she gets really frustrated by that, because we constantly find ourselves asking about Kamala Harris' background.And that's evident even now with Donald Trump's recent comments.
And then in terms of her political ideology, I think she's been very deliberate in the way she's painted herself.She campaigns as a progressive, she pushes very progressive ideas, but she governs as a moderate.And I think in some ways, where people see that as a vulnerability or criticize her, she sees that as her strength.
And I found that to be surprising.I think she's a little more deliberate and calculated and measured about some of these decisions of her public persona than people think.
Childhood in Berkeley
… So let's go back to the very beginning, and the beginning, as she tells the story, is of her two parents meeting at protests in Berkeley.Help me understand how that shapes her, how her parents shape her, how she tells her own story and what you see in those years.
I think her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement is something that she really identifies with.As you mentioned, she talks about being pushed around in strollers at civil rights protests.And I think it's something that has really shaped her as a person in terms of her values, in terms of what she believes in.She is very proud of her Berkeley and Oakland roots.She launched her presidential bid in Oakland.She sees that very much as her home, even though she's moved around a bit. …
Her parents have such an unlikely story, too.… Can you help me understand their meeting and sort of how unlikely it was, especially at that time and in America?
Yeah. Her mother was 19 years old when she came from Chennai, India, which is in the south, to pursue a Ph.D. at Berkeley, and her father was an economics student, graduate student, at Berkeley as well.Her father was an immigrant from Jamaica.So she is the child of two immigrants.And they fell in love on campus; they fell in love attending these civil rights protests.
And so it is a very unlikely story.Her mother comes from a traditional Indian family, and at the time, it was very rare for Indians—this is, of course, before 1965, and it was rare for Indians in general, but certainly an Indian woman, to immigrate to the United States to pursue a graduate degree and then marry a Jamaican immigrant.
So her background was unique at the time.She grew up in this very multicultural community in San Francisco, but it was an unlikely story for her parents to come together.
Childhood in Berkeley
… How important a figure is her mom in her life?
I think her mom is really the central figure who shaped her.She's probably the person she quotes the most.Some of these quotes she has gone viral for, talking about being unburdened by what has been.Those are words that her mother told her as a child.She also likes to say, "Don't let people tell you who you are; you tell them who you are," which is another quote that she has often repeated.
And her mother was this very strong character who instilled a lot of confidence and ambition in both Kamala and her sister, Maya.But she also knew that she was raising these biracial girls in a country that viewed race through a binary lens.
So Harris has written in her autobiography, “My mother knew she was raising two Black daughters in this country,” and I think that's something that allowed Kamala to really embrace and lean into her Black background, even though she was being raised by a single Indian mother.
So what did her mom do when she has this sort of realization?She's raising the kids by herself and she understands race in America.How does she raise them as two Black girls?
So her parents divorced when she was 7, and she grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Berkeley.And so the community around her really shaped her.She often talks about Regina Shelton, who was a neighbor who lived a couple doors down and ran a preschool that both Kamala and her sister, Maya, attended.And she really shaped her.She refers to her as her “second mother.”She used Regina Shelton's Bible when she was sworn in as attorney general and later to the U.S. Senate, and she would attend the Black Baptist church that Regina Shelton went to.She went to her preschool, where images of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass hung on the wall.
I think it was the community around them that really helped shape her identity as a Black woman, and her mother understood that and certainly nurtured it.
It seems like an extraordinary place to grow up. ...How important was that, was being in the Berkeley area to who she would become or who she would think she could become later?
I think it's immensely shaped her.I think she looks at Berkeley as a source of pride in terms of where she came from and her comfort in these urban settings.… When she was running for district attorney in San Francisco, she set up her office, her campaign office, in a part of town that … the more affluent white parts of donor class of San Francisco would be a little nervous about coming to, and she brushed it off and said, "I think people care more than you think they do."When she ran for president, she set up her campaign headquarters in Baltimore, which she said was a spirit city to San Francisco.
She very much prides herself as being somebody who's from an urban, multicultural, diverse community, and I think that's something that continues to inform who she is and some of the decisions she makes.
Harris’ Biracial Identity
… Did she face racism from being biracial or by being Black as she was growing up?
I think anyone who's biracial would tell you they've endured racism in this country, of course, and I think Harris is no exception.I think she's somebody who isn't comfortable talking about herself and therefore doesn't feel that she needs to highlight some of the racism that she's faced.But it's something that she's constantly referred to.When she addresses the criticisms of her, and her supporters address the criticisms of her, they constantly point to the racism and the misogyny that she has faced as a politician, as a woman who has broken a lot of barriers, notched a lot of firsts in her career.That goes back to her childhood and some of the racism she faced as a kid.But I think she is somebody who is determined to not let that sort of hinder her or limit her in any way, which is why you probably don't hear her talking about it very often.
On the biracial aspect, we've talked about her experiences growing up and being seen as a Black girl, but her mom is from India.How does that shape her in that part of her background?
It's not something that she has highlighted, right, and that's something I've really tried to unpack, as I'm also half Indian.My father is from Chennai, which is where her mother's from.Her background—she has very much leaned in to her Black identity.She attended a historically Black college.She very much identifies as a Black woman, but her Indian heritage is not something that she's also hiding either.She grew up eating Indian food.She went to India on visits with her mother.She wore Indian jewelry.She has close relationships with her mother's family.But it's informed her in a way that she's able to be multidimensional, but I don't think it's something that she's embraced in maybe a way that the South Asian community would have liked to see in the United States.
… You said at the beginning she doesn't want to be pigeonholed or boxed in on these questions of race and even on other questions.Do you have that sense of her as a kid, that she doesn't want to have other people tell her who she is based on how she looks or where she comes from?Does it start that early?
I think so.In talking to some of her friends even as a kid, there were moments where she was really proud to show off her Indian heritage, but she was growing up in this community where she was shaped by these influential Black figures around her.So I think some of that comes from some of the racial dynamics that she grew up with, but some of it also comes from her mother, who she really trusted and who shaped her and whose advice she followed.
