The NPR Politics Podcast - Exploring Kamala Harris' Identity While Campaigning

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

She's a historic major party nominee, but her gender and race aren't cornerstones of Kamala Harris' candidacy in ways they were for other groundbreaking candidates. We take a look at how Harris uses ��� and doesn't use — them in how she campaigns. This podcast: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, and congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales.The podcast is produced by Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Emily from Tacoma, Washington, and I'm sitting in my car decompressing after teaching three hours of preschool ballet classes. This podcast was recorded at 1244 p.m. on Wednesday, August 7th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Here's the show. I, too, sometimes decompress in my car after time with my kids. I do it after work. I just sit in the garage. Car decompression is important. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House.

And I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And today on the show, Kamala Harris is a historic presidential candidate as the first woman of color to be a major political party's nominee. It's also injecting race and gender back into the political debate in 2024. Deepa, I like to think of you as our Kamala Harris whisperer. You covered her as a presidential candidate. You've covered her as vice president. You're covering her campaign now. As much as you've covered her, how has she talked about these issues of race and identity? It's interesting. I think the perception that a lot of folks have when they hear Kamala Harris speak now, because keep in mind, she is still relatively new on the scene. A lot of voters, a lot of Americans don't really know much about Kamala Harris. And they assume that because she

is not actively talking about her identity and her race and her gender, that she's uncomfortable with it, that she doesn't feel comfortable by her biracial identity and her own skin. In reality, I would argue that Kamala Harris knows exactly who she is. And she grew up in an environment raised by an immigrant mom. Her mom was from India. Her dad was from Jamaica, both immigrants to the U.S. She had a very strong sense of self that was drilled into her by her mother, by her community. But on the political stage, that's not something she's talking about every day.

And it's interesting because I think as a lot of people are looking at this race and this presidential campaign and saying, oh, she would be the first, she would be the first. Kamala Harris has been the first since 2003 when she ran her race for district attorney of San Francisco. So for her, this conversation almost feels kind of dated. And she talked a little bit about it in a podcast with David Axelrod in 2017. In particular, when I was DA and AG, reporters would come up to me and ask me this really original question, put a microphone in front of my face. So what's it like to be the first woman, fill in the blank, DA, AG? And I'd look at them not knowing how to answer that question. And I would tell them I really don't know how to answer that question because, you see, I've always been a woman. It's interesting you brought up the point too, like she was born in Oakland in a very

liberal area of the country, in a very racially diverse area of the country, and probably felt very typical and normal in a multiracial environment. And so when you're then traveling around the country and being presented to differently, I'm not sure if she feels that it was othered growing up. She was living in a very multicultural space. Correct. And I think when she ran for president last time around, like going to Iowa, going to New Hampshire for the first time and presenting herself on a national stage was the first time she really had to be like, oh, how do I explain myself to these people? And that was something she kind of struggled with and it didn't really resonate. She spent a lot of time trying to introduce herself, but also not trying to get into the like, I'm black and I'm Asian and I'm a woman.

And it was sort of filling in the backstory without getting into the nitty gritty. But at that time, I think a lot of people weren't ready for that. And they really just wanted someone to explain to them, like, who are you truly? Where do you come from? Yeah. Claudia, to me, it's interesting because there's an element of like, how do candidates talk about themselves and their identity? But then also they mean something to the groups that they represent. And I think obviously Harris is multiracial. She's half Indian, half black. But for a lot of Americans, she presents as black. And you've been talking to a lot of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, of which she was a part when she was a member of Congress. And this candidacy means a lot to them. Yeah, it really does. And it's interesting how Deepa mentions Harris's comments on that pod, where she talks about, I've always been a woman. One of the members I talked to was Ayanna Pressley. This is the Massachusetts Democrat. She was the first Black woman to serve on Boston City Council. She was the first to represent her state in Congress. And she makes one point over and over, which is Harris has always been a woman of color. You know, this is

just who she is. This is who I am. This is just part of who we are. And so it's not something to stumble over or get caught up with. But at the same time, it's like what you say, Sue, is that this is such a big deal for so many people. And so while I talked to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, what I heard was this is very personal. In some cases, it's surreal. And especially now that they're seeing one of their own former Democratic colleagues in the CBC trying to shatter the ultimate glass ceiling. Also, all of this has happened so fast, right? This is not like we've been having a year-long conversation about race and gender. It's like three weeks ago, we had a different nominee. But there's always the question of like, is America ready? And to me, Kamala Harris in this

moment is benefiting in some ways from the candidates that came before her, namely Barack Obama in 2008, is America ready for a black candidate? And Hillary Clinton in 2016, is America ready for a female candidate? And this is obviously she's her own candidate. She brings different identity to it. But the is America ready question seems like, yeah, mostly ready. You know, like it doesn't seem like such an insane question. She does not seem like such a candidate to have in 2024 America. No. And remember in 2016 and in 2020, even when it was Kamala Harris running and Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren and everyone was like, you know, are they electable?

