Vice President Kamala Harris: Stepping Into Her Power

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Go to blue hoost dot com slash wondersuite. Do not throw up your hands when it's time to roll up your sleeves. It's just the nature of it all. So knowing that good I'm up for a good fight. You up. Yes. Welcome back to the new season of she Pivots. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. I'm so excited to be launching season two with Vice President Kamala Harris. I remember when the email hit my inbox that I'd have the chance to interview the vice president and it was the

dream of a lifetime. I immediately called my team, we started plotting. We had a few obstacles. It needed to take place more than a thousand miles away in Minneapolis, Oh, and we had to interview her in just thirty six hours. We booked flights, prepared for the interview, tried to remain calm. I'll be honest, this wasn't my first time interviewing powerful political women. In my previous life, my pretty pivot. I

was all in on politics. I started my career working on the repeal of Donas Dontell, I worked on the Obama campaign, and I worked as a vice president in one of the top think tanks in the country. But having kids and working at all hours, it wasn't working, and eventually I had to make the choice to pivot. It wasn't easy, and to this day, I still question if leaving behind my old career was really the right move.

Still I keep a toe in appearing on countless cable news shows as a political correspondent, joining us now to discuss Democratic strategist Emily titch Sussman and political dissture with you and just kind of get your reaction of what we heard handle Emily titch Susman is a democratic strategist, Joe Walsh and interviewing so many incredible women like Stacy Abrams, Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the HRC. That was cool. It's been a whirlwind of ups and downs, and through it all

I began to redefine my idea of success. So I started this show She Pivots as a way to bring stories of women like me who have changed career paths entirely, or explored new roads and then found their way back. It's that exact mentality that I wished we embraced more. There's always tomorrow, There's always something new, and maybe even

something better than you ever could have imagined. When I was preparing for my interview with the Vice President, I realized her story is at the crux of what this show is all about. On paper, there's no question that Kamala Harris has achieved success, but the real success is taking on the challenge of the pivot and occupying spaces so many people told her that she was not welcome in, she always took that next step, rising to the occasion

to meet the needs of those around her. Pivoting is many things, but pushing the envelope and finding new determinants of what success means to us and been making that change is essential to this show. Welcome back to she Pivots Vice President. Kamala Harris has been in public service for several decades, ever since she started her career as a young prosecutor in San Francisco with a ninety percent conviction rate. Superstar prosecutor. Kamala Harris made history when she

was elected California's first African American female district attorney. She then set her sights on statewide office and announced her run for Attorney General of California. Then in twenty fifteen, she announced her run for the Senate, launching her into the national spotlight. After her short success in the Senate, she announced her candidacy for president in January of twenty nineteen. And that's why we are here today. And that's why we are here today. I stand before you today to

announce my candidacy for President of the United States. Fast forward a few months into twenty twenty. The COVID nineteen pandemic was at its peak and the country was grappling with a racial reckoning, and Joe Biden had to announce his running mate, promising to select a woman. The decision was delayed and delayed again, with reports swirling that he would choose Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer over Harris, But eventually, on August eleventh, twenty twenty, Biden announced that he had

chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate. The presidential candidate Joe Biden has made his choice. NBC News is confirmed that Biden has picked California Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate. First of all, is the answer yes? The answer is absolutely, And I am ready to work. I am ready to do this with you, for you.

The Biden Harris ticket one in November twenty twenty, and Kamala Harris was inaugurated as the first female black Asian American Vice president in United States history on January twentieth, twenty twenty one. We did it, Joe, You're going to be the next President of the United Dave. Is a historic moment of verse to administer the oath to our first African American, our first Asian American, and our first

woman vice president, Kamala Harris. It is my great privilege I, Kamala Davy Harris, do solemnly swear by Kamala Davy Harris issmly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Threw every up and down. She stepped into each role knowing that she could impart change and have a real lasting impact on people. But I wanted to understand the catalyst that set her up on that path to the White House. She started by telling us a story about how one of her high school

friends inspired her into the work. Was there a moment in your life that you thought, Yes, this is the thing that is going to change my perspective, and I'm going to do it. One of my best friends in high school, while we were in high school, I learned that she was being molested and I immediately said to her, well, you have to come live with us. And I called my mother and I was like, Mommy, and she was like, yeah,

she has to come live with us. And so she did, and I learned what it was and just one the horrendous nature of what was happening in terms of the act itself, but also the effect and which is you know, there's so many layers to it, but the powerlessness that also is a part of it, that that one is rendered to feel as though they are powerless in many ways.

That was one of the reasons I became a prospers, which is was born out of a feeling that you know, you have to right certain wrongs and address certain injustices and protect people who are vulnerable and deserve the autonomy of their bodies and their life. Vice President Harris has never backed down from a fight, something she said she learned from her mother. My mother had two goals in her life to raise her two daughters and to end

breast cancer. So she was a breast cancer researcher, and you know, one of the few women as a scientist, and the few women of color. And my mother was always fighting for the right for women to have dignity in the healthcare system. But she really she saw so much that was about the disparity in terms of the treatment of women, taking them seriously, giving them dignity through the process. So from my earlier stages of growth and development, I was aware of this issue and cared about it.

