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Jamilah King
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Jamilah King
Mother Jones
Jamilah King is an editorial director at Mother Jones, where she has profiled Kamala Harris and written extensively on Black women’s political power. She was previously an investigative reporter at BuzzFeed News.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on August 14, 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Kamala Harris’ Early Life
When did you first come across Kamala Harris?When did she come across your radar?
So I first came across Kamala Harris when she was district attorney of San Francisco.It's my hometown.I think I was probably in college around the time that she became DA.And I remember—I was in college in Southern California, and I remember being really impressed that there was this young, sort of hip Black woman who was running the DA in my hometown.It was around the time that Gavin Newsom was mayor, and so San Francisco was also making headlines for legalizing gay marriage and holding marriage ceremonies for queer couples at City Hall.So it felt kind of like, OK, San Francisco is coming up; San Francisco's on the rise in a way.
… She doesn't talk a lot about her life story.The one thing she does talk a lot about is her mom.And she talks about her parents meeting, both being immigrants, meeting at civil rights protests, going around in a stroller as a kid, as she likes to say.What do you take from that background, from the story she tells about herself and about her parents?
The story she tells about her formative years and her beginning is really kind of a story of civil rights in this country, of the Civil Rights era in America.So her parents were both immigrants.They met on the campus of UC Berkeley. …
And they were these two people from opposite sides of the world.Her father grew up in Jamaica; her mother grew up in India.And they were very united in this fight for a better future.
And you know, I think that at the time in the Bay Area, especially at UC Berkeley, you know, this was during the Free Speech Movement; this was during the moment where a lot of folks on campus were being activated and years subsequent to that around the war in Vietnam, around civil rights in general.You know, you have Martin Luther King, and you have the Civil Rights Movement sort of happening in the South.And then on the West Coast, it looks a little bit different, right?It looks a little bit different.It's based in Berkeley.It's based in San Francisco.It's based in Los Angeles.And it tends to be a little bit more multicultural.There's a lot of Asian American immigration happening at that time.
So I think that what I make of it is, she's really grounding herself in this moment of historic change in America, where there is this shift not just generationally but culturally.You have—the Beatles are happening.You have all of this sort of cultural sea change.And in that, you have this little girl, who is Black and Jamaican and growing up on the border of Berkeley and Oakland, and I think that that is really prominent in her story, and I think it's kind of representative of a change in America that was happening at that time.
It sounds like it's pulsating political energy and protesting.Do you get a sense that that’s part of why—politics, going into government comes from that background, from that time?
Yeah, you think about Alameda County, right, which is where she was born, and it's where she later became district—or where she later became a prosecutor.Alameda County is probably best known for having Black Panthers on the steps of the courthouse probably a decade after she was born.It's this sense of radicalism that was permeating the country, but specifically the Bay Area at that time. ....
So I think that the culture of activism, of fighting for communities that you're a part of, that you're allied with, was a huge part of the atmosphere of where she grew up.Being in government was not necessarily the way you typically did that, right?Typically folks were activists, and they were sort of banging on the doors from the outside demanding change of the people that they'd elected to represent them.
But there was actually [a] considerable amount of controversy when Kamala Harris, after law school, decided to become a prosecutor.She had to sit down and argue the case to her family that this was the right path for her, that she was dedicated to making systemic change from the inside.That was not something that was typically kind of the thing to do at that moment.I guess this would have been the 1980s, right?
Nonetheless, she comes from a history of a family of public servants.So on her mother's side, I think her great-grand—her grandfather was a public servant in India.There was always this commitment to service in her family, particularly with her mother.Her mother was a breast cancer researcher, very dedicated to women's health and also very active in her community.
And so that sense of service, that you are really there to serve others, that the service that you give is sort of the rent that you pay for being in the world, right?It's something that I think is very, very deeply woven in her DNA.
Her mom is obviously a huge influence on her, the person she talks about the most, who leaves India as a young girl and enters the world of cancer research, which wasn't especially common at that time.What was the impact of her mom on Kamala Harris?
Kamala Harris was very close to her mother.Her mother raised her and her sister, Maya, mostly as a single mother in the 1960s and '70s, which was no easy task.She was a young immigrant mother who knew that she was raising two Black children, and so made sure that her daughters had strong Black influences around them in their neighborhood.And she was deeply committed to service.She also, from all of my reporting, seemed to be someone who really didn't take any mess; she was pretty hard on her kids.She would say often that if they're having downtime at home and they're just watching TV, you have to be doing something.You have to be making something.Whether it's cooking, whether it's creating art, you have to be doing something.And so I think she had really, really high expectations for her kids.She was a strict disciplinarian, and they were all very, very close.
I think that that really comes through also in her biography.You see her mom at her first swearing-in as district attorney.She's the one holding the Bible.Her mother was a huge, huge impact on her life as she was growing up and as she decided to go into public service.
… What do you take from her dad, who she doesn't write about very much?And they divorced pretty early.
Yeah. So her dad's a more complicated figure.Her dad is an economist who lived in the U.S. for many years, is Jamaican by birth; I think he lives there now.He wasn't as big of a part of her life, but they did spend time together.He took his kids to Jamaica to meet their cousins and to spend time with that family when they were very young.He's obviously followed her career.Interestingly, she majored in economics in college, and he's an economics professor.So I think the idea of thinking about how psychology impacts people's decisions around money, how states and governments facilitate their relationships with money, is really interesting to her.
But she definitely grew up in a matriarchal circle of people.The women around her really raised her, really cultivated her and really set a really high bar for both her and her sister to thrive.
Harris’ Biracial Identity
She writes a lot about how supportive the environment is and talks about how supportive the environment is when she's coming up.She doesn't talk that much about the harder parts of growing up as Black or biracial, but sometimes she'll mention like the neighbor who wasn't allowed to play with her.And some of her friends have told us she did hear—she heard comments from both sides for being Black and being South Asian.What do you make of that part of her growing up?
I don't think I know a lot about her struggle with being mixed.I haven't really come across a lot of that in my reporting.
Yeah, because she doesn't write about it very much or talk about it.
It seems like she's always been really confident in her Black identity.And again, I think that goes back to her mom being very clear with her very early on.Yes, her children are Indian and South Asian, but they're also Black.That's how the world is going to perceive them, and so that's how they should carry themselves, and they should do that with pride.
And so I think you see going as far back as her going to an HBCU, going to Howard University.And certainly even before that, I think it was really important for her to grasp on to her Black identity.But certainly, like in the 1970s, there just weren't many mixed-race communities, in part because you're coming out of mixed marriages just having been legalized, and it just wasn't as common.So I think it was definitely something that probably turned some people's heads at the grocery store or in public, but it seems to have not affected her in a significant way because of the support that she had around her as a child.
Yeah, the way she talks about it, that you hear it, is like, she says about Donald Trump, "I've heard it all my life," right?"I've heard these kinds of attacks all my life."And it's sort of like, “Move on.”That seems to be her MO in those situations from an early age.
And that's also sort of her mother, too, right?I think that her mother has—Kamala Harris' mother was always very action-oriented, right?If you fall, don't sit there and cry; get back up; work harder.So I think that's where you really see the grit that her mother instilled in her, too, is that you don't let other people define you; you define yourself.
You talked about the decision that her mom made, which, you know, her dad is not there, and then she realizes these two girls are going to be seen by the world as two Black girls, and she raises them in that community, and they go to Mrs. Shelton's daycare and Rainbow Sign.What does that environment impart on Kamala Harris?
You mean the daycare specifically?