And her mother always taught her to really be confident in who she is, embrace her identity and not question it in any sort of way.And I think that's something that from a very early age she was able to understand herself and understand that she could be both.It didn't have to be one or the other.
Harris’ Biracial Identity
She doesn't spend a lot of time talking about her parents' divorce.… Do you have a sense of the divorce at a young age, how that would have shaped her, and her dad sort of increasingly being distant from the girls?
I think it had a profound effect on her.Her parents' relationship obviously wasn't great.In her autobiography, she writes that she invited both of her parents to her graduation, and she wasn't sure that they were going to show up because there was that much animosity between them.And when she was in middle school and high school she was in Canada with her mother, and she would spend the summers in California with her father or with Mrs. Shelton, and so she had this life that was very much divided between the two of them.
And obviously her mother played a more prominent role.As you mentioned, her dad grew a bit more distant, and she doesn't have a relationship with him now, but that's something she seemed to reconcile along the way.But I do think in her childhood, that had a profound effect on her, and her sister of course.
… Did the fact her dad's not there, that her mom is the one leading the family, shape her and contribute to who Kamala Harris would become as a politician?
Yeah, I think so.She had these very strong, ambitious, successful women in her life as figures, right?Her mother was a cancer researcher at a time when it was rare for someone like her mother to be at the top of her field and to be a professor at McGill University in Canada and be this breast cancer researcher at a hospital.
So yeah, I do think that she surrounded herself, whether deliberately or inadvertently in some cases in her childhood, with these very powerful women, and I think that in some ways was the example that she wanted to follow.
Harris’ Time in Canada
… How does moving to Canada, moving out of where she had grown up, shape her?Does it give her skills for adapting to things?How do you see that sort of transience of her childhood in some ways shaping her?
I do think it gave her skills of adaptability, which is something that she has done well in politics, but I also think that Canada was this period of time that really emphasized how much she longed for home, how much she longed for California and how much she missed the community that she was raised in.
What's interesting, though, is after she graduated high school, she didn't choose to stay in California or go to Berkeley, where her parents met.She instead went across the country and chose to go to Howard University in Washington, D.C.And so I do wonder if Canada gave her that sort of taste of stepping outside her comfort zone a little bit and finding herself in a new place.
Do you know the story about Wanda Kagan, the girl who moved in with her?Can you help me understand that story and why it's become relevant to Kamala Harris' story?
Wanda Kagan was a friend who confided in Kamala Harris that she had been sexually abused by her stepfather, and Harris took this information and went to her mother and said, "We need to help her," so she moved her into the family's apartment to get away from the stepfather.
The story is important because it's become a story that she has told both on the campaign trail, but more recently in her work advocating for abortion rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.And so Wanda has been someone who has spoken publicly about this, about the friendship that Kamala Harris provided.
But also, this is a story that helped her decide on her career path and pursuing prosecuting sex crimes, right?This was something she experienced as a kid, a wrong she wanted to right as an adult.It is one of those experiences that really did shape her and shape her worldview as a prosecutor and then, of course, now with her work on abortion rights.
Harris Attends Howard University
… I hadn't thought about that, that she could have gone back home, literally back home, and she had that choice, but she decided not to do that immediately and to go to Howard.Do you know why and what she would have gotten out of that experience?
It's a good question.She had an aunt who went to Howard.… I think she grew up in this community where she was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and all these Black intellectuals around her, and Howard was a place that really fostered that environment.And I think, for her, the idea of being somewhere like this was intoxicating.
… I think the idea of being in Washington, D.C., was intoxicating.She interned at the Federal Trade Commission.She worked at the National Archives.She was a tour [guide] at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and she was an intern for Sen. Alan Cranston of California, whose seat she would later hold some 30 years later.
So being in D.C., for her, being at Howard, this place that really fostered Black intellectualism, was something that was really appealing for her.So I think that was part of the reason why she decided to come out here.
Decision to Become a Prosecutor
… Also, I gather the ethos is a little bit different about finding power inside the system at Howard.Does it reshape her understanding of politics, being at Howard?
I think so.It was interesting, too, because she decided to go back to Oakland to go to law school, and I think she always had the idea that she wanted to be a lawyer, this idea that, as you mentioned, she could correct the system from the inside, fight the power from the inside from having a seat at the table. …
Her decision to become a prosecutor was not one that sat well with her parents, but I think was the product of her background.I think her mother was somebody who always taught her to fight for the system to be fair and not be burdened by what has been, which is a quote she likes to use.
But she looked at how they fought the system from the outside and decided, no, I want to have a seat at the table, right?But she also understood that as a Black woman, to rise through the ranks on the prosecutorial side was not something that was common.And so, as much as I think this was forged in … her mother's advice that she grew up with, I also think the racial dynamic played a big role here in her decision to take a leap and become one of those rare Black women prosecutors and see if she could make a difference in changing the institutions from the inside.
What do you mean by that, when you say that her race and what she's bringing to it as a Black woman helped to shape that decision that her mom seemed to be against?
I think that she understood the inequities that the Black community faced, both in growing up in a redline community in Berkeley, but also from the people around her.And her thought was, well, if I understand this, I can also change this by working within the system.
And so for her, knowing that she was going to be this rare Black female prosecutor, it was an opportunity to make a difference inside.And so I do think as much as her mother influenced her decision, her race also did.
… She walks into an environment, as you say, that does not have very many not only women, does not have very many Black people in law enforcement.She's walking into a place where she's going to stand out.What does that say about her, about Kamala Harris, that she chooses right at the beginning of her career to walk into an environment like that?
Yeah, I think she has this sort of confidence.She's not shaken easily.She's endured a lot of criticism, and that's something that we've seen all the way up until this moment.But she's somebody who believes in herself and, regardless of her limitations, has this sort of unyielding ambition that she believes can take her to whatever the next step is.
