What A Day - Kamala’s Second Act

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

California Senator Kamala Harris suspended her presidential campaign on Tuesday. We discuss the factors that led her to this point, including ones many in the press seem to have overlooked. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released their impeachment report, and the White House response produced our new favorite insult. You didn’t hear it from us, but Adam Schiff is a “basement blogger.” And in headlines: Willie off weed, McKinsey loves ICE, and Rap Genius is a real genius

It's Wednesday, December 4th. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, the marshmallow lover Swiss miss of daily news podcasts. I like to use two packets. I'm a mellow fiend. On today's show, California Senator Kamala Harris drops out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Then some headlines featuring special guest and member of the Crooked Squad, Priyanka Arabindi. But first, an impeachment news blast. Never gets old. All right.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released their 300-page report on Tuesday saying in part that President Trump had, quote, compromised national security to advance his personal political interests in dealing with Ukraine. The report, which summarized a lot of what was known about the impeachment proceeding so far, also said that Trump, quote, engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry. Wow. There are about 90 or more pages devoted specifically to obstruction. Right, right, right. And that hints at what the articles of impeachment could end up being.

And the report also did reveal some new stuff, like new contacts between Congressman Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the committee, and Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who worked to pressure Ukraine into investigating Trump's political opponents. Giuliani, the report alleges, also was calling allies of the White House while he was pushing a smear campaign against the ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Giuliani had more than a dozen calls with the White House in the two days before her removal in April. Among the phone calls listed, there was one from someone referred to as negative one minus one dash one. We're not sure. We don't know. You know, it's

written, which could be Trump himself, but it's unclear. The White House did not take the report well. And Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham referred to the House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff as a, quote, basement blogger. Yeah. After it's real, it's honestly real. After the committee voted on Tuesday night, the report now goes to the Judiciary Committee, who will be in charge of recommending articles of impeachment. And they'll also get to see the raw evidence that House Intel collected. Four law professors are expected to testify today about the constitutionality of impeachment. And Norman Eisen, the former chief White House ethics lawyer under President Obama, is expected to question them.

We'll keep an eye on all of it for you, as always, and report back with updates. That was your Impeachment News Blast. The top story that everyone is talking about in the 2020 race is Senator Kamala Harris exiting the Democratic primary, citing financial issues as her reason to drop out before Iowa. At the start of the primaries, Harris was seen as a frontrunner, a person Democrats thought could marshal the Obama coalition and one who seemed to have a lot of energy around her campaign. Her support peaked in July. She was polling nationally around 15 percent following a high profile debate exchange with former Vice President Joe Biden on busing. In the Democratic debate, she had some of the most high profile lines, including this one about Donald Trump's actions in Syria. This is a crisis of Donald Trump's making,

and it is on a long list of crises of Donald Trump's making, and that's why do gotta go, and when I am commander-in-chief, we will stop this madness. To this one about crosstalk on the stage. Senator Harris. You can't afford to wait for evolution on musician. Okay, guys, you know what? America does not want to witness a food fight.

They want to know how we're going to put food on their table. Harris couldn't keep that momentum, and throughout her entire campaign, her record as district attorney of San Francisco was met with immense scrutiny, and rather than address the record or say how or if she's changed, her campaign skirted the issue. Facebook confirmed that Russian bots pushed anti-Harris messaging specifically related to her work as DA. Harris and her campaign also struggled with internal disarray and some policy stumbles with confusion about control, some changing strategies on early states, shifting

positions on Medicare for all, focusing on banning Trump from Twitter, and waiting to address Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's directed criticisms at her until the November debate. When Harris exited the race, she was polling at 3.5%, putting her solidly in sixth place. That's according to RealClearPolitics national polling average. So it's tricky then to pinpoint one single factor that took her from top tier to out of the race. Akilah, what were people saying online about her dropping out yesterday? Did anything in particular stick out? Yeah, so several candidates posted support of both Senator Harris and her campaign.

Senator Elizabeth Warren thanked Harris for her fight for justice on Twitter and wrote, quote, Kamala is right. Our system is deeply broken. When billionaires can buy their way in, I'll fight with you to make sure our government works for all of us. Julian Castro also had kind words for the Harris campaign and some words for media coverage of the senator. I will say the way that the media treated Senator Harris in this campaign has been something else. In the last few days to see articles out of Politico, the New York Times, Washington Post, that it basically trashed her campaign and focused on just one small part of it. And I think held her to a different standard, a double standard, has been grossly unfair. As an aside, Castro, who's lagged financially,

had his biggest fundraising day of the quarter yesterday following this video post. Other outlets are going to be scrutinizing the day-to-day intricacies of Harris's campaign, but Akilah, you've been thinking a little bit more about the coverage that Harris got holistically this entire cycle and the larger backdrop there. Yeah, it's the Kamala's a cop meme. It's still getting a lot of play. Her record as DA has been scrutinized accurately, I think, but two things have made me feel just a little bit itchy about it. The first is that all of these people are running to be president, which is the head of the feds.