Both of them. There are messages.On the wall at the daycare, they have posters of prominent African American historical figures, and she's written on the Rainbow Sign and seeing luminaries coming in person or hearing about it.I'm curious about growing up in that time and in that place.
So I think Kamala Harris was among this generation of Black children being raised in Oakland that were the first and second generations of migrants, whether they were migrants from India or migrants from the American South. …
And I think there is this belief that you've come to this place, it is going to be better.If not now, then we are going to make it better.
And so I think you see those relics of hope in all of the things that Kamala Harris talks about in her childhood, whether it is the posters on the wall of her daycare that were very affirming to Black children or the way that children played in the neighborhoods together.There was hostility; there was racial hostility, but there was also this protected space where kids could be free and where they could also be very confident in their political identities from a very, very early age.
Harris’ Time in Canada
And that's how she talks about it.She talks about it very much as home and sort of a nurturing place.But when she's 12, her mom, I gather, is sort of forced to, if she wants to advance her career, to move on to Canada.She doesn't write a lot about that either, but I wonder about the impact that kind of move would have on her.
… When Kamala Harris is 12 years old, she moves to Montreal, and she becomes decently proficient in French.But she was really plucked out of her comfort zone, right, plucked out of her environment, forced to learn a whole new culture, a whole new language.And I think that was very difficult at that age.I think it came to—it showed later on when she decided to go back to Oakland the first chance that she got.
But I think that was also a crucial part of her development, because it was important to get out of her comfort zone.It was important to be in a new space, to be in a place that was challenging, to have to rebuild friendships, to have to rebuild your sense of identity at that very, very pivotal age where you're still trying to understand who you are and what you believe.
So I think that sort of getting out of what made her comfortable, what made her feel safe ultimately served her really well, right?She was able to navigate all of these different communities pretty seamlessly.I think that's also sort of attributed to her biracial identity.She's comfortable in a lot of different sorts of settings, right, with a lot of different people from different backgrounds.
And so I think that move to Montreal just solidified that fluency that she has, that sort of bilingual and bicultural fluency that she has that I think a lot of the American public is getting to see now.
It's interesting.It's like the difficult moments that she doesn't dwell on, because it must have been quite a shock.She sort of makes light of showing up and being in a French school and she doesn't speak French.She's the American; she's the Black girl.She's all of those things.
It has to be disorienting for anyone who's—you're being plucked in the middle of puberty and taken to a whole different country.But certainly it's something that her parents could relate to, right, because they, too, made that similar journey.They were older, but they had to adjust to being in a new environment.They had to develop these new skills to build community, to build friendships, to get over that initial discomfort that you feel in a room when you don't know anything.Now you have to figure it out.Now you have to say, "Well, what am I going to do?How am I going to operate?"
And I think over and over, throughout her life, you see this theme of resiliency, of having to sort of—of failing, maybe, and then having to figure it out.And I think that's kind of a pivotal moment where you start to see that come to life.
Harris Attends Howard University
... She chooses to go to Howard University.What do you make of that decision, and is it connected to having been in Canada?What does that say about her choice?
Kamala Harris' decision to go to a historically Black college was pivotal, right?It was not only pivotal, but it was really deliberate.Howard University is one of the most celebrated historically Black colleges in the United States.And specifically at that time, in the early 1980s, it was kind of the place to be.You have the Howard homecoming.You have all of these very celebrated Black traditions, not to mention esteemed alumni like Toni Morrison who came through Howard and really credit Howard with being sort of this oasis of Black excellence, right, where they could really thrive and come into their own.
So you have Kamala Harris coming to Howard University in the early 1980s at a moment where the environment around Howard University looks like a lot of the places that Black people live in America at that time, which is to say that it's known as "Chocolate City," it's a proud Black city, but it's also got a lot of crime. …
Washington, D.C., in the 1980s was a city that was struggling.Certainly throughout the 1980s, you had a lot of crime.You had the crack cocaine epidemic bubbling up.You had a lot of concerns about gentrification.
Actually, it's interesting.I went back to Howard to look through their yearbooks and their student papers from the time, and there was a lot of—I was struck by how much reporting there was in <i>The Hilltop</i> about gentrification, about the fact that it felt like there were forces outside of Howard University, outside of the Black community, that were coming in and stealing the best of what we've got, right?
And so that was really noticeable, but I think certainly her decision to go to Howard was one that was about pride.It was about really standing in her Black identity and wanting to sort of develop these relationships and be kind of tied to a culture that was really unapologetically Black.
And I think it's significant, especially her being on the East Coast, because as comfortable as Berkeley is for her, Black people have always been a numerical minority in California, and there are just more Black people in Washington, D.C.And so you had this really vibrant culture, this vibrant city at this time where the city may be struggling, but there's so much vibrant culture and politics coming out of Washington, D.C., that when she lands there, it's almost like she's being molded in a lot of ways.
People talk about it, because there's these two sides of it, and one is, as you were talking about, there's a sense of embracing of a Black identity, and the other thing as we've talked to people who went to school with her is there's a sense of being free, of not being pigeonholed and being able to be yourself and outside of a box because you're not seen by people just because of what you look like.Do you think that's part of Kamala Harris' experience?
I think when you are at an HBCU, you have this sense of, here I don't have to explain anything.I don't have to explain my ambition.I don't have to be the token.I don't have to be the only one.I'm not outcast because I'm a nerd or I am a particular type of Black.You can be in a place of Black excellence where there's so many different types and shades of Black and there's so many different ways that Black people can be excellent at things.
And so I definitely think that that molded her, and it definitely influenced her decision to go to Howard and thrive there.You've got not only sort of the nerds at Howard and the policy wonks and even some of the conservative students, but you've got activists; you've got culture-makers.You've got a lot of people there at the time who were doing incredible things.I think around that time that Kamala Harris was at Howard so was Isabel Wilkerson, who would later become a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
So you have this tremendous amount of ambition, and I think that's one thing you also see in Kamala Harris' biography, is that she's always been an incredibly ambitious person, and she's made no apologies for that.
One of the other things that people say that comes from that time period that she's there, and whether it's from who she chooses to hang out with or whether it's from herself—I'd be curious of your thoughts—but it's this idea of working inside the system, of rising up as she comes from a background of protesting.Do you think that that trajectory of her life is influenced by being at Howard?
I do.I think that being at Howard was an example—because at Howard at the time she was probably interacting with so many different types of Black people—not just activists, but people who already had generational wealth or generational access to power—that she was able to get a perspective that was slightly different than one she might get in the Bay Area, where the system of power had historically all been white.
And at Howard, I think you have access to families with legacies of wealth, but also political power.And I think that definitely influenced her in terms of thinking about how to change the systems that she felt were impacting her life and the lives of the people around her.
It must be also being in Washington and working as an intern in the Senate, and having those kinds of jobs, there's a different perspective probably than you get at Berkeley.
Yeah, totally.I don't know that she loved her time in Washington, D.C., that first time around, but certainly it molded her into the person that she is.And of course it influenced her decision to go back to California and work within the criminal justice system.
It may be debatable if she loved her time in Washington the second time around or not.Another thing on Howard, the AKA [Alpha Kappa Alpha] sorority.What do you take from that?
What do I really think?
Okay, so Black sororities have a really, really strong, legendary history of service, but it's also an opportunity for people who maybe don't have access to a particular type of wealth or a particular strata of Black middle-class identity to get access to that.And so when she decides to pledge—and I believe she doesn't pledge until her junior or senior year, so it's a little bit later in her college career—it's a really intentional decision.AKAs are known for being the most prestigious of the Black sororities. ...
