The Daily - The Story of Kamala Harris

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Over the next few days at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris will accept her party’s nomination and reintroduce herself to American voters.Astead W. Herndon, a national politics reporter and the host of the politics podcast “The Run-Up,” talks through key periods in Ms. Harris’s life that explain what she believes and the kind of president she might become.Guest: Astead W. Herndon, a national politics reporter and the host of the politics podcast “The Run-Up” for The New York Times.Background reading: A vice-presidential learning curve: How Ms. Harris picked her shots.Nearly 14 years ago, Ms. Harris’s opponent in the California attorney general’s race gave an answer at a debate that was frank — and fateful for the future Democratic presidential nominee.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarro. This is The Daily. Over the next few days, at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris will accept her party's nomination and reintroduce herself to American voters. Today, my colleague Astead Herndon looks at the key periods in Harris' life that explain who she is, what she believes, and the kind of president she might become. It's Monday, August 19th. Estet, thank you for coming in here. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

So, the strange thing about this election, I mean, there are a lot of strange things about this election. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. So the strange thing about this election, I mean there are a lot of strange things about this election. Yeah, I'm like one. One of the strange things about this election is that we have a Democratic nominee who has been the nominee for what, four weeks? Yeah. And did not go through the kind of year-long public dissection that generally occurs when you run for president and makes everybody very familiar with your life story

by the time you become the nominee. And we actually keep hearing that when we go out and report about Harris. A lot of people, they're interested in her, but they don't really know who she is. And that's why we wanna talk to you. We want to tell the story of Kamala Harris in as full a way as possible.

And you have spent the past couple of years doing that, not knowing that we would arrive at this moment, but just because it was a story that you got really interested in. So how do you think about the life story of Kamala Harris? Yeah, I think there is often an incentive to try to get an easy answer to who is Kamala Harris or what does she believe in. And the thing that I have learned in covering her over this time is that you should resist that desire. That there's not really an easy answer.

And the boxes that folks try to put her in, whether it be about identity or about comparison to past politicians, namely Barack Obama, I don't think are really that helpful in terms of understanding someone whose kind of life and track to this point has been really singular. So embracing that thesis that this is a singular person who's resistant to easy labels, where do you think we should start to try to understand who she really is? What's the first chapter of this singular story of Kamala Harris? I would start in her growing up.

She grows up in Oakland in the backdrop of the 1960s Bay Area and is really shaped by her family and community that surrounds her. Her mother was a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a immigrant from India who came here to learn at the school, and meets her father, who is also an academic there and is a Jamaican immigrant. And importantly, they're activists who were, like many people in that time, active in the civil rights movement. And she tells stories when she's on the trail about going to marches and rallies from times of being in the stroller.

I would also say that the kind of multiculturalness and specifically the racial identity of the place she grows up in really matters. This is someone who is growing up really around not only just a black community but a very prideful rich history of blackness. Explain that. You know the Black Panthers headquarters was blocks from her house. And her parents did a very prideful, rich history of blackness. Explain that. You know, the Black Panther's headquarters was blocks from her house. And her parents did a very intentional effort to place their children in black affirmation spaces. They would go to these classes on the weekend

where kids from the community would come and have these black history lessons. It was called the Cactus Club. And the reason it was called the Cactus Club is because it was about black people being able to grow in any environment. And so- Just like a cactus. Yeah, and that lives alongside her also having

a really comfortable relationship with the Indian side of her family. I mean, she would travel to India. Her parents' family were folks who were fighting for democracy in their independence movement. She would have those conversations with her grandfather. I mean, so it wasn't someone who I think was really only defined by one thing, but was very much taught from an early age that you exist...

I'm using a coconut reference, but like, you exist in the context of both of those things, right? Like, and so that was very much an intentional effort from her mother. And by the time she's in elementary school, she finds herself as a part of a group of students who are involved in a desegregation program that buses them to a different part of town. They're actually the second class of like Black Berkeley to be shipped. Huh, big deal.

Yeah, and it's something that really shapes her growing up. I talked to one of her friends from growing up. Her name is Cynthia Bagby, who mentioned remembering when her and Kamala Harris, first grade, were at the bus stop, being ready to be bused to a different part of town. And Cynthia told me the story about how nervous she was about how she didn't have white friends and she knew they were kind of being put in a different situation and environment. They plunged into a completely alien place.