And that's something that you continue to see.Even with every misstep and falter along the way, she gets back up.She's been counted out many times, very recently, and now she's the face of the Democratic ticket.
Harris Brushes Off Criticism
There's also an element, as we've talked to people about, of having a thick skin, of taking racial slights, of taking gender stereotypes and not necessarily reacting to them immediately, but sort of continuing on.Do you have a sense of where that comes from?
If I think about how Kamala Harris views where her thick skin comes from, it's probably being forged in the fire of San Francisco politics.It is extremely rough and tumble.At Dianne Feinstein's funeral, she described it as a “[bare-knuckle] sport.”
And I do think that really shaped her.There's a lot of backstabbing; there's a lot of plotting, political tussling.And that is a place, I think, where she learned to just shrug off the criticism along the way.That's also where she dated Willie Brown, who would become mayor while they were dating, and she faced a lot of criticism for that relationship, that she was using it to her political advantage.
And she learned to count on herself and prove herself, right?That was her way of brushing off some of that criticism that she faced.
The Willie Brown Relationship
Do you have any insight or thoughts on those years in the run-up before she gets into politics?She's a young lawyer in the DA's office, and there's this relationship with Willie Brown.How important is that?And who was the Kamala Harris of those years before she decides to run?
Well, Willie Brown was a political kingmaker in California, specifically San Francisco.He introduced her to a lot of the donor class.He introduced her to a lot of people of power and really was a mentor to her during their relationship and after.
And I think he probably got her to think a little bit bigger about her ambitions and where that could take her.I don't know if the White House was in the cards.Certainly the governor's house was.But I think that relationship played a huge role in sort of widening the aperture of her career and where she would end up.
Harris’ Political Ambitions
… We keep looking for, where was the moment with Kamala Harris where she said, I could be president?We haven't found it.It doesn't seem like it was there when she was a little kid, but it's in those years, I gather, when she's in the district attorney's office that politics, electoral politics comes on the radar.
You know, it's funny.There's a class of California politicians that sort of came up together, and she came up with Gavin Newsom.They were sort of political siblings.And there was a moment when he was lieutenant governor and she was attorney general, and there was this tension of, who are you going to vote for?Who is it going to be?And then Barbara Boxer abruptly decides she's going to give up her Senate seat, and then within days, Harris decides she's going to seize the opportunity and launch a national profile, so that cleared the way for Gavin Newsom.
But up until that point, I think everyone thought she was setting her sights on becoming governor of California, not vaulting to the national stage as a U.S. senator.
And then from there, of course, it became very clear that she had presidential ambitions.But I do think it was those years as DA and later as attorney general where she really decided, "I can go further."
Do you have a sense of who she is?… And who is the politician that she presents herself as as she's running for DA, as she's rising up through California politics?
… Her years as district attorney are the source of a lot of criticism that she's faced and continues to face.She painted herself as a smart-on-crime reformer; she wrote a book about it.And I think for progressives who saw her as too punitive with some of her actions and policies that she pursued, and for others, she was too slow on reform, and I think that caused her maybe to be a bit more cautious about how she presented herself when she ran for president, which ultimately led to some unclear messaging on who she was.I think some of the decisions she made when she was district attorney and later as attorney general and some of that criticism caused her to be a bit more guarded or cautious or measured about things.
And this was during the 2020 election, when criminal justice reform was a huge topic, and it should have been an issue that she could have been a party leader on.But she took her time, and she let … other candidates in the Democratic Party really define the messaging around that, and I think that was a missed opportunity for her.
Harris as Attorney General
… What's important for understanding her years as attorney general?Is there anything in that that you would point to as important for understanding who she is?
… The negotiations with the federal government and the banks in 2011 and 2012 over the mortgage crisis and the settlements that the attorneys general were getting from these banks was a big moment for her.It's something that she continues to point to as a point of pride.
She was having these discussions in Washington during the Obama administration, and the Obama administration wanted to get this done.They wanted to settle with the banks and the states and move on.And Kamala Harris … I think at the time there was a $2 billion settlement deal for California, which had been affected by the foreclosures immensely, and she saw that as not enough, and so she pushed.
There was a handful of the attorneys general that pushed back.She had a very tense conversation with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and she talks about that and about that moment of getting in a bit of a screaming match on the phone.And she faced some blowback from the Obama administration, who wanted her to just sign on and move on.She was about a year into the job.
So this was another moment where she was taking a risk, and I think people who were skeptical saw this as a moment that she could have been playing this to her political advantage.And by waiting, more people were losing their homes.And so if she accepted too little, she could anger a lot of California voters and homeowners, but if she waited too long, the collateral damage of that was also pretty lasting.
And so ultimately, she pushed.And after that phone call with Jamie Dimon, about two weeks later, she was able to get a bigger settlement.It was, I think, $20 billion for the state of California.And so she sees that as a very defining moment.
And in that moment, she forged a friendship with another young attorney general from Delaware named Beau Biden.They actually had long meetings and phone calls together, and when he died, she attended his funeral.She counted him as a real friend, and I think that ultimately played into Joe Biden's decision when he put her on the ticket.
… How unusual an alliance was that for those two people to be on the other side of the administration?
It was.She counted Barack Obama as a friend.She was in Springfield on the day he announced, by his side.There's a moment where Barack Obama gets on stage, and he points at Kamala Harris.Her brother-in-law worked in Barack Obama's Justice Department.It was literally going up against family.And in some ways, she bonded with Beau Biden over that, because his father was vice president at the time.He didn't have as much skin in the game; I think Delaware didn't have as many foreclosures, but he knew that what they were doing was right, and he wanted to stand with them.
I think she really bonded with him over that moment and about standing up for what was right.They both were in a precarious position, but I think that probably drew them closer together.
Harris’ Relationship with Obama
What is the relationship like with Obama?Were they contemporaries, or was he a mentor to her? ...