But certainly it is the most exclusive Black sorority, and it's really difficult to get into.There's a GPA requirement.So she makes this decision, and I think it really solidifies her desire and her quest to find community and find this sort of strong sisterhood of Black women who are not just allied and committed to service, but who are themselves powerful and have a pretty powerful base of members to pull from.
Harris’ Decision to Become a Prosecutor
You talked already about that decision to become a prosecutor and having to deal with her mom on it, but how important in her life was that decision, that that was the trajectory that she was going to go, was to become a prosecutor?
The decision to become a prosecutor was a really controversial one for Kamala Harris when she decided to do it. …
She's becoming a prosecutor at a time when Black communities are literally under siege, and there just aren't many examples of Black people in powerful positions within law enforcement.And so, specifically in Oakland and Alameda County in the 1980s, it is literally ground zero for the crack cocaine epidemic.1You have tremendous amounts of violence in Black communities.You have overpolicing.You have a lot of strife.
And so her decision to be the person on that other end, right, to be the person who's in the courtroom, to be the person who is advocating for victims, yes, but also incarcerating people during a moment of mass incarceration, is a huge deal.It's a huge deal.
And it also shows that she is really committed to this idea of changing things from the inside, right?It's like, what can you do when you are sitting with a victim of a horrific crime?And how can you help make that person's life a little bit easier?Or what does justice look like?What does truth look like?Those are themes that she continues to come back to.
So yeah, it was a huge decision.It was a controversial decision in her family and her community.But ultimately, I think her argument was that, "Look, in order for us to change this system, we have to have people within it who are willing to open the doors, who are willing to listen, who are willing to sit at the table."And that's what she did.
It couldn't have been easy, either.We talked about what Canada was like, but here she's walking into a place where there are not a lot of women.She could be the only Black woman there.There's not a lot of minorities in law enforcement.Very different than her experience in college.What would she have been facing walking into that environment of law enforcement in the early '90s?
Walking into law enforcement, not only as a Black woman, but as a Black woman who was raised in the community that she's now in charge of protecting I think is also a huge deal.
One thing that was really resonant in a lot of the reporting that I did over the years was the concern from Black people within Oakland that the people who were policing the community weren't from the community.They weren't living in the community, even, so they had no idea how to be in touch with the people there.And so she did, and that made her different.
But it had to have been a really stressful time.It had to be a really chaotic time.This is also a moment where the police in Alameda County, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, was pretty chaotic.I think it was severely underfunded, underresourced.And so she's trying to plug a lot of these holes at a time when just water is gushing in from everywhere, and so there's this deluge of crime and policing and overpolicing, but it's not effective, and community members are mad.
And so she's coming into it with a lot of strife, and I think that's going to require a lot of diplomacy on her part.And I think you see that again and again throughout her career, is that she's having to sort of balance this line—or she's sort of having to balance on this line between listening and hearing members of community while also enforcing the law and bringing down the hammer.And that's something that I think, over time, she got more comfortable with, but it's certainly no easy task.
Harris Runs for San Francisco District Attorney
... Do you know what led her to say, “I'm going to run.I'm going to get involved in politics and make the jump from—”?
Yeah. What led her to run?So at the time in 2003, 2002, around the time that she decides to jump into the race for San Francisco district attorney, her opponent is a man named Terence Hallinan, and he's known as this rough-and-tumble white guy from working-class communities who isn't afraid to take on the big, bad political machine.And it's interesting because she has to position herself as slightly more conservative than this guy who is known as a reformer, but whose office was sort of in disarray.
I think at the time you have a lot of the really tough policing—sorry, a lot of the really tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and early 1990s, and you're seeing that sort of bubble up in the early 2000s with California having the highest rate of incarceration of any state in the country.You're seeing, specifically in San Francisco, this huge gap between rich and poor in the city because of the tech boom and because of so many things that are happening at the time.
And so when she jumps into the race, she's having to position herself in a different way and say, "Not only am I able to do this job because I look like a lot of the people who are—and I sound like the people who have been policed in this community for so long, but I'm actually going to do it more effectively, and I'm going to do it with a strategy that's not just willy-nilly, but is based on money, that is based on data, that is based on facts and figures."
And so she's having to position herself in this really interesting way.But I think her identity does play a part in it.I think that for some, San Francisco has a history of being this city that, while it's known for being really liberal and really diverse, it's actually this kind of like—it's a fight.It's a fight between a lot of older traditional values, a lot of entrenched white political power, and Black people historically in San Francisco have not had a ton of political power.
And so the fact that she's coming in from the East Bay, deciding to jump into this race against this figure who is not super effective but certainly beloved is a really big turning point for her and the city.
People have told us that there's this misperception about San Francisco politics, because it's all Democrats, but it's actually a little bit more vicious, a knife fight in a telephone booth, and you have to know where to raise the money and how to build a coalition.And so there's skills she must get from coming out of San Francisco.
Yeah, I think there's a reason why some of the most powerful politicians in our country right now in the Democratic Party came up through San Francisco. …
So there is a political machine in San Francisco.It is an overwhelmingly liberal city, but within that liberal bubble you have different factions, and what's interesting is that the Black community in San Francisco has historically not, at least politically, been the most radical, I think because there is such a wide gap between rich and poor.And certainly you've seen over the decades that the middle-class Black community in San Francisco was completely decimated, and so a lot of the surviving Black folks in the city are typically more working class.And there's been this fight between white progressives and Black folks in San Francisco dating back to the 1960s, even.It's definitely a tough, a rough-and-tumble place.
It's also a place where there is a lot of money.And so if you're a young politician trying to find your way in that city, you have to be really smart.You have to have cultivated the tools to be able to talk to a bunch of different types of people, to be comfortable, to be carrying yourself in a particular type of way.And I think all of those lessons from Kamala's childhood, based on the fact that she had traveled quite a bit, had had the experience of being uncomfortable when she moved to Montreal, you see the fruits of that hardship come to play when she's now having to make her way in these exclusive homes in Pacific Heights in San Francisco, which is where she would be fundraising for her campaign.
And I think she ultimately impressed a lot of people in those spaces because she had to—that's where she had to really build her base, and she had to do it on her own, right?She was not anointed by anyone.In fact, she had a relationship with former Mayor Willie Brown, but that actually worked against her in a lot of instances.
And so she really had to sort of pivot and find her own way.And I think she was able to do that by just relying on her instincts, relying on her ambition, and also building a really strong network of community activists in San Francisco.
The Willie Brown Relationship
You said that relationship worked against her.You also mentioned, I think referred to it earlier, when you said that might be why she's a little sensitive about her personal life.What do you make of that relationship?It's in that first campaign in 2003, long before Donald Trump, that it becomes an issue.Let’s start with what do you make of the relationship itself, and then we'll talk about the politics of it.
What do I make of that relationship?In the 1990s, Kamala Harris did have an intimate relationship with Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco, who was 30 years her senior and was a longtime speaker of the California Assembly.Very politically powerful guy.Unclear how much that power trickled down to her, but I can certainly say that by the time she decided to run for district attorney of San Francisco, which was several years later, she describes that relationship to a reporter at the time as an albatross around her neck.She says, "I'm tired of talking about it; I don't want to hear about it anymore."
And it's because of the fact that as a woman, she's seen as someone who doesn't deserve to be where she is, regardless.But certainly, having dated a powerful politician, people often mistake that relationship for being something that actually helped her, and I think she's had to succeed in spite of that relationship, meaning that she had to figure out how to create an identity for herself outside of being Willie Brown's ex, but also having to defend herself against a lot of the sexist attacks, including the ones by Donald Trump, that sort of suggests that she slept her way to the top.