Absolutely. But what Cynthia told me was that she remembers a young Kamala Harris being so confident and being so unfazed by this situation that when they got back from school, she noticed how Kamala had already ten friends, was kind of socially running the place. Everyone loved her after the first day. The mayor of the new, largely white school. Yeah, and so like those were the type of stories that people would tell that not only was there a confidence that flowed, but there was a comfort with herself and her identity that really attracted people to her.

And that comfort you're describing seems like it would flow pretty directly from the way her parents raised her, the classes they brought her to, and that this is an extremely self-possessed person who knows her spot in the world. Absolutely. I remember asking her once, and that this is an extremely self-possessed person who knows her spot in the world. Absolutely. I remember asking her once, where did this come from? You know, your kind of self-belief. And I remember her saying, I was raised to believe that I belong in every room that I

am in. And that is the core of Kamala Harris's self-belief. It does not come from the position she has now. It does not come from status gained later in life. It comes from an instilling of confidence and pride that started from the day she was born. And so by the time that Kamala Harris is in high school, she knows that she wants to go to an HBCU to follow in the footsteps not only of people around her, but of historical figures who she admired, like the Thurgood Marshals of the world. And I think that's an important choice.

Like, because you're achieving young people of color, there's sometimes an incentive to follow the kind of white institutional elites to X place. You know, go to an Ivy League, go to this or that. A 15, 16-year-old with the world in front of them saying, I want to put myself at Howard University isn't a small choice. It is a recognition of who the communities are that matter to them and their belief that black folks can shape them to be excellent, period.

How does the next chapter of her life, her chosen career as a prosecutor, how does that flow from everything that you're just describing, all this pride in being a member of the black community? Because in my perhaps naive mind, being in law enforcement in the period when she's coming out of Howard seems like it might be in conflict with being a proud member of a black community that American law enforcement is increasingly seen as having a very adversarial relationship with. Yeah, I think this comes up all the time. And to be clear, it came up when she was growing up.

I mean, when I talk to people from Oakland, they say that when young Kamala Harris, their like shining community star, decided to become a prosecutor, it was a topic of conversation among her family and friends. Like kind of what you doing, sis, you know? And what was her answer? Well, she's talked about this a lot in speeches and interviews and taking people through how she thinks about this decision. When it came time to make my career choice, my family gathered around.

And they said, okay, Kamala, so what are you going to do in your fight for justice? And I got all excited and I said, well, I've decided I'm going to be a prosecutor. Well now, if you have any sense of who my family is, you will know that at best they found it a curious decision and with some of them I had to defend the decision like one would a thesis. She knew she was making a kind of controversial choice. I believe safety is a civil right. A civil right to which all people are entitled. And let's talk about a myth,

a myth that black people don't want public safety. That is simply not true. And part of the reason she gives is that minority communities and specifically black people deserve safety. And I said, you know, why is it that we should only be on the outside of systems? Isn't there a role also for us to play on being on the inside

where the decisions are being made? And to go back to context, I think it's important to recognize this is the 1980s, this is a generation of black people that are coming after the civil rights movement, that have access to institutions and kind of halls of power for the first time. And for a lot of those people, there was a real ethos of you need to do something with that. You need to wield these instruments of power to be more responsive to black communities.

You could enter those halls and make them things that worked for black people. Okay. What does it look like once she gets inside these halls of power, actually becomes a prosecutor, how does she put this philosophy about representation and change it to practice? Well, she runs for district attorney in San Francisco and she frankly makes her whole kind of public pitch around this idea that it's not empathetic to say, don't lock anybody up.