I think a bit of both.She volunteered for his campaign.She was there from the early days.But I think he's a party elder and in some ways served as a bit of counsel for her at moments when she's sought guidance on how to proceed or where to recalibrate.And they've continued to maintain a very good relationship.I think in some ways, she has looked to Michelle Obama as a bit of a mentor as well.
She's sometimes maybe cursed with being called the next Barack Obama.But you have to think back in 2008 that [what] she saw in his election must have at least reinforced her own belief in what she might be able to do in politics.That was a pretty big moment, wasn't it, for her, his election?
It was, and I think when we talk about moments of deciding how far you can go, that moment where you decide you can be president, I'm sure there was a flash of that when she was standing in Springfield in February of 2007 and he's launching his campaign, and she's thinking, maybe I could go that far.
Harris’ Reluctance to Take Strong Stances
The other thing that's interesting about the mortgage is because she describes it and you described it as sort of taking a risk and a stand.The other criticism that she gets during those years is that she doesn't—and there's famous footage, for example, of her being asked about marijuana legalization and sort of laughing and saying it's her opponent's opinion.What is that side of Kamala Harris that people say she's super cautious, she doesn't weigh in on things?Do you see that also in those years as attorney general?Where does that come from?
I do.I think her years as attorney general, as much as that was a defining case for her, her years were marked by a lot of things she didn't do.She didn't support a ballot measure against California's three-strike[s] rule.She didn't support a ballot measure against eliminating the death penalty.I think a lot of her critics would say she had an opportunity when she was in a position of power to do a lot, and she was a bit more measured or cautious about some of those decisions, and some critics in California would say, “Well, now you're on the national stage, and you didn't do it when you were in state politics.”
So I do think those years as AG certainly are a source of criticism for her when people look to trying to understand who she is as a politician, what her record is and how she might govern as president.
… Where does the consciousness come from?We know she's against the death penalty, for example; she sort of made that clear.So why won't she weigh in on things like this?
I think that is probably one of her biggest vulnerabilities, is [that] she is a little indecisive about making decisions that could come back to haunt her, right?And so in the end, she struggles to define herself because she's afraid to take too big of a swing at something.
And in her 2020 primary campaign, on several occasions, she would make a big decision about health care, about abolishing private insurance, and then she would shift her position.And people found that very problematic, and I think that is because she is uncomfortable making those sort of big proclamations about policy because so much of her career has been so measured and calculated.
Harris in the U.S. Senate
… As she's running for Senate, what does the political environment feel like for her?What are her expectations of herself, but also of Hillary Clinton?
I think when she was running for Senate she thought, like a lot of Democrats, that was going to be a historic year for them.I think she thought she was going to enter the Senate at the same time as the country was going to see the first female president.
And it's funny, because in 2024, up until this moment, we've talked a lot about how much Biden has been influenced to run by Trump's presidency, by Charlottesville.But Kamala Harris also was influenced to run in 2020 by Donald Trump's win.In conversations I've had with folks around her that night, like a lot of Democrats, she was in shock.She was sitting on her couch; she was eating ice cream.She had won this Senate bid.She was supposed to be celebrating, and she was despondent.And I think, from the people I spoke to, it was that, Donald Trump's victory, that spurred her to run for president maybe sooner than she anticipated.
… So she's elected on election night, and Donald Trump is coming in.And from the very beginning, she frames it as, "We are going to fight."Where does that come from?How does that decision to frame it in that way change who she would be as a senator?
Kamala Harris as a person is somebody who, again, was raised in the Civil Rights Movement, sees this as an opportunity to fight, right?And so her time, albeit was brief in the Senate, was very much marked by emphasizing some of those prosecutor skills that we saw from her during her years in California.
And I think so much of her time in the Senate, though it was brief, was about prosecuting the case against Donald Trump, and that's something that she took with her into her presidential bid.It very much shaped her as a senator.She didn't do too much in terms of sponsoring bills.She sponsored a bill with Republican Rand Paul on reforming the cash bail system.She had another bill that dealt with the high mortality rate of Black mothers in childbirth.But her time in the Senate was very much about showing the contrast between herself and her party and that of the Trump administration.
In those clips where you would see her during the Kavanaugh hearings, … those clips proliferate on the internet and elsewhere.How important was that to her political identity, to setting up who she was going to be going into 2019?
Really important, I think still to this day.One thing that somebody told me once, and I think really applies to this current election, is that Kamala Harris is good at being a smart prosecutor.Kamala Harris as a visionary is something that she really struggles with, but when she's asked to be a prosecutor, that's a role she can play.It's a role she knows well, and it's when she can deliver on.
And we're now in an election where she's not asked to be a visionary; she's inheriting the campaign from Joe Biden.But she's being asked to be a prosecutor and to prosecute the case against Donald Trump, and that's a role that she knows how to play, and one she played in the Senate, one she tried to play in 2020 and one now that she's executing.
The 2019 Presidential Run
Tell me about that decision to run in 2019, because the one thing that everybody we talked to who's around her makes clear to say is that she was in it to win.Is that true?And why did she decide, after only having been in the Senate for two years, to run?
I've talked to people around her, and I do think Trump played a big role in that.It was sooner than she anticipated, but she felt like she could prosecute this case against Donald Trump.She launched this campaign in front of 20,000 people in Oakland.There was a lot of fanfare.And it fizzled out before the first ballots were cast in Iowa.
So I think she went into it with a lot of conviction and with this idea that she could actually rise above this field of candidates and beat Donald Trump.But of course, her campaign was marred by a lot of indecision, by staff turmoil.There were some structural issues.There were some policy messaging issues.And I think, ultimately, voters came away with an undefined candidate.
… She has this standout moment at the debate where "That little girl was me."Can you help me understand that moment and that decision to use her past for a politician who, as we've talked about, doesn't like talking about her past very much?Help me understand that debate moment with Joe Biden.
It was in the first debate, and they were having a conversation about police violence against the Black community and police reform, and Harris intervened, saying, "I'm the only Black woman on this stage," and immediately went for Joe Biden and admonished him for working with segregationists in the Senate to oppose busing at a time when she was a young girl in California being bused to a predominantly white, affluent school that was in its second year of integration.