Like, can they be like we have catapulted ourselves out of that conversation? I think partly given the extremely short timeline that these candidates are working with. But yeah, to your point, I mean, she's not the first first, right? Like she is sort of having to do a little bit less explaining because of Barack Obama and because of Hillary Clinton. That being said, she's a woman of color. not the first first, right? Like she is sort of having to do a little bit less explaining because of Barack Obama and because of Hillary Clinton. That being said, she's a woman of color. She's a black woman. She's a child of immigrants that comes with a whole set of other biases and attacks. And and, you know, Trump is certainly playing to that. But I think it's sort of interesting that we've sort of stepped away from this conversation on race and gender and moved straight to the like,

we're picking a running mate. We're full steam ahead. We're rolling out policy. We're running to the convention. It is so top speed that it hasn't really left a lot of wiggle room to have those questions and those conversations. When you talk about Sue, do you feel like the country's finally prepared to elect a woman and a woman of color for the presidency? That is one question I asked members of the Congressional Black Caucus over and over. And Texas freshman Democrat Jasmine Crockett had a very quick answer. And she said, if they want to save democracy, they are. And so many of them say, yes, this is our moment. You can see the scars from, say, the first woman, Hillary Clinton, who looked at that moment to become the first woman president. But they're

also looking at Harris with hope, and they believe that it's her experience of being the first over and over that will allow her to reach this final stage. I am curious to see how this plays out, both at the Chicago convention and in the final 12-week sprint to election day. Because, again, if you think about like in the 2008 campaign,week sprint to election day. Because, again, if you think about like in the 2008 campaign, which seems wild to think about now, but that like Barack Obama had to kind of give a whole national address about race and how he views race in America, like sort of a explainer to America from this black man of how he views the country in her failed 2008 campaign. And then in 2016, being a woman was so central to Hillary Clinton's message.

And I'm just – I'm not hearing that from initial Kamala Harris in her stump speeches. She's not invoking the historic nature of her candidacy. She's kind of – there's just a distance between her and that message. That may change. But right now, it doesn't seem like one that she's particularly comfortable campaigning on. No, and she didn't in 2019. And I'll just add, like, I don't think many of the women, because plural women running for president in 2019 and 2020, made that a central part of their pitch. I think there was some aftermath reaction from 2016, right, where that argument of like,

I'll be the first woman really didn't stick or it didn't stick well enough to win Hillary Clinton the election. And so in 2019, when you had so many women running for president, including Kamala Harris, it really wasn't until she was about to drop out that she started referencing Barack Obama and telling voters, yeah, when I was, you know, trying to knock doors for Barack Obama, when he first ran for president, people thought he couldn't win. And similarly with Elizabeth Warren, in the last like month of her race, she started saying, you know, women can win. And so it sort of felt like this last minute effort to sort of try to pitch yourself to voters that, you know, I could make history. I could be the first. But on a day to day basis, she's on policy. She's on let's beat Trump. And that is fully the focus and I think will likely remain the focus for at least the

next several weeks and months. All right, let's take a quick break and more on this when we get back. And we're back. And a quick break and more on this when we get back. And we're back. And a quick reminder, click the follow button on your podcast listening app of choice to make sure you get notified every day when our latest episodes make it into your feed. So as far as Harris goes, she isn't making her racial and gender identity front and center of her campaign, but her opponent, Donald Trump and his Republican allies definitely are. Trump has echoed birtherism claims against her. And Trump and other Republicans regularly mock her name. The most insidious thing that Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden are trying to perpetrate and Bernie and Elizabeth and Kamala or Kamala or Kamala, Kamala, Kamala, Kamala, I don't

know. Appointing Kamala Harris to oversee the border is like appointing Bernie Madoff to oversee your retirement plan. President Trump did the job that Kamala won't and Joe Biden simply can't. And we're going to defeat crazy Kamala. Kamala. You know, there's about 19 different ways of saying it. She only likes three. Biden never even came close. Kamala, she goes, Hamala. No,