Like I said, I think she's tried to climb her way to the top in spite of that relationship and not because of it.
It's interesting.Were you referring to that before when you said that that was why she might be a little more sensitive about her personal life?
Yeah. And I think that there's also an element to this of, you know, traditionally in politics, even with successful female politicians like Hillary Clinton, there are people who typically stuck to a particular mold—they're wives, they're mothers, and they also happen to have these really successful political careers.
And with Kamala Harris, she didn't get married until her 40s.She doesn't have biological children.And so in a lot of ways, she kind of bucks these traditional stereotypes.And I would argue that that makes her much more relatable to the majority of single female voters.But I think that's something that's very scary for the establishment.That's something that's very, something that is—we don't often see women sort of succeeding on their own terms, not having, not being forced to balance being a mom and a wife in these traditional senses of those relationships.Of course, that's not to suggest that she didn't have important relationships with her niece and other folks.But yeah, I think that, her being a single Black woman for the majority of her professional career is something that doesn't get enough attention, and how difficult that actually is. …
Hard to Place Harris on the Ideological Spectrum
… You talked about how she branded herself going in to that election, and there's a lot of talk about who she is on an ideological spectrum.And she writes a book, and she calls it <i>Smart on Crime</i>, and she uses that phrase a lot and says it's not tough on crime or soft on crime.Why is it still hard for us to look back on her career as a prosecutor and put her into an ideological space, or peg her on that spectrum?
It's hard to put her on the spectrum ideologically now because our conversation around criminal justice has shifted dramatically over the course of her career.So she goes into being a prosecutor, being a district attorney at a time when there is, like I said, a lot of overpolicing of Black communities, a lot of the harsher policies of the 1980s and '90s, and now it's shifted significantly, because we've seen, thanks in large part to the movement of Black Lives and other political movements of the 21st century, we've seen that shift happen in real time.
But when she runs on this platform of being smart on crime, what she's essentially saying is that you're wasting your money by throwing people away for the rest of their lives; that's a waste of potential.She's essentially arguing—she's making an economic case for investing in Black communities.And I think she says, essentially, that—she has a signature program called Back on Track, and it is essentially a recidivism program.
So Back on Track is a program that allows folks to—first-time, nonviolent drug offenders, instead of going to prison, they complete 18 months of this program, and the program is relatively small, but I think it is really emblematic of how she's thinking at the time, that if only you give people the resources, they'll make better decisions.
And so it's within that that I think she is able to pull a lot of the levers in San Francisco civic government.So she's able to get Black judges to be involved.She's able to get—every year there's a graduation for these kids, and she's able to sort of make it this celebratory moment.And again, it's a pretty small program, but I do think it's pretty representative of how she's thinking at the time.
It's hard to pin her down ideologically because I think her ideology kind of changes with the time.And in many ways, you want that in a politician.You want them to be able to adapt to what is happening now.But she's never been an activist, right?She's never been—people would call her a progressive prosecutor in 2020, and that is a really, really new turn of phrase.That's something that didn't really exist when she was a line prosecutor in Alameda County or district attorney in San Francisco.
So it's hard for us to pin her down because she is someone who is really analytical, looks at the data and makes her decisions accordingly.And so I think that goes for how she manages in office, but also it also applies to how she thinks about change, how she thinks about systemic change, how she thinks about being a person in power who can actually leverage resources and put them in different places.
That's real interesting, because I don't know where—Maybe you know where it comes from, but whether it's her mom is a scientist, or whether it's just the fact that she starts in local government rather than her first office being running for Congress and making pronouncements about the role of government and big ideas.But it's a different approach to politics that she has.
Right.And we also want something different from our local politicians than we want from our national politicians, right?I think it's really important as a district attorney and as an attorney general to focus on the data and to focus on the minute impact that you're having on people's lives.
But when you get into the national politics space, when you're in the—when you see her in the Senate and later when she's running for president for the first time, she has to kind of step back and make an ideological statement, and that's something that she is professionally not comfortable with because she hasn't had the experience doing it; she hasn't had to do it.In fact, she's had the professional training to do the complete opposite.
The Killing of Isaac Espinoza
The Officer Espinoza moment, can you help me understand what happens and how that might shape her as a politician?
So early on in Kamala Harris's career as district attorney of San Francisco, there is an officer-involved shooting where a young man named David Hill shoots a police officer, a San Francisco police officer named Isaac Espinoza.And I believe he uses an automatic weapon at the time.And Kamala Harris decides not to pursue the death penalty in that case, which, in that moment, in that political moment, if it had been a story of national importance and national significance at the time, it would have been looked at a little bit differently. …
So at that moment, nationally, there's a lot of momentum building to end the death penalty.But in San Francisco, the decision that Kamala Harris makes not to pursue the death penalty in the killing of a police officer is a huge one.So the police department is really upset, and so are police unions in San Francisco and across the state.It quickly becomes a controversy that, at the time, Sen. Dianne Feinstein even comes out against the decision.
… So Kamala Harris sticks with her decision, and ultimately David Hill is convicted and sentenced to multiple life sentences.So he's never getting out of prison, but he's also not on death row, and I think that that decision and that reality is something that ends up haunting Kamala Harris over the course of the next decade as she starts to ascend politically.
By the time she's running for attorney general for the first time in 2010, she actually has to work overtime to try to win the support of police unions that are still unsure of what to make of her at best and skeptical and downright resentful of the fact that she chose not to pursue the death penalty at worst.
And so that is a moment where she does have this ideological stance that gets a lot of backlash and I think causes her to step back and recalibrate politically.I think that that's a really, really pivotal moment for her professionally.
When you say recalibrate politically, do you mean be more careful in situations like that?
Yeah.I think she realizes that she has to be more careful, that as a politician, you have to make certain politically motivated decisions, and that as a thoughtful person, as someone who is raised to think about the scientific method and having a hypothesis and testing it and all of those things, it is a moment where she is—that's where she's becoming known for being a little bit more cautious politically, right?
So I think that's the first and last time you see her make this really grand ideological statement in a decision, and you see her, over the course, again, of the next decade, you see her back up and be a lot more deliberate when it comes to making decisions that could potentially come and haunt her down the road.
Harris as California Attorney General
That's helpful, because you reported about her years as attorney general, and it seems like that's one of the things, when you talked to activists and others, was that they were hoping for something else from her on some of these issues.Tell me about those years as the California attorney general and what you found.
So one of the most significant parts of her tenure as attorney general of California is when the Supreme Court issues a ruling that essentially mandates California to lower its prison count—basically, to release more people from prison.And as attorney general, her office actually argues against that.
And so one of the arguments that her office makes is that we can't release too many people because we rely on them as a labor force.2And she later—that was initially reported by Adam Serwer at BuzzFeed News, and her office immediately responded and said that she didn't know that that was an argument that her office was using.
But I do think it demonstrates this complexity, right, where she is the chief law enforcement person in California, and at the time, you have a lot that's going on.California is becoming the hotbed of political activism.So you have in 2009 a police officer in Oakland kills Oscar Grant, and he's a young Black man in Oakland.And you have a whole movement around videotaping the police, and cell phones are now a thing, and so you have this movement of folks who are demanding justice for Oscar Grant.And then of course in 2012, you have Trayvon Martin, who's killed in Sanford, Florida.
So you have these very prominent murders of Black men, and that's when you see the conversation around criminal justice really start to shift, and people are really starting to look at the systemic issues at play.They are starting to think about how police are entering communities.They're starting to think about the inherent injustice that's at play.