It was a really salient moment.People felt like they could connect to Kamala Harris.And as you mentioned, it was unlike anything she had ever done because she is so guarded about her personal history.
There were questions about whether she was being authentic, about whether she was just using it for her political advantage.After the debate, the campaign released T-shirts and buttons.
But it did well to give her a jolt and her polling surged and Joe Biden's fell.That moment would come to play a role later when Joe Biden is deciding who he wanted to be his running mate.But it was a moment that gave people a glimpse into Kamala Harris' childhood and who she is.But she just couldn't capitalize on it, it seemed, in terms of defining the issues that she cared about, her platform.There was a lot of gauzy messaging, but in the end, she really couldn't break through with voters.
As you said, she'd been to Beau Biden's funeral and had been close to the Biden family in that way, and yet she launches an attack that I think certainly he and, as has been reported, his wife took personally.What does that reveal about Kamala Harris, the woman who came out of San Francisco politics?What does the decision to do that reveal about her?
Well, I think it goes back to this idea that she was in it to win, right?He was the heir apparent in this field of candidates, and she went for the leading contender, right?She had to take him out.And of course, that's something that she learned in San Francisco, elbowing your way to the top a bit.And I think they eventually made amends, and she was contrite about the whole episode.
But she also saw that as wrong, right?This was a policy that personally affected her that she could talk about, and when she has those moments where she can inject some personal experience into a policy or an issue, she'll go for it.She can do that.
I guess, as you say, that some of the power of it gets diminished afterwards when it becomes a debate about what do you actually believe about busing and how different is your view actually from Joe Biden's?Help me understand that. ...
I think they really struggled to settle on messaging, to settle on where she landed on specific issues that were really important to the party.Busing obviously wasn't an issue that was being debated at the time.But yes, even afterwards she couldn't really articulate where she differed from Joe Biden.And health care was a huge issue.She shifted her position several times on universal health care for all and where she stood on private insurance.
There were several issues where they just were a bit indecisive and she just—she couldn't land a clear message and came off as indecisive, came off as undefined at a moment where Democratic voters were really looking for a leader, a visionary, to lead the party forward.
Do you think some of that was what her political identity had been as a prosecutor, and it was 2019, and that was a tough thing to run on?
It was a tough thing to run on, but again, she paints herself as a progressive prosecutor, which in some ways is an oxymoron.It's a hard thing to describe yourself as, because as a prosecutor, you're inherently working for the system, right?You're not progressive.
But I think at a moment in the party when there was this big reckoning over police reform in the wake of the death of George Floyd, she, as somebody who had experience with criminal justice reform, could have emerged as a leading voice on this issue.And she waited for a while in the campaign before she released her platform on criminal justice reform; she met with a lot of activists.But she let these other candidates define where the party was before she stepped into the conversation.
It's interesting, because you said at the beginning that you don't think it's because she doesn't have a core, but that it's hard to articulate, and especially in a national election, to have that kind of complexity about being whatever a progressive prosecutor is.That's a pretty difficult thing for Kamala Harris as a politician to try to sell, then and I guess even now.
It is.I think she embraces a lot of these progressive ideas, but, again, she governs as a moderate.She governs as what she considers a pragmatic centrist.And yeah, articulating that to voters is difficult.There's a lot of nuance.There's a lot of complexity that doesn't really come across in a stump speech always, right?And I think that will be one of her biggest challenges in the next 100 days, is trying to articulate who she is and how she will govern if she ends up in the White House.
Harris as Vice Presidential Nominee
How does she end up being on the vice presidential ticket, especially after what happened?
… I think Joe Biden saw that she brought a lot to the ticket.She was somebody—she was young.She was a woman of color; Black voters were really important to his election.She is somebody who had governing experience.
And I think the busing episode was a major barrier, certainly one, as you mentioned, for Jill Biden.But I think Joe Biden saw the friendship and loyalty that she had to his son Beau Biden, and loyalty is one of, if not the, most important quality to the president.And he thought he could get past that, and she would be a nice complement to him as an elder statesman, as an institutionalist, as a moderate on the ticket.She really played to the progressive faction of the party.And so for him, I think, in a lot of ways he saw her as a counterbalance to everything he brought.
It's interesting what you say about loyalty, just thinking about what happened in the last couple months.… Do you know if that was an explicit agreement between them?
I don't think it was an explicit agreement between them, but I also think it didn't serve Kamala Harris in any way to show any daylight between her and the president.If he was going to make this decision to step aside, she needed to be right next to him.… Being the vice president is a difficult job in itself because … the fact that you're running for the vice presidency, you are clearly a very ambitious person.You are clearly somebody who can see yourself in the White House.But you also can't outshine the president, right?You have to always be sort of one step behind the president, and you always have to be in line with policy.You can't veer too far in terms of what you're saying or believe in, or the talking points.
And for her, when this was all sort of unraveling and leading members of the party were starting to speak out or leak stories, she found herself in this impossible situation.But I think she understood that it wouldn't serve her to show any doubt in Joe Biden, one, because they are a team and this is the ticket, but two, that if he were going to make that decision, and because loyalty is so important to him, if he was going to step aside, that she would be the heir apparent.And if she's going to doubt him in any way, I think that could jeopardize that dynamic.
Harris Doesn’t Talk About Her Personal Life
… I want to go back to talk about something we haven't talked about, which is her personal life and who she is on that side and meeting Doug Emhoff and where she comes from.As she has this political rise, which seems to be consuming a lot of her life, as we've been talking about it, who is she in her personal life?
I've talked to a lot of aides who have worked for her when she was coming up through California.When she was in San Francisco and a bit of a bachelor, she had this apartment in a nice part of town.One aide once described it to me as a bachelor pad.It wasn't much of a home, right?She ate out a lot.She went to dinner a lot.She knew the city.She was very social.