And so that's how she wins that first race, but she also does it, I think, through representing a vision of the future rather than past, right? Her identity is laced into that argument. So the fact that she's young, the fact that she's a person of color, the fact that she is a woman are all things that really matter. It is not about the identity, but that has always been

an implicit part of the pitch. She was making an argument that was about the policy. Not about her identity. But her identity obviously came with the package of her as a candidate. Yes, comes with the package of the candidate and is part of the reason that she's arguing that these institutions can do something different

is because I represent something different. And once she wins office, what it looks like for her to put this into practice is a set of policies that I think really kind of add up to the earliest versions of what we now call a progressive prosecutor. She says that you can be focused on delivering safety and accountability while you also look at root causes or try to be empathetic to people in a way that separates herself from what I would describe as the kind of like crime bill, Joe Biden,

Bill Clinton, 1990s view of the world. Well, what's a good example of this? One example I would say is the Back on Track program that she started that kind of was one of the first to allow formerly incarcerated felons to find their way back into the workforce. She's really proud of that. That's obviously been something that's been taken nationally at this point. I think it's just a thing that people agree on should happen.

But there needs to be a bridge between prison and the rest of your life. But that at the time was like kind of spicy, and that's one of the things that she piloted. The other thing I would say, and kind of the thing that blew up, is what she was doing around the idea of truancy, or the chronic absence of children in schools. So one of the things that happened in the time when she was prosecutor, was there was some data that came out

that showed that people who were incarcerated usually missed a bunch of school in their time of growing up. That early absences in childhood were indicative of someone who might have kind of future criminal justice problems. And so there was a question of what to do about that. Joining us to explain how truancy impacts the entire family of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. It is great to have you with us. And from the prosecutor's vantage point, she actually tried to take this problem on.

And what we've done is we started an initiative a couple of years ago that involved me assigning prosecutors to go and meet with the teacher when they met with the parent. And so the prosecutor's there and the parent says, who's that mean looking person? And they say, well, that's the prosecutor because if we can't fix this problem, they may end up prosecuting you. But by the way, the way we want to fix the problem is we've got all these services for you. She used her role to institute a series of policies that would hold the parents accountable for chronically absent children. And it's been fantastic, because when the principal would otherwise call the parents and say, you know, Ms Smith Johnny's not in class. Would you return my call call went unanswered now principal calls and says miss Smith You know Johnny's not in class and by the way that da Kamala Harris

I said she might prosecute you and send you to jail and the call gets returned basically after a series of warnings charging the parents if their kids miss enough school under the idea of it would kind of make the kids come more frequently and stop them from getting involved in the criminal justice system kind of before it becomes a big problem. And while that could be good in theory, the reality was that this resulted in a targeting of kind of black, low income, people of color. The very people that she thinks of herself as trying to improve the lives of. Absolutely, so there were a couple instances,

particularly when the program was adopted by other places, that resulted in parents being kind of perp-walked, that resulted in charging certain parents, and I think it had the kind of stench of punitive meanness that was already coming down on people who had a lot of problems. What do you make of that? Well, to me, it's indicative of a worldview that is reflective of a prosecutor. I think if you're a mayor, a city councilor, Senate, House, you know, you're used to kind

of seeing problems from a 360 lens, and you get kind of afforded the space to come up with a vision to solve them. That's not really what prosecutors do. They charge or they don't. They react, you know? They hold people accountable. It's about, you know, law enforcement. And so this example of truancy is one of the times

she tries to take that law enforcement view of the world and apply it to root causes of a problem. And so I think you can see it from a lot of different vantage points. And one way, it's a progressive prosecutor thinking about how can I attack a problem at its root. That's a really kind of progressive thought. But at the same time, what she did with that was kind of punitive. It was not something that really attacked the full scope, and then I think had the impact of frankly reinforcing some of the same tropes about these parents

and these communities that I'm pretty sure she wants to avoid. And I think that shows the limits of that kind of accountability viewpoint. Or perhaps even the contradictions of it, but she seems comfortable with those contradictions that on some level, yes, she's trying to solve a problem at its root insofar as she's able to do it. And it might actually result in some parents

getting some real trouble. Parents in the black community, she's there to try to protect and improve the lives of. But she's kind of made peace with that. I think so, to a certain extent. Like, for one, on tr's kind of made peace with that. I think so, to a certain extent. Like, for one, on truancy, she does back off. And so I do think that there were like academics

and kind of progressives who reached out to that office to say that you are making a mistake. And some of that eventually landed. But I do think that there is a sense of comfort with the idea that harm creates consequences. And some people are gonna get locked up, you know? And I think... And you might not like me for it, but that's...

