The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, September 25, 2025

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:14 – 10:14)Kamala Harris’s Memoir: The Words Former Vice President Harris Wants You to Remember Her ByRachel Maddow’s full interview with Kamala Harris by MSNBC (Rachel Maddow and Kamala Harris)Part II (10:14 – 15:24)Kamala Harris’s Word Salad About Pete Buttigieg: Yes, Kamala Harris Said She Did Not Choose Pete Buttigieg Because He’s GayPart III (15:24 – 19:39)Kamala Harris Takes Shots at Gov. Josh Shapiro: Harris Explains Why She Did Not Choose Shapiro as a Running MatePart IV (19:39 – 22:49)Kamala Harris Brags About Her Abortion and LGBTQ Convictions: And the Left Keeps Moving LeftwardPart V (22:49 – 26:25)How Important is the Vice President of the United States? The Complicated History of the Vice Presidency in Our Constitutional OrderSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Thursday, September 25th, 2025. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. What will history have to say about Kamala Harris? Well, first of all, history will record that she was the 49th vice president of the United States. She served in that role from 2021 to 2025. It will also record that she served in the United States Senate from 2017 to 2021, a Democrat representing the state of the state. of California. It will record that she was the attorney general of the state of California from 2011 to 2017 and that she was a district attorney in San Francisco. There are other facts about her life, but of course the reason we're talking about her is because she was the 49th vice president of the United States and because she was the 2024 Democratic Party nominee as president of the United States. At certain points during the campaign of 107 days,

she thought, many Americans thought, many in the press thought, perhaps even hoped that she would be elected president. She was not. Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected president of the United States in the general election, winning the popular vote and the vote in the electoral college. Now, at this point, you fast forward to the latter months of 2025. And already Kamala Harris, the former vice president, is out with a memoir, a memoir about the campaign. The title, 107 days. And that's good math because that's exactly how long the campaign was, which points to one of the problems with the campaign. The big historical question looming over the 2004 Democratic ticket is why in the world more Democrats, and at the head of those Democrats, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's vice president, why they, why she did not put more pressure public and private upon President Joe Biden to decide he would not run for a second term in office when it was clear that he was. not capable of running nor of being president in a second term. And you're looking at significant questions about his mental capacities at the time. They're now so public that Kamala Harris has to deal with them. At least in part, this book was written in order to explain, in her own view, why she lost the election, but also it is written in order to explain why she didn't, for example,

at least in any public sense. And now we know by her book, not even in a private sense, why she put no pressure on Joe Biden not to run for president. Now, there are some really fascinating things in here. The other reason she wrote the book, by the way, is of course to establish, at least to make an argument that she hopes historians will keep in mind. But it's also clear that she still has a very keen eye on future politics in the Democratic Party and perhaps even another race for president. She refuses to rule it out. But I'll just tell you, I think after this book, the Democrats are pretty much going to rule her out. And that raises a host of questions like why did she write this book the way she did it. But just in worldview analysis, it's going to be important to look at what she actually does in this book. It appears that she's trying to answer some very interesting questions in the book, number one, why she lost the election. Number two, why she didn't put pressure on Joe Biden, given the stakes. We're talking about the presidency, after all, and why she didn't choose someone else's vice president in terms of the ticket. It's all. It's all.

all really, really interesting. Why does she say some of the things she said at various points during the campaign that cost her that appearance on the view, for example, that Joe Biden had to drop out of the race after that disastrous debate with the Republican candidate, then former President Donald Trump, and of course, after the election, again, president of the United States. But it is very interesting. Just try to go back in your imagination to that debate and the aftermath. And it seemed that the only question was when, not if, about some decision coming from President Biden and from his family. He just couldn't run again. And the former vice president here, Kamala Harris, in this book, 107 days, gives us some significant insight into what was going on in the midst of all that. But there's

another background issue here. How in the world that Kamala Harris come to be the running mate of Joe Biden in 2020? And the answer is, well, Joe Biden chose her trying to balance the ticket and trying to make a statement choosing a woman who had been a United States Senator and who had been a candidate herself early on in the 2020 race of the Democratic nomination, who had dropped out of the race as a failure as a candidate before even earning a single delegate. It was nonetheless believed by Joe Biden that Kamala Harris would bring some significant strength to the ticket. And she was youthful. she was a woman, African American, and Asian by her own ethnic designation. She would bring together strengths.