It's the U.S. government. So while she can uniquely be held accountable about her enforcement of the law as DA and attorney general of California, it does seem a little naive to think anyone running isn't at least passively complicit in the same justice system problems. But the second part of it is that Kamala Harris is the first Black woman to make it this far in a presidential primary. And the reality is, as a Black woman, she likely wasn't going to become the mayor of San Francisco between 2004 and 2011. That's when she was the DA. You know, it was a different time. So London Breed is the current mayor of San Francisco and the first Black woman to be elected to that position in history.

So London became mayor because the mayor died. She became the acting mayor and then she won in a special election. But had he not died, who knows what would have happened. The only other Black mayor of San Francisco was Willie Brown, who only got elected in 1996 after 30 years of service in the California State Assembly. I just want to set the table. So I'm bringing all of this up to say that the first woman, but also the first black woman to be elected to DA of San Francisco, got as far as she did in this election, which is further than any other black woman has in running for president. And, you know, the conversation that's missing in all this sort of hoity-toity hindsight 2020 media coverage about her exiting the race

is that the only way a black woman could get this far as a candidate is precisely because she was a DA and not in spite of it. The goalposts for being considered qualified to run move all the time. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say she created a path to candidacy where there previously had been none. So any critique of her campaign without taking into account the obstacles it took to even get where she is, I think should be taken with a grain of salt. And now that Harris is out of the race, the Democratic field is visibly less diverse. Only six remaining candidates have qualified for the December debate so far, and they're all white. One of the most consistently reliable Democratic voting demographics is Black voters, and Harris didn't leave Black women out of the discussion. She brought up inadequate and unequal

medical treatment, Black mortality rates, and childbirth, and more on the debate stage. So who do you think takes up that mantle now? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. And I think that that's part of the reason why I felt really weird yesterday about her dropping out because like I it just it really struck me, you know, a Democrat can't win without the black vote. And Julian Castro said on this show yesterday that the black vote was down in 2016 and Dems got 39 percent of white voters. So it's like this race to the middle that some candidates are doing to try to win over moderate white Democrats doesn't address that at all. But there's more media criticism to be made in this regard. So on The Daily Show last week, Roy Wood Jr. hosted a black focus group about who they plan on voting for in 2020. And at the end, he asked why black people are harder on black

candidates. Is there behavioral expectation on Black candidates that's not put on white candidates when appealing to Black voters? Yes. Why do you think that is for Black voters? Why do you think we do that? Because we see ourselves in them. And if they're acting a certain way, then we're like, no. White people are watching. Don't act like that. Exactly. We expect them to represent all the different types of blacks. The spectrum. Yes. Yeah, and I kind of want to take this idea a step further, because I think the media does tend to believe black opinions about black candidates.

Black people were initially hesitant about Obama until they weren't, and the media noted that. Kamala's DA record was scrutinized heavily by black voters. The media noted that. Black people sometimes complain that Cory Booker is corny. So that's a headline. But when black voters bring up true concerns about white candidates, it's often a blip that can be moved past quickly. It's up to black publications to keep that in the news. So the Root article about Mayor Pete Buttigieg we talked about on the show last week is, you know, front of mind when we're talking about this sort of thing. So my worry, I guess, is that now that Kamala is out and Senator Booker is also struggling financially, is that as has always been done, Black people and Black women specifically will be relied on for votes without our concerns being addressed. Historically, white candidates just find a Black person they can use to whip the vote, the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons and Killer Mikes of the world.

And sometimes that can feel like black people are still considered a monolith that worship at the altar of these people, even when they obviously don't speak for everyone. So that's a major reason why this feels like a loss, like we're no longer in the room. And it's bizarre that meanwhile, billionaires are buying their way to stay in the race. Tom Steyer has qualified for the Democratic debate on the 19th of this month.

This does seem a little bit troublesome. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it does. I'm a little too tired to spell it out, but I think everyone knows what we're putting down. Hopefully, all I can say is, you know, hopefully the candidates who are still in the race will engage with black voters. Kamala Harris didn't speak for all of us, but at least she deliberately kept us in the conversation. And now to some ads. Let me tell you a little bit about Lightstream. It's where you can refinance your credit card balances and save with a credit

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Awesome. Subject to credit approval. Rate includes a 0.5% auto pay discount. Terms and conditions apply and offers are subject to change without notice. Visit lightstream.com slash day for more information. Today's episode is brought to you by Dark Waters from Focus Features and Participant, who brought you the Best Picture Winner Spotlight starring Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway and Tim Robbins, directed by Todd Haynes. Now in select theaters everywhere this Friday.