And you might not like me for it, but I think you like the results of it. And I think her view of the world is accountability can be empathetic. And she rides this approach to the Attorney General's office and then eventually to the U.S. Senate. And she's comfortable with that approach. It's when she goes to Washington and eventually runs for president,

when a lot of this becomes uncomfortable. We'll be right back. So instead, take us into the next chapter of this story here. Kamala Harris as a Democratic candidate for president. When this record of hers as a prosecutor, as you just said, becomes less comfortable for her. Yeah. I think about the 2016 election.

On that night, she was all but guaranteed to be the next senator from California. And there was- She wins the US Senate seat the night of the Clinton versus Trump election. Yes. And there was a sense among Democrats that not only would Hillary Clinton win,

but Clinton would be a transition to a next coming of Democratic stars. But a few years down the road. Three years down the road. But, of course, that's not how the night goes. Donald Trump wins, and very immediately Democrats are thrust into this mass resistance where they are searching for someone who can become the face of leading the party out of the rubble. And so she goes from being someone who should have six years

to start to understand Washington, to someone who is being floated as a possible 2020 presidential candidate. It's a real sea change in the trajectory that she was supposed to have. And as she's having this kind of open discussion about what's happening next, she has a couple viral moments that make her a celebrity.

The Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body? Um... I think Kavanaugh really encapsulated a lot of that. I'm happy to answer a more specific question. Male versus female. There are medical procedures.

The way she was going at Jeff Sessions and kind of Trump figures of the time. Somebody came up to me. Sir, sir, I have just a few. Well, you let me qualify. If I don't qualify, you'll accuse me of lying. So I need to be correct as best I can. I do want you to be honest. And I'm not able to be rushed this fast.

It makes me nervous. And she becomes a hero for a lot of these folks and a driver of democratic fundraising. And so it elevates you from someone who people are talking about in the background to being someone who is seen as a star of the party, and that only furthers the question of running for president. And frankly, I think cements it. And so, by the time that she is actually putting her hat in the ring, the campaign comes up with a strategy that I think is reflective of the things we were talking about before.

They don't want to choose in an ideological way. They want her to be everything to everyone, and they think that they can do that in this race. And be true to herself. And be true to herself. Oh, what's up, Oakland? And I remember the announcement speech she gave in Oakland where there was 20,000 people outside. It was just a couple of blocks from this very spot. Nearly 30 years ago, as a young district attorney, I walked into the courtroom for the first time

and said the five words that would guide my life's work. Kamala Harris for the people. And she told a very clear story about why she became a prosecutor, about what her vision was going forward. Now, I knew our criminal justice system was deeply flawed, but I also knew the profound impact law enforcement has on people's lives and its responsibility to give them safety and dignity. I knew I wanted to protect people,

and I knew that the people in our society who are most often targeted by predators are also most often the voiceless and vulnerable. And on that point, I believed then as I do now, no one should be left to fight alone. And I think was really reflective of the vision of what that campaign thought they could do. And the story you've been telling here.

And the story we've been telling here, the problem was, that's not how that primary went. It wasn't the primary that was really about working with institutions to make marginal gains, right? It was about blowing them up to a degree. Yeah. And over the next several months... Good evening, Senator. Thank you for being here.

Hi. You position yourself as aligned with the progressive movement to make criminal justice less punitive and racist, yet your record as a prosecutor shows that you embrace the tough on crime mentality. As activists are creating litmus tests about what progressive means, about what constitutes criminal justice reform. Well, you support the Bernie Sanders bill, which essentially gets rid of insurance. I support Medicare for All, but I really do need to clear up what happened on that stage.

It was in the context of saying, let's get rid of all the bureaucracy, let's get all of the ways— Oh, not the insurance companies? No, that's not what I meant. I know it was— Forcing her to answer more specific questions about what health care systems should look like and things like that. This is the year where the moderators are always asking the Democratic candidates on

the debate stage to raise their hand if they think that private health insurance should go away. Yeah. You've been asked and sort of clarified this question a couple of times over the course of the campaign. So once and for all do you believe private insurance should be eliminated in this country? No. You don't? No. But you raised your hand last time. The question was would you give up your private insurance for that option and I said yes. Oh I think you heard it differently than others then. Probably, because that's what I heard. And the primary became more and more about structural change

and about how you articulate policy visions. She fell further and further behind, partly because that's not how she functions, you know? And so at the time when she was supposed to introduce herself to the country, I think the campaign was telling a fairly inconsistent story about who she was personally and who she was ideologically. And people weren't really responding to that. And that feeling ends up overtaking the campaign.