And so she's in this moment where she doesn't say a ton.She doesn't say a lot, right?At the time, I think in 2016, she did give a pretty personal statement on the murder of Philando Castile in Minnesota, and she says something along the lines of, "Every Black man I know is essentially afraid of becoming a Philando Castile."That's not what she says at all, but she said something like, "Every Black man I know is worried about that, about being killed by the police."
And she gets some backlash for it, but it, I think, is a strong statement.And even then, I think you could argue she only made that statement because she knew she was running for Senate and that she wouldn't have to be the face of law enforcement in California anymore, and I think she's able to—when she's running for the Senate, and when she ultimately becomes a member of the Senate, she gets to have a little bit more freedom politically.
But again, as someone who is really practical, she signed up for a job, and she's doing it as attorney general, and she's doing it at a time when policing is being scrutinized more heavily and more widely than it's ever been scrutinized before.
When you would talk to activists about whether she would support body cameras or take over these investigations, what was their attitude?
Yeah, when I would talk to activists, they were frustrated with how deliberate she insisted on being and that her office insisted on being.So one thing that she's really proud of is this database she created as attorney general that captured all of the police shootings.3It captured a bunch of information, but part of it was capturing information on police shootings, which just didn't exist.
3
State of California Department of Justice: Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Launches First-of-its-Kind Criminal Justice Open Data Initiative
And her argument was like, look, this is a really practical tool that police unions fight heavily against for a reason, and it's actually going to be really beneficial to activists who want the data to be able to then make actual arguments against specific policies.That's not a particularly sexy intervention, right?That's not like this grandiose statement.But it is a very, very practical thing that now a lot of activists are advocating for on a national level, right, and California is one of the only states that does this.
And so that's something that her office is really, really proud of and that she's really proud of.But it's not sexy.It's very practical; it's very useful.But it's not something that's going to grab headlines.But it is going to be something that people who are demanding change will be able to use in that argument.
Harris Arrives in the U.S. Senate
… When she arrives in the Senate, it's a very different image that people get of her.And one of the moments that's the most striking to us is election night of 2016, when she wins that Senate seat, and she's on the West Coast, so it's becoming clearer by the time she wins that Donald Trump is going to the president of the United States.How important was that moment, obviously to the country, but specifically to her career and who she would be?
Election night 2016 was a huge moment for her.It's this moment where she is elected to the Senate. …
She becomes the second Black woman in the Senate, and I think she realizes on election night that her job is going to look significantly different than it would have under a Hillary Clinton administration.I think she realizes that the fight is going to be much more intense.She's going to have a much more antagonistic relationship with the president.
I also think it's important to note politically and personally, it had an impact on her because her sister, who she's very close to, was working as a top adviser for the Hillary Clinton campaign, and so I think there was some hope that we're going to go to Washington together and we're going to kind of change things and change things from the inside.And then the script totally changes.
And ultimately it would be a good thing for her, but I think she definitely realized that the stakes were very, very different and that communities that she cared about were going to be under siege in a totally new way, and they were going to be looking to her to have a much more outsize voice in the Senate.
You mentioned that word that she uses in that speech, which is she says, "I say we fight."And I went back to look at that speech, and she says the word "fight" over and over again.What was it about her life and her career that prepared her for that moment of coming into Washington and taking that approach to the Trump administration?Because obviously she's going to have a meteoric rise.What was it about the life we've been talking about that led to who she was in those years?
I think that's a moment where a lot of the fight that she had as a Black woman trying to make her way in the political morass of San Francisco really comes to light.You see that she's not afraid to stand up to bullies.That's a theme she says a lot, that she hates bullies, and she sees Donald Trump as a big bully.She sees Donald Trump as America's bully.And so she decides to really make that a pivotal moment and talking point in her campaign and in her political legacy, is that she's going to be the advocate who is helping people fight against this bully.
And I think you can go back to the friend who was sexually assaulted when she was a kid that led her to become a prosecutor.You can see this time and again; she has this desire to fight for people who may not, for whatever reason, be able to fight for themselves, and so now that she's going to have a seat at the table, she wants to actually go to fight and go to battle with Donald Trump and his Cabinet.And I think you end up seeing that over the course of the next few months in the first year of her time in the Senate, is that she has these really iconic moments in Senate confirmation hearings where she's using the skills that she has as a prosecutor to make a name for herself.I don't know that that was the intention, but certainly those are the moments where America is introduced to Kamala Harris as someone who doesn't take any mess.She does not take any—she is someone who is not afraid to make people wither, and she does this in a very specific way, right?
In the way that her history as a prosecutor would make people doubt her, make activists doubt her ideological grounding, I think you also see the skills of being a prosecutor come out in a way that make it a huge asset to her when she's on the national stage and she's grilling Jeff Sessions or she's grilling Brett Kavanaugh in a way that she's really comfortable doing because it's what she did in the courtroom for so many years.
Obviously she looks different than the other people in the Senate, but there's also something that people are attaching to that is different than the old, complicated questions that go on C-SPAN but are not clipped and put on Twitter.Is she bringing something new, that that's part of the reason why those moments stand out?
Yeah, I think that the Senate confirmation hearings of Donald Trump's Cabinet members in 2017 is a moment where we really get to see that fight that she promised on election night in practice.And I think that the fight for her became doing her homework, being as informed as she could so that she could actually make it not an anointing but a grilling, and so she actually asks the hard questions.She makes folks feel uncomfortable.
And I think it's also important to note that, in this moment, more people are watching these confirmation hearings than ever before.I don't think that confirmation hearings are usually appointment TV for most folks.And at this moment, you have a lot of people who are really frustrated and angry and shocked by the election of Donald Trump, who are still tuned in to sort of see how the apparatus of government works and how these people who are going to be in really powerful positions are making the cases for themselves.
And along the way you have these clips of Kamala Harris grilling people that end up going viral and that make her the poster child or the poster of an advocate for a lot of people that I think was really necessary in that moment.
The clips are being replayed on MSNBC; they're being replayed on Fox News to a different effect and a different portrayal of her.Help me understand that response that she gets as a freshman senator, that continues.
She gets a really nasty response.I think it's a testament to how effective she was.But right-wingers accuse her of being nasty, of being rude.They don't quite know what to make of her, but they cast her as a villain, as someone who doesn't respect the rule of law.
And this is where you get a lot of the really more troubling portrayals of her, playing on these very, very old stereotypes of Black women as being bossy, as being rude, as being unqualified, of being just difficult.She gets this reputation as the difficult Black woman who is down to belittle these very powerful white men.And I think that's scary for a Fox News demographic of people who already see their power and their country slipping away from them.
Do you have any idea why the laugh became a thing?
People don't like Black joy.People don't like hearing women laugh.I think women's voices are highly scrutinized generally.And I think, with Kamala Harris, there's this specific sort of pitch and tone, and she might laugh at awkward moments.And I think that's part of it, but ultimately people love to scrutinize women's voices, women's joy, and that's why her laugh becomes an issue.And I think it bothers people like Donald Trump, that she's able to laugh.It bothers right-wingers that she is able to find joy in moments that arguably aren't joyful or aren't—at any moment, right?Like they just don't want her to have fun.
Harris’ First Run for President
Someday, somebody will write a dissertation about it and how it's seen now versus then.It’s fascinating.She makes the decision—what is it about her, about Kamala Harris, that decides, "I'm going to run for president in 2019"?
Well, I think she's riding the momentum of having been such a foil to the Trump administration in 2017, and she's seeing that there's an opening.She's seeing that the Democratic Party is really desperate for someone to sort of step up and offer something new, and she decides to be that person.