And when she met Emhoff, she was set up on a blind date through two of her very good friends who were married to each other.And even though she was dating Doug Emhoff, she kept it very private from her staff.They were married within a year; they married in 2014.
And she continues to lead a very private life.It's a subject that I've worked to unpack with both Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff.I sat down with them and talked about their life in LA together.But she prefers to be at home.She prefers to be in the kitchen.She's talked a lot about how much she likes to cook.That is something that I think grounds her.They're very private.They have a house in Brentwood in Los Angeles.
I've talked to Doug Emhoff about how difficult it can be sometimes to get her to just unwind at dinner with a glass of wine.But I think she keeps her personal life very private and separate from work, and that's something that she considers—her house is her sanctuary very much.
But what role does he play in her life? ...
Kamala Harris is somebody who wants to be perceived as very independent, very strong, powerful.And so much of her career she did on her own.She met Doug Emhoff very late in life.But he is somebody who is able to disarm her.When they're together, she is a little bit more at ease.He can make her laugh at the drop of a hat.
And so he very much has a supporting role in the Kamala Harris story.And he gave up his career.He was an entertainment lawyer in LA, a successful one.And when she became vice president, he gave up his career and moved to D.C.He has a teaching gig at Georgetown, but very much has embraced his role as second gentleman.And some of the ceremonial and policy aspects of the job, he's taken on a stronger role.
… And her sister?She was involved in the 2020 campaign.What's her role?
Maya Harris plays a huge role in Kamala Harris' life.She publicly, politically, is not around very much, and I think some of that is a hangover from the 2020 campaign in terms of how her role was viewed and the decisions that were made on that campaign.But she plays a very prominent role in Harris' life.She is at her house in LA.Kamala Harris is very close with her family, and Maya Harris' husband, Tony West, who worked for the Obama administration, has played a prominent role on this campaign and has emerged as a political adviser.
Knowing so much about her family, when you hear the “childless cat lady” comment, how does that match with the Kamala Harris that you know?1
I would say she is somebody who actually really cares about her family, and while she doesn't have biological children of her own, she's really close to Doug Emhoff's kids, Cole and Ella.She's extremely close to her nieces.And she's somebody who, as much as she can, will have her family around when the schedule allows.And it doesn't really play into the person she is in terms of how much she really values her family and having kids around.I think just because she doesn't have her own biological kids, it doesn't preclude her from having the same sort of dynamics with other members of the family.
And it sounds like food and cooking are pretty important for her.
Hugely important.She credits her mother for being her teacher and her culinary teacher.She has these big Sunday dinners every Sunday when she's in LA, and if they're in LA, there's no traveling on Sunday because she wants to prepare for these meals.And she has a core group of friends or family who are in town will come over for it.
And when she travels, she actually always tries to stop at a food market to pick up whatever the local delicacy is, or spices, or whatever it may be.When she is so engrossed with politics and her career, this is something that she feels like she's able to unwind with, let her hair down a little bit.
Harris As Vice President
… How difficult a fit is it for Kamala Harris to walk into the vice presidency?
She was walking into this role as not only the first female vice president, but the first Black vice president or South Asian vice president; again, descriptors that were not uncommon for her in previous roles, but on the national stage, in a role that has typically been occupied by a white man, was extremely difficult.
Everything she did, she understood she was under the magnifying glass.And she couldn't veer too much from Biden.I think there was still some concern about how the 2020 campaign went, and in the Harris world, it was very much making sure that she appeared loyal to him, that she was in lockstep with his administration, with what he wanted to do.
She entered the role with a lot of caution and a lot of hesitation about looking like she wanted his job.
I think her supporters would say that she faced a lot of racism and misogyny that white men in that role didn't have to face before her in those early days, and particularly about what she was doing or what she was not doing.And I think one of the most defining moments came when she went to Guatemala and Mexico because she had been tasked by Joe Biden to take on the root causes of some of the surge in migration we saw at the U.S. southern border.And so she was in charge of these so-called Northern Triangle countries, and she was also facing a lot of criticism from the Republicans that she had not been to the border, that she was this border czar.And in an interview, she had to sit down with Lester Holt.It was a prime-time interview.She sort of brushed off the accusation and said, "I've been to the border."
And I think the frustration was that she had been tasked with dealing with why people were coming to the border and not the border security itself.But of course, she got caught up in the politics of that.And that early experience caused a deep source of frustration that I think shaped how she acted as vice president for the next few years.
What do you mean?
I think after that trip, which was criticized by progressive members of her party, there was a press conference in which she had repeated an administration message to migrants, saying, "Don't come," and some progressive members saw that as going too far, even though she felt like she was just reiterating something that the other members of the administration had already said.
The interview wasn't received well.And so I think that ultimately led her to be a bit more cautious about her public appearances, about giving interviews, about stepping out into the public and being a face of the administration, and I think that cemented early views by voters that she just wasn't around.
I guess that caution isn't entirely new to Kamala Harris.
It's not.I think people who know her career and have followed her would say that it was par for the course for her.But I think she entered this vice presidency with the same ambition that she had with other roles and wanted to prove her mettle on the national stage at the White House, right?And this early misstep really, I think, made her a little bit more hesitant about how she was going to define her vice presidency.
Challenges as Vice President
Maybe it's easy to say in hindsight, but it seems like one would know in foresight that to get a portfolio like the root causes of migration is setting somebody up who's a potential successor with a pretty difficult job.… How does it happen?
Well, I think she wanted to be seen as loyal to Biden.She wanted to be an eager partner.And he saw this as something that he took on when he was vice president under Barack Obama, and as somebody who, wanted to burnish her foreign policy credentials maybe saw this as an opportunity to do so.
But it's an intractable issue.It's not something that can be solved in three or four years.It's something that takes investment; it takes time.And of course, … by no measure of success was she going to solve this issue in such a short period of time.And I think that became a source of frustration for her, because she had tied herself to this issue so early, and many saw it as her albatross.
