Today, Explained - Second in command, first in history

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

Kamala Harris has already broken barriers, but ahead lies the rare task of leading a polarized and evenly divided Senate. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Kamala Harris, the first woman vice president, and she's half black and half Asian, married to a Jewish guy, stepmom to his kids. Her swearing in was a big deal moment for the Republic.

Ladies and gentlemen, the vice president-elect of the United States, Kamala Devi Harris and Mr. Douglas Imhoff. Harris chose Justice Sonia Sotomayor for the occasion, and Sotomayor responded in kind by mispronouncing Kamala. I, Kamala Devi Harris, do solemnly swear. I, Kamala Devi Harris took it in stride, as she's surely been doing her entire life, but it was a moment that seemed to perfectly capture the adjustment the United States is making right now. This is not just a one-off. There was a Barack Hussein Obama in the White House eight years ago, and now there's a Kamala Devi Harris, Madam Vice President. My name is Alexis, and I live in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia.

I was very moved on Inauguration Day to see a woman finally in the second highest office in the land. So I watched it at home. I spent the morning sort of dancing around my kitchen, making breakfast, and then sat down and made myself comfy as I watched it happen. And it was a little early and it was just, it was so exciting. And just the whole day was exciting. I cried. I cried when she was up there. I cried when Amanda, the poet, was speaking. I cried just, you know, the whole day was very

emotional. And then in the afternoon, I went over to my friend's house and we watched the rest of the festivities together and cracked open a bottle of champagne. It was just really special. It definitely felt historic. I mean, four years ago, I took for granted. I thought there was going to be a woman in the White House and it didn't happen. It was very disappointing. And so four years later, when we finally got Kamala Harris to be the VP, it just felt that much more historic because we missed it. We missed it four years ago, but this time, you know, we did it. Of course, not everyone was celebrating. My name is Nicole Parrott-Wilson, and I live in Brooklyn. The day that Kamala Harris was sworn in,

I didn't make any special plans to watch it or to celebrate it. And I actually kind of actively avoided engaging in conversations about it just because everything was so celebratory. Personally, I feel like Kamala is someone who has participated in a lot of state violence against poor and predominantly Black communities in her home state of California. And so I wasn't excited about the idea of her now having the power of vice president over the country. One that jumps out is the truancy law that she enforced and created in California. And it put parents in jail for their children being absent. And it also fined them $2,500. And for a place like California, where the lower quartile is making $25,000 a year, to lose that amount of money could send

them into homelessness. For me, that demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues and how those policies are impacting the most vulnerable communities. There was certainly a time in my life where I would have been very excited about the idea of a woman with Black ancestry being vice president of the United States. But as I've gotten older and as I've learned more, that doesn't align with my political beliefs or my ideological beliefs at this point. I think it's really important for us to recognize that an individual's identities doesn't protect them from criticism, particularly politicians. And her identity as a woman of color does not stop me from critiquing her past policies and behaviors. Between the elation and relief we heard from Alexis and the skepticism we heard from Nicole

are people like Erica D. Smith. She used to write about Kamala Harris as a columnist at the Sacramento Bee back when Harris made a lot of her most controversial calls as California's attorney general. But Erica's willing to give her a second chance now that she's vice president. I don't personally always agree with her policies, and that's, you know, some police reform, some criminal justice reform, you know, not taking a stand more on efforts to get more black and brown men out of prison, some of her stances on potentially arresting parents of children, her stance on the death penalty. I mean,

there's lots of different bones that people have to pick with her, I think, when it comes to her record. But a lot of her decisions or some of her decisions were about getting into higher office. It was very clear, particularly when she was attorney general, that she wanted to eventually run for the Senate. I mean, when Barbara Boxer stepped down, that presented an opportunity. But I think there was a calculation that was made politically that the electorate would not be as left as it potentially is right now. I mean, and that's, I guess, still up for debate too, given after George Floyd and the backlash and some of the things that have happened. But nonetheless, I think that there is definitely a wing of the Democratic Party that is not happy with her.

That said, I think that there are people who are also trying to give her the benefit of the doubt now that she's vice president. Kamala, Kamala, Senator Kamala Harris is a sponsor of the socialist Green New Deal. And it seems like there's a lot of people on the left who want to give her the benefit of the doubt because of all the nonsense she's had to put up with leading up to this moment and surely will continue to put up with as the first woman, let alone the first brown woman vice president. And, you know, thinking back to Barack Obama, I think he got some criticism for not really focusing a ton on race throughout his presidency. Does Vice President Harris have to take up that mantle now? I don't know. I think it's going to be really interesting to see how it finds out. I mean, this is 2021. It's not 2009. And a lot has changed in that time period, but also a lot hasn't changed in that time period. I think that on the one hand, there's so much more overt attention to racial injustice and inequities and systemic racism.