So she models her campaign after Shirley Chisholm's historic run for president in 1972.She launches it in Oakland, her hometown.And there's a lot of enthusiasm, but it's also a very crowded race with a lot of ideological foils, right?You have Elizabeth Warren also in the race.You have Joe Biden, of course.You have Bernie Sanders. …
So you have—it seems like a moment where she has to capitalize on a lot of the momentum that is surrounding her after the confirmation hearings, and it starts off really promising.It starts off with a really promising rally in Oakland.
It's also a moment where, at least when she launches her campaign in 2019, this is right before COVID; this is right before George Floyd is killed.And I think those things would significantly shift how she was perceived later on.
I didn't ask you about it before, but she writes about Shirley Chisholm, that she had come and visited the Bay Area before she ran for president.And then, as you said, she modeled elements of her campaign visually and other ways off of her.What impact do you think her candidacy, Chisholm's candidacy, had on young Kamala Harris?
I think Shirley Chisholm is a hero of Kamala Harris'.I think she said as much, but I also think that the fact that she was willing to unapologetically be a first; the fact that she was so outspoken; I think the fact that she was a Black woman who also had West Indian roots played a part in it.And I think the fact that she was someone who was willing to throw her hat in the fray when everyone thought it was impossible, I think that was hugely inspiring for Kamala Harris throughout her career, from ranging from when she ran for district attorney all the way up until she launched her first presidential campaign.
I think it was a moment where, when you look at the line of Black women who came into political prominence around Kamala Harris, you have Rep. Barbara Lee in Oakland who, during Chisholm's historic stop in Oakland during her campaign, decided to work for her campaign and all of these things.And so I think there's a pretty neat line between that lineage, and I think Shirley Chisholm was really, really important and formative for Kamala Harris.
The debate moment in that campaign.We've talked about how there's a lot of things she doesn't talk about, including the neighbor; that's where she mentions she had the neighbor.What do you make of that moment, "That little girl was me"?
Yeah, "That little girl was me."That's a rare moment where she really leans on her own biography to make a political point, and she does it really powerfully.And I think that's where she's still learning how to do that as a politician.She's not totally comfortable doing it up until then, and it doesn't—it's hard to figure out where it's successful, but you can almost see the joy in that moment when she's on stage delivering that line, that, "Oh, it worked"; like, this is how it could work, right?
And so that tendency she has to shy away from her own personal biography starts to melt away a bit in that moment, where she's able to put it all together and actually put herself at the center of history and say, "I am a Black child who was impacted by this policy, and this is why this policy is personal."
And I think her ability to do that is new at that moment, and it's really, really important for a lot of people to see her make in real time the connection between a policy and a personal story.
It's also pretty tough on Biden, and it's a sign of like, "I'm not playing here."And then she had a relationship with Beau, Biden's son.It's a tough moment, too.
Yeah, it's a tough moment that arguably went on to shadow a lot of her relationships with the Biden family later on.But I think it also was a moment where she was able to put herself on map.But she did that at the expense of some personal relationships within her own political family, and I think that that was a really tough thing for her to overcome, ultimately.But in the moment, it made for great TV, and it made for really powerful memes, and it showed a little bit of the possibility that she had for being this sort of internet sensation.
She started out pretty high.I don't know if they were polls, or they were just the Washington expectations.And there's great clarity in that moment and a lightning bolt.But what happens to her campaign?
Her campaign sort of stumbles.Her campaign never quite is able to maintain the momentum that it has early on.Again, there's a crowded field of competitors.She's also not really able to tell the American public who she is and what she's about outside of that moment with Joe Biden.
So she's not able to really tell people how her personal biography and how her professional résumé makes her qualified for the moment.In fact, she really struggles with it.It's a moment where we have this new kind of reckoning with policing in America, and all of a sudden she's positioning herself as a progressive prosecutor, and advocates are like, "Wait, no, you're not; you had no intention of doing that, right?You were around before this was even a term."And that doesn't quite stick.And so it's this moment where her desire to cast herself as an advocate with the need to be an activist is kind of at war.
And then it kind of putters out, right?She's not able to distinguish herself from the pack.She's not able to show why she would be an effective foil to Donald Trump.And most importantly, she's not really able to galvanize the Democratic Party in a way that's effective and that Democrats really need in that moment where a lot of people are afraid.A lot of people are not sure how the country is going to even—a lot of people—
There's a lot of uncertainty in the country and a lot of desire for stability.And she's not able to really separate herself from the pack.
Rolling back some of the policy decisions or announcements that she made about health care or the border, it doesn't really seem like that was probably her strength in 2019.Is that fair?
Yeah.I think, again, she was getting used to being in this new role as a senator who was actually able to make these kind of grandiose pronouncements and these—she's able to actually take a stand ideologically, but she didn't quite feel comfortable doing that, and she wasn't used to doing that.
And so she didn't have much of a record in the Senate either, right?She was still very much getting comfortable in that role.And so I think that she's not known for leading any particular charge, right?She's not known for leading Medicare for All.She's not known for being a huge advocate on immigrant rights.And it's this place where she really just—she really struggles to distinguish herself.
Harris as Vice President
We talked about the tension with Biden.Why is she chosen to be the vice presidential running mate?
So one of the reasons she's chosen is because I think the Democratic Party in this moment really recognizes that Black women have been one of their most, if not the most, loyal voting blocs for decades.And I think in an effort to shore up that support, in this moment where we're having this racial reckoning, it becomes really important to have not just a Black woman, but someone who is as accomplished as Kamala Harris, who is as politically talented as Kamala Harris, step into the role.
And so she's chosen because she has some sort of intangibles, right?She has not only the résumé of having been the first in so many different positions, but she's seen as the younger predecessor, right?She's someone who is able to signal this energy and the possibility of a more diverse, more active, more female-centric Democratic Party.
And they win, and she gets this job that is a very prestigious job, but it doesn't come with actually a lot of power.What does she walk into as far as both the expectations and then the reality of what it means to be vice president of the United States, to be the first woman vice president, the first Black woman vice president of the United States?
The vice presidency is a really prestigious job, obviously.You don't have a lot of power, and most importantly, I think, throughout most of the 20th and 21st century, vice presidents have been people who have been really comfortable maneuvering the halls of power in Washington, D.C.; they are people who have long histories in the Senate or on Capitol Hill, and Kamala Harris doesn't quite have that, so she really has to kind of make the role from scratch without a lot of help from the Biden administration.
And she's sort of saddled with these issues that are kind of unwinnable issues.They're not issues that are going to make her stand out.They're not issues that are going to really move the calculus in any way, and I think that's very frustrating.
So these are things like the root causes of immigration, voting rights—these very signature key issues, but they're issues that are very, very difficult to win on.And so she's not able to really distinguish herself in that sense, and I think it kind of gives this perception that she's not really as ready for the moment as people thought she was.
And I think her team would push back against that and say, "Well, we weren't really set up to be that person."But I think it also is this really tough moment in the Democratic Party where you have this generational shift that's happening in real time, and you see it, and you feel it; and you know the baby boomer generation is just not quite ready to give up power.And you see that fight happen in real time as Kamala Harris is trying to find her way in the vice presidency.
And so, yeah, I mean, she winds up kind of being—not a let down, but she's definitely—she makes a few fumbles.She has an infamous interview with Lester Holt that goes really poorly.4And I think her perfectionism keeps her from actually continuing on and giving more interviews as vice president.But she also has this really tough job of not upstaging the president of the United States, and that's a tough position to be in when you are waiting in the wings and trying to define yourself.