We are confirming that Senator Kamala Harris plans to drop out of the 2020 presidential race. Ms. Harris entered the race as a major force on the campaign trail. You'll recall she had a huge crowd in Oakland, but she failed to capitalize on that early enthusiasm and plummeted in the polls. That race and the way you're describing it, Ested, makes me want to understand what happened to that self-confident person who doesn't want to check the boxes and knows who she is and says, accept me on my own terms. Obviously, one of the answers are the debate stages and the litmus tests you just mentioned. But we all know what happened in that race. The person who won the Democratic primary.

Was the person who flipped all of those tests off. And the person who sounded the most like Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, right? Equally associated with moderate politics, law and order, defending the police, and working within the system. Yes. She could have done what he did. Absolutely. There wasn't as if those positions were incompatible with the Democratic electorate.

But what Joe Biden was willing to do in that primary that Kamala Harris wasn't, was tell those progressive groups to, they flipped them off. I mean, he told them, I don't care what your litmus tests are. This is who I am. You're gonna take this experience.

And most importantly, Joe Biden was telling a consistent story about electability. I can beat Trump. And that's what you need to focus on. That was not where other people were. And most importantly, Harris was pulled away from what I think that self-confidence was. I mean, it goes back to this idea perhaps that this just

happened too fast. She wasn't ready. I think so. You know, when you're a journalist asking Bernie, Biden, this idea perhaps that this just happened too fast. She wasn't ready. I think so. You know, when you're a journalist asking Bernie, Biden, even Warren a question, they've spent so much time thinking about running for president and their worldview, they return to a core belief.

They return back to a basic fundamental understanding they have about why problems are the way that they are. And no matter what question you ask, even if they don't fully know, they're gonna return back to that core. What was missing from Harris, in my opinion of 2020, was that sense of core. And so when she was asked questions

on arenas she was uncomfortable in, you could feel her swimming for an answer. And I think that read as inauthentic. And particularly when you're not a figure that people already know. And so in her moment of introducing herself to the country, she was the most distant from the person she's always been. And I think that gap is what doomed that campaign. And then of course, out of the ashes of this pretty abject failure of a campaign comes

the vice presidency. Yeah. And I think it's important to remember how she drops out in a way that I think was really sudden for people. And almost immediately you saw the tide of kind of sympathy turn in the Democratic party. I think toward her, toward her. That's saying people saying, maybe we were too hard on them. And that started immediately.

And so by the time Joe Biden becomes someone who's looking for a VP. And then importantly, makes a pledge to choose a woman. Right. In that summer, a lot changes between the time that Biden becomes the nominee and the time in which he's selecting a VP. You have not only the onset of the pandemic and the shutdown of the country, but you also have the explosion of the racial justice protests that happened after George Floyd's murder.

And so the conversation around Biden's VP selection gets wrapped up in both of those facts. And you have a pretty open debate among the party about whether he has to choose a black woman. So now there's pressure not just to choose a woman, but to choose a black woman. Right. And so I think there was a feeling that if you did not choose Kamala Harris, you were skipping over the most qualified black woman. And so the campaign chooses Harris, and I think it's important to remember it was their best fundraising day that they had had all year when they chose Harris.

But the result of this, and I want you to correct me if I'm in any way wrong about this, is that she's being put in something of an identity box and she doesn't like identity boxes. It's true. And I think that she does not like being identity first as the reason she's in the room. Even if that's part of her worldview, it is a very understandable feeling to say,

I don't want to be here only because I'm black, South Asian woman, period. And it created a situation where the DEI higher framing that obviously Republicans have latched onto was always in the air with her selection. And I think, frankly, it reflects the thinking of the Biden inner circle at the time, the underestimation they had of both her and I think their misconceptions

about the political moment at large. Explain that. Well, I think it's most clear in the policy portfolio she takes on. She was assigned what I think is universally seen as a horrible electoral platform, which is the root causes of migration in certain Central American countries. Right. It's like asking someone to like kind of solve the greatest riddle in the last 50 years of American foreign policy. Totally.