Was there turmoil in her office and people leaving?What do you make of those stories?
Yeah, there was a lot of turnover in the early days and in the first few years.I think some of that sort of lays at the feet of the Biden administration as well, because when she joined the ticket, she couldn't bring a lot of her people in.And there was some frustration with the vice president's office in the West Wing about making sure they understood Kamala Harris and making sure that she had people around her that could support her.And I think some of that is, in part, the West Wing's fault for not allowing her to bring in the people that she wanted.
But she did.She had a lot of turmoil in her office.There were people who stayed, but a lot of people who left, and I think that played into this narrative that she was faltering in her office, in her vice presidency, which didn't help the case, of course, when she was trying to introduce herself to America.
… In this period, it's pretty profound, and it's even hard to believe, when you look back on it, how recently it was, the talk about her poll numbers, the talk about should Biden replace her on the ticket with somebody if he's going to run again.Help me understand the political jeopardy or the political moment that she was in before things started to turn around for her.
Especially among staff who were unhappy with how they were being treated in the West Wing, which there's a bit of irony there in that when Joe Biden was vice president, there was tension between Barack Obama's West Wing and Joe Biden's office and some feeling that Joe Biden was being mistreated by the president's staff.And I think you could make the case that there was a similar case with Kamala Harris' office.
She brought in people to shake things up.Jamal Simmons came in as her communications director; Lorraine Voles came in as her chief of staff and began getting rid of people who she felt were hamstringing the vice president, and bringing in new people, bringing in fresh blood to try and jump-start this reset on Kamala Harris and trying to reintroduce her as somebody who was a governing partner with Joe Biden.
I think they really struggled to shape that narrative until Biden's own staff stepped in and said, "OK, we need to start promoting Kamala Harris as well.We can't allow these stories of her staff turnover, her low polling, her missteps to really shape the narrative around her."
Was that before Dobbs or was that around the time of Dobbs?
I think it was a little bit before Dobbs that they really wanted to try and foster this reset, this media reset around her.But I think the Dobbs decision really sort of gave her the jolt she needed to find an issue that she could own and talk about with some personal connection, as we talked about with her friend. …
I think Dobbs was the moment that gave her an issue that she could be the face of—particularly for a president who is Irish Catholic, who is reticent to talk about abortion, doesn't even like using the word "abortion," whereas Kamala Harris could step in and talk about this issue with authority, as somebody who has personal experience working with young mothers who were forced to deliver in a bathroom, or young mothers who were turned away at a hospital.
And so it gave her ownership on a policy issue that ended up being extremely important to the Democratic Party, especially in the 2022 midterm elections.
Harris Takes the Lead on the Issue of Abortion
At the same time, Biden himself is becoming less and less able, not just on abortion but in general, on making the case for himself.How does that help to promote her and put her forward, the less that he's out there or giving stem-winder speeches himself?
I think she found her footing with abortion and sort of just took off from there.She really focused on issues that mattered to young voters—gun violence, climate change.She talked about voting rights.She had launched a campus tour where she was going to different colleges, trying to get out on the trail, so to speak, and talk to young voters, and talk to them about these issues in a way that Biden wasn't doing.
The problem was that it wasn't really breaking through.I think a lot of people still felt like they were not seeing Kamala Harris.They thought she was absent, right?And I think, again, some of that sentiment was cemented early on in the months following the Guatemala and Mexico trip.So her staff really doubled down.She is somebody who likes to be outside of Washington.She is very much an outsider to Washington as a California senator and then vice president.
And so they just kept putting her on the road, and I think that served as a pretty big contrast to Biden, who routinely was being criticized for not doing press conferences, for doing these very scripted appearances and some of that proved out in some of the polling we saw at the time.
… But it does strike me, as you're describing it, that for this vice president, who had been sort of hesitant, it almost is like spring training, in retrospect.Was she gaining skills by going back out there on the field and in the hustings?
Yeah, it's funny in some ways that she spent the past year preparing for this moment that nobody saw coming, right?Because her staff had really made an effort to try and get her out there more, to try and put her in front of cameras more; she sat for more interviews; she was interacting with press more.And so much of that was sort of inadvertent preparation for the moment she's in now.
But she has spent the better part of the last year preparing, so to speak, for this, because she was working so hard, or her staff were working so hard to try and change the narrative around her.
Biden Steps Aside and Harris Steps Up
And yet before a couple weeks ago, it hadn't really changed.In fact, to the point that Joe Biden says, "I have to run despite all the questions about me, because there is nobody else who can beat Donald Trump."And when he says that, it's not lost on anybody that there's somebody sitting in an office right next to his who's the vice president of the United States.What message is Joe Biden sending when he says that, and how would that be received by her and by Washington?
Well, I think you have to remember that Joe Biden truly, up until this point, viewed himself as the best chance to beat Donald Trump, because he did beat Donald Trump.And he profoundly believed that he was the only one who could do it again regardless of what he thought of Kamala Harris.
I think it's important to remember even before these conversations around him stepping down got serious, people, when they were talking about 2028, were overlooking Kamala Harris.She has been overlooked as the heir apparent, even though she is the heir apparent, for a long time.But she was preparing for this moment, and when the moment arrived, she seized the opportunity.
And I think so much of the coalescing around her was because it was the cleanest option.But in the days since that decision has been made, I think there have been a lot of Democrats who have been surprised by her ability to really seize the momentum and become the face of the ticket in a way that I don't think people expected from her.
… One key moment that some people point to where suddenly people say, "Oh, there's Kamala Harris," is right after the debate when she goes on cable television and she's sitting down for interviews.How important was that moment as the questions are really profound about President Joe Biden in the minutes after the debate and she's on television?
The thing about Kamala Harris is, she's not easily shaken, and that was a moment that proved to be really, really critical for both her and Joe Biden.
I've talked to Democrats who said they were getting text messages from people who were not Kamala Harris fans, and they were saying, "Oh, I really needed that."Like, that was really calming, right?
