Morning Joe - Listen to “Kamala: Next in Line”

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Election Day is around the corner and Vice President Kamala Harris could become the first woman, first Black woman, and first South-Asian to sit in the Oval Office. In light of this moment, we’re resharing our 2020 series “Kamala: Next in Line,” from MSNBC and Wondery. Hosted by Joy Reid, "Next In Line" is an intimate and immersive look into what drives Harris, what her critics say about her, and how she arrived at this historic moment.This is a special program for our MSNBC Premium subscribers. Listen to an excerpt from the first episode here. And to download the full series, sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. You’ll find the series in the How to Win feed. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll get all MSNBC original podcasts ad-free, along with bonus exciting content from Prosecuting Donald Trump, Rachel Maddow, and more. Thanks for listening and subscribing!

Hi, everyone. It's Joy Reid. Back in 2020, as then Senator Kamala Harris was running alongside Joe Biden for the White House, MSNBC and Wondery teamed up on a podcast called Kamala Next in Line. It was hosted by yours truly and told the stories that shaped the woman we know today. Now, with about a month to go until election day, we're resharing that series again, but only as a special treat for our MSNBC Premium subscribers.

So if you haven't signed up for Premium yet, now's the time. When you do, you'll get MSNBC's original podcasts ad-free on Apple Podcasts, plus early access to select content and monthly bonus content, like Kamala, next in line. And to give you a taste of the benefits, I wanted to share an excerpt from the first episode here.

Around the same time Gary Delanus met Kamala Harris, Rebecca Prozen got a phone call. And, you know, the call that changed my life, Senator Harris called and was like, look, I'm looking for a campaign manager. Are you interested? She didn't know Kamala well, but she knew her reputation and that she'd recently announced her run for district attorney. San Francisco political scene is literally like high school. Rebecca had recently chaired a local election campaign and had worked in Willie Brown's office for five years. She hadn't been looking to run another campaign, but she agreed to come in and meet with Kamala and her political consultant. But it was like a redone basement office. So it was an open, like there was maybe three desks in

there. And then we were like in the sitting, there was like a little sitting area. Kamala was there, along with Jim Stearns, the consultant. I don't feel like I had to sell myself as much as they had to sell it to me. Because I think they knew, they knew that they needed a day-to-day campaign manager to like tie all the pieces together. Rebecca listened. We sat in Jim Stearns' office, and they were explaining how Senator Harris was going to win. She could see the campaign had a lot going for it. She was running against an entrenched incumbent who was extremely well-known in both San Francisco political circles and was a progressive district attorney and wasn't the best manager and had some

pretty good missteps. And everybody thought that he was very vulnerable. On the other hand, the other candidate in the race, Bill Fazio, had already run against Hallinan twice before. He had more money and more name recognition than Kamala did. But Fazio was sort of seen as too far to the right for San Francisco. Now that would mean, you know, in anywhere else, he would be seen as a fairly progressive prosecutor, not a full progressive prosecutor. But people thought Kamala was fierce. Like, they knew she was serious. They knew she was a talented trial attorney. But people questioned

whether or not she could actually get it over the finish line. Was this right time, right place? Then they shared the current polling numbers. And so we sit down in the office and she's like, I'm at 6%. And I was like, well, what the am I supposed to do with that? The election was just two months away. Rebecca was shocked. What's the plan? Do you have phone banks? Do you have a field operation? Do you have, you know, what's the, what's the mail strategy? Kamala looked at her. She was like, just get me in the runoff, Rebecca. I know I can win if you get me in the runoff. And something about her confidence was impressive.

Besides, Rebecca thought, it's a win-win situation. I was like, I mean, I can't lose, right? So she loses, and I'm like, she was at 6%, and she wins, and the city's going to be a lot better off because of the talent and the leadership that she brings and the city's going to be a lot better off because of the talent and the leadership that she brings to the table because we needed sensible prosecution at the time. Rebecca left Jim Stern's office convinced.

She'd take the position. She liked Kamala and she could see she was a talented candidate. Honestly, at the time, I did not see that she was going to be an attorney general, a senator, a vice presidential nominee. Did I think she had the talent and the chops to be all those things? Absolutely.

But at that point, she hadn't been elected to anything yet. First, they would have to get to the runoff of this local city election. And even that seemed like a long shot. A week later, Rebecca was standing in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. 3,800 3rd Street in the Bayview, right by the post office on Evans. There was construction work on the new light rail all around, so the streets were filled with dust.