And of course, she was, if anything, politically to the left of Joe Biden. So she was not chosen in order to reach out to the center. She was chosen in order to solidify more leftist democratic constituencies who, frankly, weren't excited about Joe Biden. They just wanted to defeat Donald Trump. But it is now clear that even as Kamala Harris said she was glad to serve as Joe Biden's vice president. And even as she is just at great pains in this book to demonstrate that she was loyal in every way possible, she also makes the accusation that President Biden's team, senior

staff members, really never treated her fairly and were putting her in a bad light. And she complains about some of the experiences she had as vice president at the same time. I think she probably is trying to demonstrate how loyal she was because that's absolutely key to her argument about why she didn't confront Joe Biden, she felt that would be an act of unfaithfulness about his age. But she also is trying to make a distinction. She says, and I think this is one of the more ludicrous things she tries to argue. She tries to argue that it really wasn't the case that he was unable to govern, but rather he was unable to campaign. Here's what she says. She says, I don't believe it was incapacity. She means an office. She writes, as loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country.

she went on to say, quote, there was a distinction between his ability to campaign and his ability to govern. I was right beside him as he navigated successfully through intensely dangerous world events. Putin's threat to use tactical nuclear weapons on the Ukraine battlefront. The missile exchanges between Iran and Israel that might have escalated into regional war if we hadn't rallied the diverse coalition that protected Israel during those attacks. His judgment, his experience, and the relationships he had developed were expertly deployed. as for campaigning, I did have concerns. End quote.

Now, let me just point us to a very interesting principle of modern American politics, and that is that to govern is to campaign. And that is a simple argument that says, you can't be in an office like the office of president of the United States without gaining it by an election. That means that it is about politics. It is about campaigning. And you just watch the modern president. I would say for good and for ill, it has largely become a permanent campaign. So I'll just state the obvious, if he wasn't up to campaigning, let's be real clear, he wasn't up to governing.

We now know that, for instance, he was going to bed very early. The operational hours were becoming fewer and fewer. World crises, just to state the obvious, you know, don't wait for the convenience of an aging president. Okay, so our concern is what she actually put in this book. Then she talks about Biden's eventual withdrawal from the race. And then she makes an argument for why she was the obvious candidate. And as a matter of fact, she tells us about the negotiations with the Biden team about how

quickly his endorsement of Kamala Harris as his successor as Democratic nominee in 2024 would follow his statement that he was going to be withdrawing from the race and would settle for one term as president of the United States. All that's very interesting is a part of campaign drama. Anyone who's interested in American politics will be interested in this. But there's more. It is also clear that Kamala Harris wants people to know that she was to the left of President Biden on many issues, including LGBTQ issues and abortion. And about abortion, for instance, she talks about the time in the presidency of Joe Biden, 2002, when the Dobbs decision was handed down reversing Roe v. Wait. Now here is what she wrote in her book.

Quote, here was a huge issue on which the president was not seeking to lead. Joe struggled to talk about reproductive rights in a way that met the gravity of the moment. He ceded that leadership to me. I initiated a national tour and rallied the outrage in red states and blue states alike. As well as big public events, I convened roundtables, starting out with 10 or 12 state legislators, whom I would connect with resources in the Justice Department or Health and Human Services. soon advocates started attending, then health care providers, then families affected by restricted laws. There would be hundreds of people at these meetings, building a national coalition.

All this work upended the narrative that we were doomed to a shalacking in the midterms. We defied historical precedent because of our efforts on this issue. Then she goes on to say, quote, Joe was already polling badly on the age issue. That's back in 2002 with roughly 75% of voters saying he's too old to be an effective president. Now, just notice that it certainly appears she's trying to make two contradictory arguments at once. She was all in for Joe Biden, but even back in 2022, the American people already had concerns. She's closer to President Biden than anyone else, at least in terms of constitutional order. She certainly was around the president of the United States a sufficient amount of time to know by her own personal observation.