And these are phrases that were known in 2009 and 2010, but have become way more part of the common language now. And I think a broader swath of Americans understand what those things mean in part because of what happened in 2020 with George Floyd in Minneapolis. And so I think that on that hand, I think people don't expect her to just pretend like these things don't exist. I mean, you can't, I mean, the ability to say, to walk through leadership and power

and pretend like these things don't exist, those days are gone. And I think that she's kind of, you know, both in her acceptance speech when she was very direct in acknowledging these things. The black women who are often, too often, overlooked, but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy. Biden himself on Wednesday was very direct in acknowledging systemic racism and, you know, ferreting out white supremacy. So I think that there's not this sense of, like, we're going to pretend

like these things don't exist. A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can't be any more desperate or any more clear. And now a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat. I think, you know, being a woman and dealing with sexism, I think, is going to be maybe trickier because I think that calling out, you know, injustices is, it's tough. I mean, because you'll get a backlash one way or the other. And I think that with the vice president in the past, she's not necessarily a person who always wants to dig

into all of these issues, at least in my experience of uncovering her. So she's changed somewhat, I think, as the world has changed. So it'll be interesting to see if she continues along that path or if she tries to kind of ignore stuff sometimes and kind of do what she did the other day and just kind of correct the pronunciation of her name without calling out the error. And I could see her doing the equivalent of that a lot. And she's really good at that, actually.

She's really good at just kind of making a point without really making a point. So I think you can expect a lot of that. Four years of Kamala Kamala. Yep. That's for sure going to happen. And I think hopefully to an extent, she's made some peace with the fact that

she's going to be criticized one way or the other. And so it's not a question of avoiding criticism. It's more of like, what are you being criticized for? So, you know, is it worth making a stand? And that's a calculation I think every, not only does she have to make, but she's doing it at such a high level because she's always visible. But I think it's the same calculation that anybody who is black or brown in this country makes every single day. So in some ways, I think for everybody else in this country who's not vice president, we'll be looking to her to see how she handles that. I think in some cases, not necessarily for judgment, but just also just for guidance.

And I think that that's the kind of the power she has for so many young women is, you know, how she handles herself, you know, how she stands up for herself or how she manages all this stuff is going to be such a, an instance of, of modeling for, for young women as they enter adulthood. I think there's a great opportunity here. There's also great opportunity for peril politically for her, but I mean, I think, you know, she's as good as anybody, if not better at trying to figure out how to handle this. Erica D. Smith is now a columnist at the Los Angeles Times. In a moment, Harris occupies a historic position in the White House, but also a pretty rare one in the United States Senate. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained comes from Aura.

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I am a educator, and I am a Republican, Black female, and I've been a Republican for 30 years or more. And I voted for George Bush. I did vote for Barack Obama twice. I voted for Donald Trump. So this year, I voted for President Biden. It's good to say that. And Vice President Harris. It felt really good. It actually felt, first of all, it feels really surreal that we have a new president because I feel like for the last four years, America's been mentally abused by an abuser. Kamala up there. It just was awesome to see her. I think I was beaming. I could have cried, but I held back the tears. But yes, I was beaming. I just felt so good on the inside, and it just gave me great joy. It was a joy to see. I liked her from before when she was running for president, but I didn't think she had the strength as in numbers to be able to become the president. So when Joe Biden announced that he was going to put her on his ticket, that just excited me and made me even want to vote for him more. Lizo, you cover politics at Vox. We've already established that Vice President Harris is a historic veep in about a half dozen ways, but

she's also in a very unique position, right? Right. She is taking on this role of presiding over a 50-50 Senate, which has actually only happened about three times before in U.S. history. And what that means is she will be a key tiebreaker in the Senate for any votes that deadlock on top of serving her other vice presidential duties as an advisor to Joe Biden and elsewhere. Tell me about the three other times it's happened. Do you know all three? It happened in 1881, 1954, and most recently in 2001 when Dick Cheney was vice president. And so he's probably the most relevant modern example of it. And at the time, he actually only broke two ties while the Senate was split in this way, because about six months in, a Republican senator decided

to switch parties and caucus with the Democrats and change the breakdown. Oh, I see. So it wasn't as needed in the Bush era. Right. And the other big differences, I think, is that, A, the Senate has become much more partisan since 2001. And so you could expect just more ties by virtue of that. And the other thing is that the threshold for how cabinet nominees and judges are approved has changed from 60 votes to 50 votes. So you can see that 51st vote that Kamala Harris would be providing being much more decisive in a current Senate.