And so she can't upstage the president; she's got these unwinnable issues on her plate.And I think she struggles.She really, really struggles in that moment.
… The thing I can't understand it, and maybe you can't answer it, but the thing I can't understand is, why does the Lester Holt interview, where he says, "Why don't you visit the border?," and she's defensive about it.She laughs and says, "I haven't been to Europe either."And in a lot of ways, it defines the first years of her vice presidency.It’s not a great interview.But why?
So the Lester Holt interview is not a great interview for a lot of reasons, but mostly it's this moment where she is in a way turning her back on a lot of what her policy record on immigration is, right?So during her time in the Senate, she was a huge advocate of immigrant rights.She is the child of two immigrants.And all of a sudden, she's on this trip to Guatemala giving a disastrous interview with Lester Holt and saying, "Don't come," to prospective migrants.
And it's this moment where a lot of the excitement that people had around her starts to shift, particularly on the left.But I also think it's a moment where she proved her loyalty to the Biden administration, that she was able to ride out the hard moments, that she was able to not complain, that she was able to not cause too much of a stink behind the scenes.
And so it's a tough moment, but it's also a moment where she's able to really prove her loyalty and her respect and her admiration for Biden and the team, and she's proving herself to be a team player.That ultimately comes back to help her a lot.But in the moment, it's pretty disastrous.
Did it feel like the Officer Espinoza moment in a way, the way she reacts to it?
That's an interesting parallel that I didn't quite pick up on.But yeah, I think you do see this moment where she gets a lot of backlash, and she decides, instead of stepping into that backlash, to take a beat, to step back and maybe to take too far of a step back.So she doesn't do interviews for a long time after that, and I think she kind of shies away from that conflict, in part to sort of gather herself, but also I think to sort of reevaluate and say, "OK, well, what's actually happening here?Let me step back and see what's going on."And it's a tough moment for her politically.
We know she will rebuild, but at that moment and in those months after that, there's talk about her approval ratings.There's jokes about her.There's talk from Democrats about, is there some way that Joe Biden could replace her on the ticket?It's a little hard to remember now, but help me understand what it was like.And it wasn't that long ago that this discussion was going on.
I've never seen someone's political fortune shift so dramatically and so quickly.But certainly, when she was in the thick of it as vice president, people really doubted her.They doubted her ability to stand out.They doubted her ability to be consistent on issues.They doubted her ability to mobilize a base.They doubted her in general.
And I think that that was tough for a lot of people who knew her to see, to see her not really have a defined role, but not actually be fighting back either.And it was tough because she can't fight back, right?She's the vice president; what's she going to do?
But certainly there was a lot of talk about replacing her on the ticket and who might be more inspiring, and she's not able to really define herself or her platform as vice president.She wasn't able to define herself for her platform in her first run for president.And so was this the end of her political career?And it in a lot of ways it kind of felt like that until it didn't.
What does it say about her, that she endured that?The way that her aides say that she was sort of out under the radar; no one was paying any attention, and she was out doing small events and connecting with different people.What does it say about her, to have gone through that period?
I think that period really speaks to how resilient she is as a politician and as a person.I think it also is a moment where you see her, in real time, recalibrating, trying to learn from her mistakes, trying to fight through, right?Again, these are the lessons from her mom, which is when someone counts you out, when someone pushes you down, you get back up.You may not do it dramatically, right?In fact, it's probably best that you not do it in a way that draws a lot of attention.You want to be as precise and as targeted in your comeback as you can be, and I think you've definitely seen that over the past few weeks now.
It was hard for her, I guess the phrase was, to "find her lane."You said she wasn't adept in the halls of power the way that Joe Biden was, and she certainly, when she started, didn't have the foreign relationships that he had.And then the Dobbs decision leaks and eventually comes out.How important is that to her?How does she respond to that?
Yeah, the Dobbs decision is pivotal for Kamala Harris. ...
She's always been passionate about women's health, dating back to even growing up and her mother being a breast cancer researcher.But she's always, even in her time as a prosecutor, she wanted to fight on behalf of victims of sex trafficking and sexual assault.And so this is a moment where she's like, "OK, I've got this."
And she starts to be really, really outspoken on the Dobbs decision.She is unapologetic about it.And luckily, 90% of Democratic women voters are in favor of some national law ensuring their right to abortion, and so she finds a ready and willing audience that's able to really latch onto her as, again, the advocate who is going to fight on their behalf.
It's a case where it's not necessarily that she's different, but the moment is different than, say, 2019, or the issue is different.
Yeah. I mean, look, the moment is different.All of the worst fears that Democrats and progressives have had about the longer-term impacts of a Trump administration, you're seeing that happen in real time.You're seeing the power of a conservative agenda really come to bear.
And so it becomes this moment where she's able to actually really step into being an advocate for people and using all of the experience that she's gained in the halls of power in various places, and she's able to bring that and fight.
Some people are seeing this as she's doing this, and we've talked to people who say, “If you look really carefully at some of the polls, you can see small improvements over this time,” but a lot of people have not been paying attention to her.And then this moment happens, which is the debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and she goes on CNN after that.Help me understand that moment in the trajectory of Kamala Harris.
That moment she has to kind of do the impossible.She has to both support the president, and she has to prove that she is capable of standing up in that moment.And I think it's a moment where Democrats specifically are kind of reeling because they're seeing in real time that President Biden may not be up to the task of taking on Donald Trump; in fact, probably isn't.
But is she willing to step into his shoes?And there's still a lot of doubt about whether or not she can do that, whether or not she can do it consistently.But I think that CNN interview is a moment where people are starting to say, “OK, well, it's not the worst idea, right?Maybe she's able to capture some momentum.”
And so I think that you see a lot of the work that she's been doing quietly behind the scenes all this time come to fruition.So she's able to give a consistent interview.She's able to project this sense of power and this sense of competency, and I think people are starting to see that and receive that differently because they're looking at Joe Biden and seeing the reality of his state, and they're seeing in real time how that fight might actually turn out.
Biden Steps Aside
Between the debate moment and the moment that Biden steps down, it seems like a high-wire act, as you mentioned.At the same time, there's people inside the Biden camp saying, "Well, he can't step down.There's nobody who could possibly step in."And at the same time, she's going around talking to funders and defending him.How remarkable a moment is that, and how difficult was the challenge that she faced in those three weeks?
I was really struck by the fact that it was so apparent that she was doing so much behind-the-scenes work, she and her team, in those three weeks to shore up the support that would eventually come out when she finally—when Biden did finally drop out.
But she was on the phone.She was calling various members of Congress to get their support, but also doing it in a very, very mindful way, doing it in a very careful way, because it wasn't a guarantee that Biden was going to drop out, and it wasn't a guarantee that he would drop out and endorse her.
And so that was a really tough high-wire act.It was something that I think certainly was unprecedented in the history of American politics.And I think it's a very delicate political issue that she was able to maneuver pretty expertly.
And she could never be seen as disloyal in those weeks.
Yeah. Again, I think you will see time and again—you go back to the trip to Guatemala in the first place as vice president, where she has to prove herself to be a team player by turning her back on a lot of the values that she has grown up with, and she does it.And it's a political calculation that is ultimately a winning one, but it's got to be really, really difficult.
Harris as the 2024 Democratic Presidential Nominee
And then that moment when she gets the news, presumably directly from the president, that he's not going to run again.She has said, like him, that the stakes of the election are democracy.And here she is in that moment.Can you help me understand this person we've been talking about in that moment when she gets a phone call or a Zoom like that?