He was not up to this. And she said nothing. Part of the reason she wrote this book now is because, she admits she said nothing thin. I do think it's very interesting that she's on the left on so many of these things. She more or less admits that's a part of the reason why she was on the ticket. And on LGBTQ issues, she's also very clear. But at this point, she also just dropped a bomb. I think that landed on any hopes for a Kamala Harris-20028 campaign. So I'm just going to read to you from her book. And then I'm going to let you listen to her, explain it. Here's a

what's in her book, quote, of the eight names on the list for vetting. That means it's her potential vice presidential candidate. Quote, I might as well say that Pete Buttigieg was my first choice. Harvard grad, multilingual road scholar, business consultant, naval intelligence officer, twice elected Midwestern mayor, cabinet secretary, loving husband and father. He was well qualified in so many respects. Okay, just wait, just hold on a minute before we go to the most important stuff here. In that list, she says, Harvard grad, multilingual road scorer. our business consultant, naval intelligence officer, twice elected Midwestern mayor, cabinet secretary, well qualified to be president. What's missing there? I mean, the highest elected office she mentions is a Midwestern mayor.

And so we're supposed to believe that he was nonetheless eminently qualified to jump from being mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and then serving in the president's cabinet to being the obvious person qualified for the presidency. Let me just say that's unprecedented in American history, but that's not even what's interesting in this section of the book. Quote, I love Pete. I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chason, are friends. He is a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments

in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them. Okay, notice she just puts right out there he's making liberal arguments, but she says he has the talent of making them in such a way that conservatives can hear them. I'm not certain at all. That's true, but that's not even the juicy part we go on. Quote, he knows the importance of taking our case to the people who aren't usually exposed to it and is magnificent at sparring with opponents on Fox News. Listen to these words. Here's the stuff, folks. Quote, he would have been an ideal partner if I were a straight white man,

but we were already asking a lot of America to accept a woman, a black woman, a black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of him he wanted to say, screw it, let's just do. Do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that to our mutual sadness. End quote. Okay. So those are the words. I just read it right out of the book. That is what she said. The book was just released Tuesday, but already, well, before the book is released, her story is changing. In an appearance on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow, Rachel Maddow, again, a very liberal host, she went on to ask this question. Rachel Maddow is talking here. quote, it's hard to hear with you running as you're the first woman elected vice president.

You're a black woman and a South Asian woman elected to that high office, very nearly elected president to say that he, meaning Pete Buttigieg, couldn't be on the ticket effectively because he was gay. It's hard to hear. And then the former vice president responds, quote, no, that's not what I said, that he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay. Okay? So she says, no, that's actually not the reason. She says writing in the book, I read you the words from the book, I read you the words from book, that that's the reason. But if you want to hear Kamala Harris's version of English, it is fully on display in this answer. Again, quote, no, that's not what I said, that he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay. My point as I write in the book is that I was clear that in 107 days,

in one of those hotly contested elections for president of the United States against someone like Donald Trump, who knows no floor to be a black woman running for president of the United States, and as a vice presidential running made a gay man with the stakes being so high. It made me very sad, but I also realized it would be a real risk no matter how I've been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life. So it wasn't about right. So it wasn't about any prejudice on my part. But the calculation, though, we had such a short period of time and the stakes were so high.

I think Pete is a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant. And I think America is and would be ready for that. But when I had to make the decision with two weeks to go and maybe I was being too cautious, I'll let our friends, we should all talk about that. Maybe I was, but that's the decision I made. And as with everything else in the book, I'm being very candid about that. End quote. Well, if that's candid, my goodness, I can't even put the words in an order that are fully understandable.

Basically, she says to Rachel Maddow, you said he wasn't chosen because he's gay. No, that's not the reason. It was actually the reason. But it is clear, I think when you take the words seriously, you take that word salad apart, I think what Kamala Harris is trying to say is that she's all for Pete Boo. a judge being gay, but she was afraid in the election, it would be too much that he is a gay man, married to a man, adopted children, all the rest. So again, in this case, no means yes, emphatically so. It's just not her fault. Okay, I made a statement earlier, and I do think this is important.