And Harris knew this was an electoral loser. She actually asked out of the assignment. And Biden- Can I have something else, please? Yeah. And Biden made clear, no, this is what I want you to do. And it has immediate impacts. I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border. Think about the infamous press conference she had with the president of Guatemala

talking about immigrants. Yep. Do not come. Do not come. The interview she had with Lester Hold about whether she went to the border or not. There was an understanding that this was a political loser, but it was something that they tasked her with

and that she frankly just had to soldier on from. The other thing that happens, and I think this is natural with kind of VP office versus West Wing, was there was a push and pull about which events to use her at, particularly in the first couple years. And to the point about not being one to be put in a box of race and gender, there was a story I heard about a time in which the West Wing wanted her to be used at this event where there was a baby formula shortage that was national news. And the administration was doing some efforts to try to make sure they could get more formula.

And there was a plane landing that was filled with formula. And the administration wanted to do a kind of photo op taking credit for solving baby formula crisis. Classic political maneuver. And they asked Harris to go. And again, to the point about when is identity helpful versus when does it put you in a box? This is something she didn't want to do. Be kind of woman.

Yeah, be put in that box. And I think it reflects the hard choices that sometimes identity can put you in. And so particularly in those first couple years, that was a push and pull between her and White House. But she largely takes on the assignments that the White House gives her. And most importantly, she maintains an intense sense of loyalty to President Biden that he really appreciates.

And so it matters to him that she says yes when he reassigns her that immigration assignment and that she goes to Guatemala and she does those things. Right? She does almost all of the things. She does the things that are required of her. So the impact is that for the first couple of years of her as VP, she's still dealing with some of the clouds

that hung over her during the presidential race. There is a sense that you don't really know what she's doing or what she believes in. But I think that really starts to change around 2022. This is the first time in the history of our nation that a constitutional right has been taken from the people of America. After the Dobbs decision, it creates a lane for her in the administration that she really latches onto. I do know that the American people fight for freedom and believe in the woman's right to make decisions about her own body. And she becomes the spokesperson for the administration on the issue

and becomes the liaison between abortion rights groups and the White House. What has happened here in Arizona is a new inflection point. It has demonstrated once and for all that overturning Roe was just the opening act, just the opening act of a larger strategy to take women's rights and freedoms. She starts embracing the language of freedoms and Democrats protecting reproductive rights. And now, because of Donald Trump, more than 20 states in our nation have bans. Now, because of Donald Trump, one in three women of reproductive age in our country live in a state that has a Trump abortion ban.

The stump speech was better. It just clarified her pitch because she can go back to something that a lot of people really care about, and most importantly, is at the top of Democrats' list. And so I think the first couple years are education in Washington that may not have happened before she was running for president. But what happened after that was she traveled across the country and I think took on a lot of the campaigning efforts that Biden was not doing. And so as a result,

she became someone who was more comfortable doing those interactions in the place she wasn't in 2019. And perhaps this is why she's ready for what ends up being this extraordinary moment that she encounters a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, and I think a lot of people were surprised at the speed at which the party unified around her. But it is explained a little more by the work she's done over the last couple years. When she was going to events as VP, she was calling DNC members and creating those relationships. She was checking in with

donors. She was kind of growing a backroom reputation of someone who could lead the party if necessary. And so when Biden drops and endorses her, she leaned on all of those things to really coalesce support very quickly. And I think there was a greater willingness to see her as someone who could step up to the top of the ticket Because of the advocacy she was doing on issues like abortion over the last couple years, right? And so she laid the foundation to really seize that opportunity once it arrived And yet that's the story of party insiders rallying around her perhaps a step because of what she did over the past two years as vice president

But it still feels true that the American public doesn't really know what she stands for and exactly who she is. And at this point, it's unclear whether that's going to matter in a race where there was so much unhappiness about Biden and Trump. But that's an unusual thing as we said at the beginning of this conversation. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the work we're talking about, to your point, is insider political stuff. For most people, I think she was running for president, she became vice president, kind of went away, and now she's the nominee.