Rebecca had hustled to get everything set up in less than a week. Some things had to be improvised. There was no stage. There was no money to make a stage. And so I actually took my coffee table and took it to the campaign because it was like a crappy coffee table that was from my dad's medical office. So sort of like high enough, but not too high. And they all stood on it. It was a start. Soon, the headquarters were buzzing with volunteers coming through to pick up campaign flyers. One flyer in particular stood out. It had a photo

of Kamala on one side and on the other, a photo of all the previous DAs. And so on the one side of the mailer, it was all white males. And you turn it over and it was, you know, San Francisco has a possibility of changing the landscape, so to speak. As Rebecca worked to get Kamala into the runoffs, one question began to surface. Kamala's relationship with the mayor. Willie Brown was an extremely popular mayor with a very vocal minority of people who disliked him or thought that he was crooked. Kamala and Willie Brown had dated back in the mid-90s. Their relationship was over by the time she decided to run for district attorney. But the two still had a close political relationship. So he was still very much a proponent of Kamala Harris

and very much a backer of her career. Gary says, in fact, Willie Brown would call him up. So he wanted us to endorse her rather than Fazio, but our ties with Bill Fazio had run too deep. The idea that Kamala had gotten a helping hand by once dating the older Willie Brown became a line of attack for her political opponents. Did it come up? Yes.

Did we attack it head on? Yes. Did I think it was unfair? Yes. No one likes to be judged by who they're dating. Unfair or not, it came up at a campaign event in the city's Noe Valley neighborhood. Callahan was there. Fazio was there. Kamala was there. Rebecca wasn't. This is where I have to tell you my philosophy on debates. Very few people actually show up to a debate that are undecided. So Kamala and I would fight about this the entire race, where she would go to these debates, and it would be a big thing.

And she would tell me, like, I had nobody there. And Terrence had, you know, 50 people there. And Bill Fazio had 75 people there. And I was like, that is amazing. You know what I did? I had 30 people phone banking for you. For weeks, as the race had tightened, they had prepared for negative attacks from her opponents. and one question in particular. At the Noe Valley event, someone in the audience got up and asked Kamala how she would act independently of the mayor. Kamala walked over to Hallinan and told the audience that he had attacked Bill Fazio for getting caught at a massage parlor. Then she walked over to Fazio and pointed out that he had attacked Hallinan over a scandal in which two of his employees had been caught having sex in his office. Then she delivered the punchline.

I want to make a commitment to you that my campaign is not going to be about negative attacks. Bill Fazio was a nice guy and a smart guy, but he wasn't one of these guys that's going to light up a room, if you know what I mean. And Helen Ann was just a boob. So, I mean, Helen Ann never had any communication skills. So she kicked their ass in the debates, and that's what got her there, into the runoff. On election night 2003, the results came in. They were close, but Rebecca had done what Kamala had asked. She was through to the runoff. Can I ask, is she someone who would have wanted to celebrate getting to the runoff? Like, was there like a little bit of a party or was it kind of just like, oh no, we're digging deeper. Like it's not over till it's over. Oh no, there was a party. There was a party.

Bill Fazio, the candidate Gary and the police officers union had backed, was out. Still, Gary says Kamala seemed like a good second choice. We called her in and we said, OK, you're our you're our candidate. From KQED Public Radio in San Francisco, I'm Michael Krasny. Good morning and welcome to this morning's forum program. The race for San Francisco district attorney is down to two candidates, the incumbent Terrence Hallinan and challenger Kamala Harris. We'll hear from both of them. The final few weeks of the election campaign were intense.

But with just two candidates in the race, it was easier to draw a contrast between incumbent and challenger. Everyone just had to fall in line. You've also charged in your campaign that there's a backlog of murder cases, and you've put the number at about 50 awaiting trial. And Jim Hammer from the DA's office said it's closer to 40, and they are relentlessly trying to clear their backlog. Let's get you on record on this. Sure. As you know, Mike Hennessy, who is the sheriff of San Francisco, endorsed me recently. And one of the reasons he endorsed me, as he stated,

is because we have an absolute backlog of cases, sitting, waiting trial defendants, who some are waiting and have been sitting in the county jail for four or more years awaiting trial. And it is because of the district attorney's inability or incapacity to prosecute those cases that we see that just languishing. You know, each one represents a life, Michael. To keep listening, sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts right now.