Yeah, I think we'd all love to have seen how that went down.But I think she is someone who has—she's prepared; she's done the work.But it's got to be shocking, right?All of a sudden you're thinking you're going to—you're signing up for one job, and all of a sudden it's a totally different job.That's unprecedented in the history of American democracy.
As much as she's probably been doing the work behind the scenes for those three weeks, she's probably shocked and ready for what will be a whirlwind of a campaign for the next 100 days.
And as it's been reported, she gets on the phone and works the phone for hours on end, which sounds a little bit like the skills from San Francisco coming back. ...I think people were surprised, because they weren't familiar with that part of Kamala Harris.What is that part of Kamala Harris that can consolidate the party, because there was no guarantee that it was going to be her?
I think she probably learned from the best in Nancy Pelosi in terms of how to navigate those halls of power, how to consolidate power in a pretty short timeframe.But that goes back to the really hard-nosed political lesson she learned as an up-and-coming young politician in San Francisco having to navigate the tripwires of identity and political allegiance and neighborhood.I think she was skilled at doing that already, and having to do it on a national stage was a whole different ball game, but it was one that she was prepared for.
That's sort of the behind-the-scenes, but on the public side, she has to walk into the campaign headquarters, which are in Wilmington, Delaware, because they were Joe Biden's campaign headquarters, and everybody is watching on television to see who she is at this moment, and some people have said they were surprised, not that she was totally different, but that the timing and the way she—what did you see in that moment in her?
I saw the warm, affable politician that she's always been, right?She's taken a lot of criticism for how she may come across publicly sometimes, as a bit cold and calculating and unsteady and uncertain.But she walks in and she's ready to take the reins, right?She knows that the country is relying on her in this moment, and she's willing to step up.
And I saw all of the work that she'd been doing over decades, both in her political career in California, but you could go back to that kid in Montreal who's kind of stumped at this French-speaking school.She's having to step into this moment and having to step into the hardship rather than away from it.
And we talked about the problems in 2019 with being a prosecutor, defining herself.How did those issues play out in this moment where we are?
I think the tone has changed, obviously, in the country, but with her specifically, I think she's finally at a place where she's comfortable advocating and using her history as a prosecutor to advocate for people who feel under siege right now, right?So whether it's people whose bodies are being legislated without their consent, whether it's people who want access to reproductive care, whether it's people who want the right to safely exist as trans [transgender people] in schools or public places, I think she's really able to, at least at this moment, project herself as an advocate for the people in a way that worked against her in 2019.
In this moment, she's able to be the savior and be someone who can actually take the fight, again, to a bully like Donald Trump.
And she's now facing Donald Trump.And he starts, I think his first message was about "Laughing Kamala."He's questioned her racial identity.And, we could probably go on with the list of attacks.But how does she respond, and how has her life prepared her for dealing with this campaign where these things are not below the surface, they’re at the forefront?
Donald Trump has had a lot of problems, Donald Trump has had a lot of trouble landing on a slur for Kamala Harris.And I think that's a testament to how slippery she's been for him, how difficult it is for him to wrap his head around someone with her distinct political talent, but also unique and unapologetic personal identity.She's never presented herself as anything but a Black woman who is also South Asian, and I think that her comfort in that identity, that was bred into her by her mother.Her mother really created a strong sense of self for her and her sister.And so I think you're really seeing that come into play right now.
And I guess her strategy is not to complain about it, or even to emphasize the historic nature of her candidacy in the way that Hillary Clinton did.When Kamala Harris comes with these issues of race and gender, it seems a little bit different.
I think she's a little bit more comfortable in her identity now, and specifically, she's more comfortable in not making a big deal out of it.I think that's kind of her natural state is to say, "OK, well, yeah, you can be the first; make sure you're not the last."That's the lesson she learned from her mom.Don't make it a big deal.And that's how she's moving through life, and that's how she's moving through this political moment.It's like, yeah, this is unprecedented in many different ways, but this is what we’ve got, this is what we're dealing with right now so let's get to work.
And I think that sense, that work ethic and that commitment to work is something that has been there all along.
Who would have imagined you'd end up with a race like this, with Donald Trump, with his views of changing America, and you would end up with Kamala Harris on the one side as a prosecutor, her background and his convictions?I mean, just as you think about this moment, how unusual is it?What do you think about that?
This episode of America is really wild.But I think she is, in many ways, the perfect person to prosecute the case against Donald Trump to the American people.And she's kind of positioning herself to be someone who is not just an advocate, but what are you fighting for?What are you fighting against?I think that she's making it really clear to the American people right now that there is a strong case to be made against Donald Trump and that there's someone who is capable and willing in the Democratic Party to take on that mantle.
But she seems to be perfectly positioned for this moment.All of those disparate experiences that didn't make any sense in her life, whether it is being this biracial kid in Berkeley or being the new kid in Montreal or being the new person on Howard University's campus or being the lone Black woman in the room in San Francisco, all of those things are coming to a head and proving themselves useful in this moment, because she has to appeal to a lot of different people.She has to make a case to a lot of different people, and so far she's doing it.
Thank you.That's a great summary of her life and what we’ve talking about.So the last question that we ask everybody is, from your perspective and based on your reporting and thinking about it, what is the choice that voters face in November?How do you think of this election?
How I think of this election and how I think of the choice facing voters in November is chaos and competency.You know?We have the choice on November of 2024 of choosing chaos, which is a Donald Trump presidency that is built on antagonism, fighting, belittling; or competency, which is someone who is going to do the job, is going to put together the team that is going to do the job well and effective.It may not always look and sound the way that you want it to look and sound, but it will get done.
And so, for me, that's what's at stake in this moment.
Thank you.I just want to check with Vanessa.
[Question from producer Vanessa Fica] … Back to the Lester Holt moment.Why did the press latch onto that so much?Is it that it's because it's one of the only times we see her, or is it something—a gender thing, a racial thing?What do you think was the press's obsession with that?
I think that's a good question.The press's obsession with the Lester Holt moment was—it was gendered.It was deeply gendered in that it's fun for a lot of observers to see women fail and to see women stumble, to see powerful women stumble.
And I think that, also, that moment was useful because it was one of the few moments that we had to see her on a national platform in that position, and then we didn't see her again for a very long time.And so it was one of the only appearances that we saw early on in the vice presidency, and it wasn't a great one.
So it played in to all of the doubts that people had had about her already, that people had had about Black women; women; diversity, equity, inclusion; it all came to a head in that moment.All the backlash against a lot of the gains that were made in 2020 were on display in the backlash against Kamala Harris in that interview.
Thank you so much.
That's fascinating that all of those things are at play at that moment. Let me just see—Brooke?
[Question from reporter Brooke Nelson Alexander] Hi, Jamilah. Thank you so much.This was a really fascinating conversation.I just have one quick follow-up question for you, going back to Howard and Alpha Kappa Alpha.I know you talked about this a little bit, but I was wondering if you could expand on what is the philosophy, what is the political ideology of Alpha Kappa Alpha?We've been told it's a lot about service, but is it also of excellence, and what significance would that have had on Kamala Harris, and what lessons would she have learned from that sorority?
So Alpha Kappa Alpha, AKAs, as they're known commonly, they're known for their commitment to excellence, to Black excellence, to achievement.And I think the way that you've seen these values play on Kamala Harris' life, you've seen—I've talked to people who have worked with her, who have said repeatedly that she cares about how people show up to work.You have to be dressed the right way; you have to speak the right way; you have to present yourself with authority, because people already don't want you in the room, so you have to prove not only that you belong in the room, but that you can actually own the room.
And I think that that's something that she definitely learned and was instilled in her during her time in the sorority.
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