And so I think that is the reason why Republicans are trying to paint her as kind of flimsy and non-substantive. And although at this moment, she's been able to step away from 2019 and say, hey, that wasn't the real version of me, I do think it leads to the question, okay, what is that? And I think over the next three months, the onus is on the campaign to tell that story. And I think that starts at the DNC. Well, let's talk about that story for just a second, because there is a clear story to tell, right?

Of a young girl who grows up in Black Oakland, child of activists, becomes a prosecutor in the name of bringing that identity and pride inside an institution that she thinks needs to change with her at the center of that change and the application of that approach of hers to criminal justice, an approach that, like Harris herself, defies being easily put into boxes. It's the story of somebody who believes you can be multiple things at the same time. You can be an empathetic progressive, but also believe in punishment and in accountability. But my question is, is that a story which we know she didn't want to tell in 2019-2020 that she wants to tell

now? The story that you have been telling us here. Yes. Is that going to be at the center of her campaign? Yes. I think that the biggest change from 2019 to now is a comfort with that story and a political moment that's more ready to receive it. And so already she has said the words prosecutor, maybe more than she said four years ago. And with Donald Trump on the other side, a convicted felon with looming charges, accountability

is on the comeback. And she was going to own that type of framing. So a story very faithful to who Kamala Harris was that was hard to sell last time she ran, and that she kind of ran away from, now feels like the story she should be embracing and that the country might very much embrace. Yeah. I think she will return to that articulation. And so the moment of unity we're seeing now was always kind of under the surface possible. And I think a lot of that is because she is a vessel that you can see what you want to see in.

If you want to see a progressive, there's enough there you probably can. If you want to see a moderate, you probably can see that too. And so what I think is one of the stories here is a ideological fluidity that was once seen as a problem is now being seen as a solution. Hmm. I said, we're talking about Kamala Harris here as a candidate in a race that's going

to be over in a few months. And you're suggesting that her ideological fluidity might benefit her in a race like this. If she wins though, the question's going to become, what does that fluidity mean for her as actual president in the hot seat? And what kind of philosophy is this former prosecutor who, as you've laid it out, has always been most comfortable thinking still in the mind of a law and order person.

What's that gonna look like when she's commander in chief and leader of the free world? Absolutely. There's no, we don't know. But come governing time, all of this fluidity will be put to the test. And we don't know what type of president she would be. I mean, we don't know kind of what the agenda of a Kamala Harris Democratic Party would look like

and how that would differ from the one that Biden has laid out. But frankly, if you ask any Democrat, they would say that's tomorrow's problem. And as long as she wins the election and stops Donald Trump from winning another term, they don't care. They really don't care. They'll deal with that then. Right. That's the thing about a tomorrow problem. You deal with it tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Who cares? Oh, Ted. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. The Democratic National Convention will begin this morning in Chicago. President Biden is scheduled to deliver a primetime speech tonight, in which he will make the case for electing Harris as his successor. Harris will address the convention herself on Thursday night. In her speech, she is expected to lean heavily on her biography, especially her time as prosecutor, to argue that she, not Donald Trump, is the right person to lead the United States into the future. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. A new poll from the Times released over the weekend highlights just how much Vice President

Harris has changed the presidential race since becoming the nominee. It showed Harris competitive with Donald Trump in four crucial Sunbelt states where Trump's advantages had seemed insurmountable just a few weeks ago. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. Harris is now running neck and neck with Trump across the nation's swing states and has small leads in half of them. Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. And officials in Chicago say they expect thousands of protesters at this week's convention, where they are expected to stage demonstrations every single day. Many of the protests will be focused on Israel's military campaign in Gaza,

and what activists see as the complicity of both Biden and Harris in the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Today's episode was produced by Stella Tan, Mujzadeh, and Diana Lin, with help from Rochelle Banja. It was edited by Paige Cowitt and Brendan Klinkenberg, contains original music by Mary Lozano, Dan Powell, Diane Wong, Rowen E. Mistow, and Corey Schrepple, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansferk of Wonderly. That's it for the daily, almost. If you want more news, and I suspect you do,

check out our other daily news show. It's called The Headlines. It brings you the day's top stories, along with analysis from Times reporters, all in about 10 minutes or less. And you can subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Bolvaro. See you tomorrow.