And what's funny is she drafted the language that she was going to say on air.And one of the things she said was, "We're not going to let this president’s four years be defined by 90 minutes," or some variation of that that the campaign and Joe Biden would go on to use.But those were Kamala Harris' words.
And that was a moment where I think both she and her staff saw that it was important that she showed both her loyalty to him, but also that she was this sort of calm and composed person that people could lean on in a moment where people weren't sure what was going to happen next.
What does it reveal about her, how she handles herself in those weeks of speculation that follow? ...
… I think she knew it was important to Joe Biden that she showed this unrelenting loyalty to him, right?So she was still making calls to lawmakers on his behalf.She was sitting in on calls.He was keeping her close, and I think he knew that he needed to keep her close in that moment.
But I traveled with her in those weeks after the debate and we would ask her questions point-blank about, did you see the latest lawmaker come out and say this?And like most politicians, she pretended not to be paying attention to the noise and stuck to the talking points in terms of, "We're going to move forward with this campaign."And during that period of time, she was really focused on Black female voters, which is an important constituency for the Democrats.
The other thing I will say is, as both a senator and then later as vice president, she has really honed her skills with coalition-building, and that's something that she's worked on her entire career.So when the moment came for her to sort of activate an ad hoc campaign of getting people behind her, of groundswell of support, she had that support at the state level in a lot of different states because of the relationships she's made over the years.
That wasn't happening internally with her staff.It was happening externally, with supporters and people on the outside who were sort of preparing for this moment.But Harris was in it until the very end.
… Why didn't she see what the rest of America saw, that Nancy Pelosi saw: that Joe Biden staying in the race was dangerous?How is he going to get through another four years?What is your take on that—that question about her judgement?
I think it's an impossible ask for you as the governing partner and somebody whose job is to be ready to be president at the drop of a hat at any point to then turn around and say the person that you are governing with is not capable.She was in an extremely difficult situation.To distance herself or criticize her boss in any way jeopardized her own career and her own ambitions, I think.
And so for her, I think that was a really difficult position to be in.But I also think the people around Joe Biden, including Kamala Harris, didn't necessarily see what Nancy Pelosi and some of these other politicians said that they were seeing.When you're around someone a lot, if there's any sense of decline and you're seeing them every day, maybe it's not as pronounced to you as it is to other people who are seeing him more infrequently.So I think that she was reconciling things in the same way a lot of his staff were as well.
Those 48 hours, when he announces that he is not going to run, the Democratic Party is in crisis.The country in a lot of ways is in crisis.… What does she do in those moments, and where does she get those skills from?
So Joe Biden did not come out right away and say he was endorsing Kamala Harris.He waited, I think, 15 minutes, or close to it before he came out and said that he was throwing his support behind her.He, of course, called her earlier in the day to tell her that he was doing this and that he was going to support her.
In those weeks between the debate and when he stepped down, she is weighing this question and what she would do if the opportunity came.She had support already building within the party, and I think she called a lot of those leaders, Democratic leaders and allies and people on the campaign, to make sure that she was all systems go and she had their support.
If there's something to be said about Kamala Harris, she's not somebody who doubts herself.She does believe that she deserves to be there, and so when given the opportunity, of course she's going to seize on it.
So the Kamala Harris that you see today riding into this moment, surprising a lot of people as to who she is and securing the Democratic Party, the woman we've been talking about, who is she now as a presidential candidate?
I think she needs to spend the next 90-some days figuring that out.She, at this point, is running on the Biden administration record, but she has to define herself before the Republicans do, and she knows that.And I think that is her biggest struggle, has been her biggest struggle in previous years, and she understands that she's up against the clock now.
… A former aide said to me, Kamala Harris is the prosecutor against Donald Trump.If that is the Kamala Harris that voters want to see, that's a role she can step into.She doesn't need to be the Kamala Harris, the visionary who's going to provide a new future for the party.She just needs to be the one that is going to go up against Donald Trump, lay out the case, prosecute it and deliver.
… She doesn't talk as explicitly about what she represents—as biracial, as Black, as a woman.That's a pretty large contrast with Donald Trump and what he represents and what he has described about America and changing.Is that part of the campaign, and is that something that she is making central to it and her own story and where she came from?
I think her supporters would hope that would be the case.I think we're starting to see her make the campaign a bit more of her own rather than just a plug-and-play situation from Biden.She's focused on themes of, we're not going back, future, freedom, which is something that she's weaved throughout her campaigns and her career.
And the contrasts are so big that we'll see if that's something that she really underlines in a debate or at the convention.But I think for her, she's somebody who would rather be defined by her policy or her stance on the economy.So it will be one of her biggest challenges over the next three months.
And who knows which is the right thing to do politically, too?But it does feel like she's not running on breaking the greatest glass ceiling of them all and emphasizing it in a way that Hillary might have.And I guess that comes partly from her whole life as you've been describing it and how she's conducted herself as a politician.
One thing Doug Emhoff told me is that she likes to say that when you break glass ceilings, you get cut.And I think that's a mantra she probably tells herself in these moments.She expects the criticisms.She understands there's going to be missteps, but she keeps going.
And so you’re right.She's not running a similar campaign to Hillary Clinton in 2016, emphasizing just how historic it would be if a Black woman were to be elected president.She would rather people elect her on her abilities.
But I think the biggest challenge, as I said, voters want to know who she is, so she's got to find a sort of happy medium and strike a balance there between the two.
What’s the Choice on the Ballot?
So the question that we ask everybody is, what is the choice on the ballot in November?What is the choice that voters are facing as you see it?
… Up until this moment, we have seen this election really defined by age and concern about age, right?And we have one party that continues to have a 78-year-old lead the party as the standard bearer and another party that recognized the issue and has replaced its standard bearer with a much younger 59-year-old old woman of color.
And so I think this is a generational moment where we'll continue to see some of the same divisive politics that have defined the last 10 years, or will we move on to a generational shift where we'll see a new type of politics from a different type of politician.
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