it's Kamala. Deepa, clearly Republicans think there is an electoral advantage here to making the issue of her race and gender front and center in voters' minds. A hundred percent. I mean, keep in mind, Donald Trump, as we talk about identity politics and racial politics, being white is an identity, right? And that's a big part of how Trump sort of appeals to his base, that white identity politics. And, you know, he did it in all the races that he's run for president. He's continuing to do it. And in this case, where he mocks Kamala Harris's first name, it's really a process of othering her and showing that like, you know, she has a different sounding name. It's not as quote unquote American as other names and it sets her apart. And it's not just that. Right. I mean, we heard the other week he was at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Chicago, made a claim where he said that Harris only discovered her black identity recently and she pivoted to being black. She turned black. She turned black. And, you know, all of these things about pointing out the fact that she is not, quote unquote, from here, right? To say that essentially saying she's not white is the subtext of what Donald Trump is saying. And it sort of puts Harris in the situation where a lot of folks, including a lot of journalists,

are looking at Harris and saying, OK, well, how do you react to that? How are you going to respond? And she hasn't. She hasn't directly taken that on. She sort of talked about how Trump is acting in a juvenile kind of way, right? Like this echoes his presidency and that's the thing that she's trying to draw attention to. But she hasn't responded. And, you know, if you talk to folks who work with her, they sort of say, like, what is she going to do? Is she going to get up there and say, I am black? Like, I've always been black.

Like, there's no good way to get behind that. And if you look at how voters respond to this, I mean, I remember very vividly a conversation I had with a white male voter in Roanoke, Virginia in 2019. And I asked him, you know, what do you think of Kamala Harris? And he started out and he was like, I don't want to sound racist. And he was like, but I think she talks about being black too much. And this was at a point where Kamala Harris actively not talking about being black. But the fact that she is black already puts that in voters' minds. And that's exactly what Donald Trump is trying to tap into.

The other thing we're seeing, too, as well with Republicans is they're struggling on how they're going to attack Harris. And there's a division there because we see Trump. We see Republican members of Congress like Tim Burchard of Tennessee talking about Harris. Initially, that was one of the first loud kind of racist attacks saying she was a DEI hire. And so they've been very kind of lost on how to attack her. And so we're seeing some Republicans, Trump, others go after her based on race and others like former Speaker McCarthy, I believe Speaker Johnson is in there as well, saying that they should not be jumping on race what do you think about that? And it's like you could see the color draining from some of their faces, like John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota who wants to be the next Senate majority leader, you know, the heir to Mitch McConnell, potentially. He was saying the same

message that so many Republicans on the Hill were saying. It's like, just focus on policy, just focus on policy. And I think this is interesting, too, because to me, it's also worth pointing out that like even Trump supporters, I think, are turned off when he turns to this stuff. And I think about that just because he posted on his social media a video clip of Kamala Harris and the actress Mindy Kaling in which they both talk about being Indian. And he did it as some sort of like gotcha proof that she was not black, continuing this line of attack. There was thousands of comments on it. And I was, you know, kind of scroll through it to see what the response is. And so many of the comments were from Trump supporters, Trump voters being like, I love you. Please stop this line of attack. We don't need to win like this. Like you just attack her on immigration, on the economy, on policy, how she wants to lead the country. And I think that's really interesting, too, that there's a lot of Trump voters who are still going to vote for Trump, but are like, dude, please stop this. Yeah. And there is also a power there. I think I've talked to Latino Democrats who have talked about like this amazing swell of energy

among young Latino voters wanting to get more involved and support Harris. And what they're excited by is that she comes from so many different backgrounds and they identify with that and say, I'm not just Latino. I am also, I'm half white, half Irish, whatever they identify as. And so they see her as someone who has gotten so far. They see her as an inspiration. And even though Trump is emphasizing these points, thinking perhaps that's going to help his campaign, maybe it's going to help hers. I would just add one thing to that, too, which is that as much as we're talking here about how Kamala Harris isn't getting up on stage and saying, you know, I'm half black and half South Asian, she is talking about her identity. She talks about her mother, right, and how her mother was an immigrant and the experience that that meant for her growing up

in this country, being a child of immigrants. She talks about what it's like to have her mom being followed in stores sometimes and that racial profiling that she experienced. She talks about people in her community. So as much as she's not getting up there and saying, I am the first XYZ, she is bringing her identity to the table and the way she talks about policy and everything else. And I think, Claudia, to your point, that is where voters are saying, well, wow, she knows what it's like to, you know, struggle with this issue. My family had the same thing. I mean, it also, to me, suggests that she also sees there being some inherent political risk in making her race and gender the first thing she talks about or the first thing she wants voters to think about with her.

Like, I do think that's the challenge of women candidates, of non-white candidates, of non-white women candidates, of gay candidates. Anyone that's not outside of the quote unquote typical politician box is you need to be like above just what your identity is. It's sort of an extra level of challenge in running for political office. All right. Let's leave it there for today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deva Shivaram. I cover the White House. And I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.