Does Christians think about the political situation? We look to the context. We're obviously thinking already about the 2008 presidential election, and I guarantee you Kamala Harris is thinking about it. I guarantee you that Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania is thinking about it too. And I have another thought, and that is that Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. I'm just going to bet he's also thinking he doesn't want Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee in 2028. Why? Well, it's because of what she says about him. In this memoir, 107 days, she says there were basically three finalists in terms of the vetting process to be her vice presidential running mate. Remember, it's a short runway because she was basically anointed by Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee.

That was unprecedented. She had to have a vice presidential nominee. And so Tim Wals, the governor of Minnesota, and Mark Kelly, United States Senator from Arizona, and Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, they were the candidates. Now, politically, I think anyone looking at the electoral map would say it has to be Josh Shapiro. It has to be Josh Shapiro because she can't win without winning states like that. Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro, very popular in Pennsylvania, liberal, democratic governor, very winsome, very well-spoken, very well-presented, also very white, very male, very Jewish.

But in the calculation here, Kamala Harris tells us the problem is he's just really ambitious. He's measuring the room for carpets metaphorically. Here's what she says, quote, in conversation with one of Kamala Harris's senior staffers, speaking of Shapiro, she writes, quote, he peppered her with questions about the House, meaning the vice presidential residence, from the number of bedrooms to how he might arrange to get Pennsylvania artists work on loan from the Smithsonian. In quote, that's tantamount to measuring the drapes or the carpets before you own the room. She goes on to say, as always, in the meeting, Governor Shapiro was poised, polished, and personable.

But she also goes on to say she didn't really think he would be completely loyal. And listen to this. I asked him if he understood the job of vice president. And she's quoting herself because if you do, you'll be good at it and our administration will be strong. Speaking of Governor Shapiro, she then writes, quote, he peppered me with questions, trying to nail down in detail what role I saw for my VP. At one point, he mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision. I told him bluntly that was an unrealistic expectation.

A vice president is not a co-president. I had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for the role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership. I had to be able to completely trust the person in that role. She says to him, quote, every day as president, I'll have 99 problems and my VP can't be one. Quote, apart from my apprehensions for myself, I was also concerned for him. I thought his frustrations with the job might impact his performance in the role. And why take an effective Democratic governor out of a job he liked and was good at,

but could I afford to turn my back on such a talented political athlete in such a critical state? Josh assured me he'd do everything to help me win Pennsylvania, whether I chose him or not, quote, because this is the most important election we've faced. End quote. She also says that by her staff's estimation, and clearly she believes that she wouldn't put it in the book, he did a bit of showboating when he was leaving in his motorcade after the meeting. Okay, so let's just say, as you look to the 2008 alignment for the Democratic presidential nomination, Josh Shapiro, especially if he is reelected as the governor of Pennsylvania is going to be in a very commanding position, not alone, not alone, and it's certainly going to be a

hotly contested race, but when you consider the swing state nature of Pennsylvania, and you consider someone who's going to have the political power and profile of Josh Shapiro, and then you look at what Kamala Harris wrote about him in this book in 2025? I don't mean to sell books, but I will tell you it is interesting. Okay, there's a lot more in here, but I'm not primarily interested in the political intrigue. I'm more interested in the battle of ideas, the clash of worldviews. And when it comes to Kamala Harris, I do think it's important, as we look to this book, to see how she documents the extremity of her position on abortion and her support for LGBTQ rights. point in the book, by the way, she raises the transgender issue. And she tries to claim that

it's not that big an issue. It's resolvable in the American political process. She writes, for example, about biologically male athletes on female teams. And she says, we should be able to work that out. She says, it's the height of hypocrisy for the party that's always championed the right of parents to make decisions for their children regarding homeschooling or opting out of sex said, to suddenly bring down the awesome power of the state on loving parents trying to figure out care for their children. Now, that's a complete switch. That is a legitimate issue. There's a clash of worldviews going on here because this just classifies parents who are advocating their children for transgender identity or treatments. But nonetheless, she just goes on to say that when it comes