This is a podcast, so we don't have the trailer. So, Gideon, you want to do your trailer voice and just tell us what happened? Dark Waters tells the shocking and heroic story of Rob Bill Ott, an attorney who risks his career and family to uncover the truth. Hella relatable. A dark secret has been hidden for decades by one of the world's largest corporations. I wish I could hide a secret that long. Justice must be brought to the

small community that has faced the fatal consequences. We love justice on this show. Based on the explosive New York Times expose. Expose. Now in select theaters everywhere Friday. That's this weekend. Get your tickets now. Get them. Dark

Waters. And now back to the show. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Headlines. We've got Priyanka Arabindi here, former writer of our favorite newsletter, What a Day, as everyone knows. Very famous.

She's now Crooked's brand marketing editor. You've seen her on the group thread and in the Pods of America live streams. Now she's here. Hey, Priyanka. Hey, thanks for having me. Ready to read some news? Ready as I'll ever be. Awesome. Take it away, Gideon. All righty. New documents reveal that McKinsey & Company, one of the world's largest consulting

firms, helped ICE craft key policies in the White House's crackdown on immigration. According to a report by the New York Times and ProPublica, McKinsey gave ICE, quote, money-saving recommendations for the detention of migrants, which included things like cutting costs on food and medical care and finding ways to speed up the deportation process. Some recommendations even made ICE workers uncomfortable because they were too harsh. McKinsey's official work with ICE ended last July, but the firm just signed a $2 million contract with Customs and Border Protection, or CBP. When questioned about this story and his prior work at McKinsey from 2007 to 2010, Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg has said that he disagrees with the decisions the firm has made in the years since he left and that he cannot comment further on his work there as he is under a non-disclosure agreement.

NDAs are bad. They are. So you're not signing the WAD NDA. Oh, shit. This is never going to be released. All right. North Korea said yesterday that unless Washington meets an end-of-year deadline to resume talks

and offer a denuclearization deal that the two countries can agree on, they'll give the U.S. an unspecified, quote, Christmas gift. Very festive threat. It's likely that the gift they're referring to is a missile test, but there are options that are equally scary, like that Peloton bike that we've all been seeing. I'm expecting a video from them next Christmas. Kim Jong-un on the Peloton. The good stuff. Honestly, that sounds like a TikTok that I would watch. Yeah. It's different now.

Totally. I don't think they know what scares us. No. Well, music website Rap Genius, best known for telling you which songs are actually about having sex, is suing Google. Genius Media Group claims that the tech giant has been copying and pasting lyrics from their site onto its search results page. Google claims that they didn't lift the lyrics, but the freedom fighters at Rap Genius say

they embedded secret Morse code messages in their song transcriptions, which, surprise, surprise, showed up on Google's lyric boxes. They don't call them Rap Genius for nothing. This case signals growing concerns that big tech companies are stifling its smaller competitors online. For shame. For shame indeed.

Didn't know Young Sheldon worked at Rap Genius. Wild. Sad news out of the heartland today. Potato blooms have been light this season due to cold and wet weather. We hate to see it. Because of that, we might be headed to the great french fry shortage of 2k20. Oh no. A really bad way to kick off a decade. Looking at the hard numbers, because that's what we do here at What A Day,

the 2019 U.S. potato yield is down by 6.1 percent or 3 billion pounds. No. And the potatoes that did survive are apparently small and stubby, which might be okay for tater tots, but not for fries. Anyways, this is very bad. If you're looking for hope in a post fry world, remember that ketchup is still great on its own. Yeah, but we actually all had a spoonful before we started headlines. The Tokemaster General Willie Nelson himself has announced he's done smoking weed. Willie's respiratory health has apparently gotten worse after 86 years of nonstop blazing, so this makes sense. But we can't wait to see him back on the road again with a toasty mug of cannabis tea.

I got roasted really hard by Akilah for saying that I didn't know anything about Willie Nelson except for that he was really into weed. Yeah, she's our own Billie Eilish. That's me. A young William Eilish here. Is it worse to not know about Willie or to not know about Van Halen? I kind of, I lean Willie a little bit.

I mean, honestly, I think that who cares? Billie was like, she didn't know who Van Halen was at all. Like, I know that he exists. That's weird. That's fair. And the most defining characteristic about him. That's right. That's very true.

You win this round. Wow. Thank you. Those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, give us a rating, unblock us on Twitter, and tell your friends to listen. By the way, if you're into reading and not just the entire end credits of a movie because it's respectful to the filmmakers like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash newsletters.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And that's why WOD is proud to salute the Tote Master General. What a Day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.