Yeah, let's talk a bit more about what she might be this tie-breaking vote on. I mean, we talked about budget reconciliation with our colleague Dylan Matthews on our show on Inauguration Day, and it seemed like she'd play a role in some key moments there. But besides cabinet nominees and judges, what else might Vice President Harris be the clinching vote on? Budget reconciliation would be a huge one. Obviously, stimulus relief is something that they could use that as a vehicle to pass. And already we're hearing a ton of pushback from Republicans about not wanting to add to the deficit, not wanting to spend more money. The monster spending bill presented today is not just a deficits don't matter disaster,

it is everything Republicans say they don't believe in. This bill is free money for everyone. And so if that opposition were to continue, you could totally see a bill like that breaking down 50-50 and Kamala Harris having to come in for that. Another area where she could be the 51st vote is there's something called the Congressional Review Act that allows the Senate to roll back Trump administration agency rules. So like policies that the EPA or the Department

of Labor have passed in the last 60 legislative days. And so she could be the 51st vote to help Democratic senators roll back Trump rules in that way. It sounds like she might spend a fair amount of her time hanging out in the Senate. And of course, she's coming from the Senate to the White House. But I wonder, you know, what's her relationship like with not only Democratic senators, but the Republicans? It's interesting. I think you've heard Republicans say they've enjoyed working with her on both the intelligence and the judiciary committees, which are very powerful panels that she sat on. And she's had experience working on bipartisan election security bills and other efforts in that vein. So she does have connections with Republicans, even if she has spent a little bit less time in the Senate than someone like Biden, for example.

Of course, the Senate might soon be having another impeachment trial for the former president, Donald Trump. What might Vice President Harris's role be in that impeachment trial? Typically, vice presidents are not involved in presidential impeachment trials because there is an obvious conflict of interest. And so Chief Justice John Roberts would be the person we'd expect to preside over the Senate. The issue here is that obviously Trump is now a former president, so that changes the dynamic a bit. And on top of that, John Roberts has reportedly said he may not want to preside over another trial because of how politicized he felt the last one was. And in that circumstance, we could see Kamala Harris potentially

taking on that role, which typically is largely ceremonial. If you recall, John Roberts did things like read questions that the senators had and admonished people when he felt like they were breaking decorum. So you could see her taking on that position this time around, potentially. It also occurs to me that, you know, in addition to being the first woman vice president of the United States, she will be the first woman president of the Senate, right? Right. Yeah. And it's just very much like an old boys club. Like, literally, the boys in the Senate are really old and mostly boys. Like, is the Senate ready for that? I think the Senate is, and it was just visually very interesting and exciting to see her take on that mantle on the first day when she started swearing people in for the Senate. The chair lays before the Senate two certificates of election for the state of Georgia and a certificate of appointment to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Senator Kamala D. Harris of California. Yeah, that was very weird. Okay.

And there's a huge contrast because Chuck Grassley... We're meeting today in executive session to consider the nomination of the Honorable Janet Yellen. And Patrick Leahy. Is there objection to proceed to the measure? And without objection, you know, serving that position temporarily. And just seeing the difference is very notable. Outside of her role as president of the Senate, you know, what kind of vice president will she be? Is there any sense of whether she'll be like a Quayle or a Gore or a Cheney? Or will she just be a Harris, some new thing we haven't seen before?

I think she'll be a Harris. She's bringing perspectives and experience that nobody in the office has ever had. But I think she could also be a little bit of a Biden. A Biden. Yes, a Biden, based on how both Biden and Harris have talked about this role, when he was vice president to Obama, he had said what he really wanted was to be the last person in the room when he made important decisions on everything from the Recovery Act to foreign policy. And he said he wants the exact same for Harris. And she said she wants to be a full partner to the president. And that much has already been clear be a full partner to the president. And that much has already been clear in how they've handled the transition. For example, in choosing cabinet

nominees, Biden said that Harris has been involved in every pick that he's made and part of all of those meetings. Do we have any idea like, you know, what issues are nearest and dearest to her heart and, you know, what she wants to take the lead on? Thus far, the Biden administration has said this is an all-hands-on-deck situation, and they've expressed the fact that she is actively involved in all four of the core pillars they've laid out. So that's response to the pandemic, economic recovery, climate change, and racial justice. Of those areas, there's been speculation about whether Kamala Harris could be more involved in something like criminal justice reform because she's had decades as a prosecutor and was a lead author on the police reform bill in the Senate.

She's also focused extensively on addressing disparities that affect women of color, including areas like the wage gap, as well as maternal mortality rates. And so that's another issue where she could potentially be a leader on as well. And we can assume that having her in the room will offer the new president a very different perspective and life experience than his own. Yes, yeah. And I think there are a lot of questions that people have about how her own identity as a daughter of immigrants, as a Black woman, as a South Asian woman is going to inform how she approaches policy and translate to the types of decisions that she wants to make in this role. In the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln saw a better future and built it with land grant colleges and the Transcontinental Railroad. In the middle of the Civil Rights Movement,

Dr. King fought for racial justice and economic justice. American aspiration is what drove the women of this nation throughout history to demand equal rights and the authors of the Bill of Rights to claim freedoms that had rarely been written down before. A great experiment takes great determination. The will to do the work and then the wisdom to keep refining, keep tinkering, keep perfecting. The same determination is being realized in America today. I see it in the scientists who are transforming the future. I see it in the parents who are nurturing

generations to come, in the innovators and the educators, in everyone everywhere who is building a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities. This too is American aspiration. Thank you.