to things like athletics, we should be able to work this out. She points to an ad that the Trump campaign ran against her on this issue, and she says, quote, I agree with the concerns expressed by parents and players that we have to take into account biological factors such as muscle mass and unfair athletic advantage when we determine who plays on which teams, especially in context sports. With goodwill and common sense, she says, I believe we can come up with ways to do this without vilifying and demonizing children. I just want you to notice the language and the worldview class that's involved here because she was vice president of the United States. She was the 2004 Democratic nominee as president of the United States. She was in the driver's seat to make such a

proposal she describes here as one marked by goodwill and common sense. She doesn't even say what it is, but she's clearly talking about biological males, not playing on girls and women's teams, but she can't say that out loud. She knows that there is no goodwill and common sense proposal coming from her side. She was the one with the golden opportunity to make it, but she, given the ideological commitments of her party, she couldn't possibly have made it. Instead, she makes the argument now, but it's not much of an argument because there's no concrete proposal, and clearly she doesn't want one. In worldview terms, I think it's also important to recognize that when she talks about the abortion issue and she says, I wanted to restore the rights guaranteed by Roe, I want to point out that that is not the policy of the Democratic Party. That is not the agenda of the abortion rights movement.

They would never settle for Roe as the 1973 Supreme Court decision came down. They want no restrictions on abortion. And as a matter of fact, in her book, she says, I just want to restore Roe. And then she goes back and says that she's opposed to restrictions on abortion. And, you know, that's not Roe, certainly not in the second and third trimester. So another example of the fact that the pro-abortion movement has moved light years to the left, even from where it was in the 1970s. All right.

Just a couple of final thoughts here. How important is the Vice Presidency? You know, in worldview terms, that's a big question. The vice president is not president. Kamala Harris, the former vice president of the United States and would-be president recognizes the distinction. She articulates it in the conversation that she recalls here with Governor Josh Shapiro, trying to put the vice presidency in perspective. But in historical perspective, the vice presidency has been complicated and frustrating from the start. And that is because there are very few particular duties invested in the vice presidency,

presiding over the Senate and just a few other duties. The main thing the vice president does is be there in case the vice president is needed. Certainly deputized by the president for different kinds of assignments, but more importantly, it's a line of succession. And regrettably, tragically, in American history, it has been very important. It also sets up a person for a future political race and future political aspirations. And so there are very few vice. presidents of the United States who have not at least wanted to make a run for the big office.

And that it has been general consensus, political wisdom, for the better part of the last 100-plus years, that that's not a very successful pathway to the presidency. The first person to really contradict that general wisdom was George H.W. Bush elected president of the United States in 1988 after serving two terms as Ronald Reagan's vice president. But since then, even as many former even sitting vice presidents have gained their party's nomination, it hasn't worked out so well in terms of electoral politics. Joe Biden was Barack Obama's vice president, but he wasn't even Barack Obama's choice as the Democratic nominee to succeed him. I just want to say to Americans, we should be very thankful that the framers of the U.S. Constitution understood the need for a

vice president because so much is invested in the executive office of the president of the United States. And given the fact that every president of the United States is a flesh and blood human being, and things can happen, either by natural or violent causes, it's just a sad fact of history. You need a vice president. And that's one of the reasons why voters should pay attention to the person chosen as the vice presidential candidate, because you have to know this could be under certain circumstances generally tragic, the president of the United States. But I'll guarantee you, every one of those vice presidents must certainly feel that he or she would be a good president of the United States. The fact is, however, that the skill set to be vice president and the skill

set to be president are not a precise overlap. History records that very, very clearly. Sometimes it is quite helpful to go back to fairly recent history and try to make sure we're thinking about it rightly. And in a very odd way, I think former vice president, Kamala Harrison, in writing this book, has actually, in ways I'm certain she did not intend, helped us. Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsbtsk.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com.

I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.