And then you know, through my career as a prosecutor, the vast amount of my work and priority was on crimes against women and children and so and then the Dobbs decision came down. The Supreme Court has reached a decision on the landmark Roe v. Wade case. The ruling is on a case called Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization.

It's Mississippi and hyperbole suggests a very solemn moment. Today, the Supreme Court of the United States expressly took away a constitution right from the American people that had already recognized. They didn't limit it, they simply took it away. And I was actually traveling out of side of DC, and as as soon as it came down, I actually called my husband and I just I was in an absolute you know, I knew it was going to come because of the leaked decision, but it was still unimaginable that

it actually happened. You know that the highest court in our land, the United States Supreme Court, took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America. So much about the progress of our nation when we have tracked it has been measured by the expansion of rights, and now we are saying an intentional restriction of rights. What is that saying

about the trajectory and the direction of our country. There's so much at stake with this seemingly one issue that actually is chock full of issues that should concern us. My girls are and four, and I think about them. They were my thought when the Dobs decision came out, and I think about the fact that they're growing up with fewer rights than what I had with fewer rights than their grandmother had. What connects you to bring you

into this fight? Well, like you, our twenty three year old daughter will have fewer rights than my eighty one year old mother in law, and they're both acutely aware of it. I understand why it is important when we are looking at this issue because you see where the state has laws that can protect individual rights. We would want and hope as patriotic Americans that the person who has the power to enforce those rights and protect those

rights will value and appreciate their responsibility. In states where they're criminalizing healthcare providers, don't doctors, nurses. Health care providers are being criminalized with laws that are being proposed and passed that would literally put a healthcare provider in jail. On this issue, what is going on? So who is in Congress to your point of federal, state, and local

really matters. We have to look at it in terms of what are we doing to and so this is part of how we've been addressing it, is to ddress it in terms of really deconstructing the issue. We have to recognize how much is at stake for everyone in our country. I read the decision including Clarence Thomas's words,

Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out loud. He literally said, this opens up the next steps, which are to re examine, which means question, which means attack as far as I'm concerned, the right to contraception and the right to marry the person you love. So let's bring everybody together though, because we are picking up there was a movement that started that culminated in Roe v. Wade, like you were saying, you know, when you're talking about and we can talk

about our family members, our mothers, grandmothers. It is now our responsibility, all of us to pick that movement up and to take it to the next step. This rally in Denver, Loverbody, this one in Louisville, just a few of many demonstrations happening across the US, with more planned over the weekend. Abortion whites, some with very personal reasons for showing up. And I know that there's will effect work in class black women and people more than anybody else.

You know, you mentioned what's at stake. There's so much at stake. We've talked about a lot of it here and a lot of the issues that are coming up, like it's not it's we're seeing them in a lot of the same places. So what are you seeing from your perspective? As Vice President, I have now met either directly in person or by phone with one hundred world leaders. My staff has been counting presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and kings.

And the thing about those meetings is that when we walk in those rooms representing the United States of America, we walk in those rooms chin up, shoulders back with a certain level of authority to talk about the significance of democracy, the importance of rule of law, the importance of human rights, freedom of the press. But what comes with that is also the fact that everyone here will understand and know, which is we then hold ourselves out

to be a role model. The thing about being a role model people watch what you do to see if it matches what you say. So thinking then about the issue of this moment of our discussion, which is what

the courts just did and dabs. One of my great fears is that autocrats around the world can then look at their people and say, you want to talk about these rights, you want to talk about your United States of America, Look what they just did, And in that way, the impact will be not only for the people of America, but potentially people around the world. As a person with a very deep voice, I'm hired all the time for

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Terms and conditions apply. Tired of ads interrupting your gripping investigations. Good news, AD free listening on Amazon Music is included with your Prime membership. ADS shouldn't be the scariest thing about true crime. Just head to Amazon dot com slash ad free true Crime to catch up on the latest episodes without the act as shows a free for punchbscribers. Some show me how that when I was preparing for this interview, it was clear to me that the Vice

President wanted to stay focused on the issues. But I wanted to make sure that I had an opportunity to explore a different side to her. And although she was focused on taking action and resolving issues, she was in fact relatable. I remember the specific moment when she talked about the Venn diagrams. So among the many things that I like, I love vendiagrams. You know the three circles. I love vendiagrams. I just like, just throw it into

a Venn diagraph. I will tell you everything you need to know about any issue, especially where there is you know, you're trying to understand the intersection and the connections, right, So I asked my team to prepare a ven diagram for me and the challenge I gave them is tell me from which states we are seeing an attack on women's reproductive health, from which states are we seeing an attack on voting rights, and from which states are we

seeing an attack on LGBTQ rights. The three circles of the ven diagram showed a significant overlap of the states where all three restrictions of rights were happening, and this

moment also became somewhat of a viral sensation. What that also tells us is there is an incredible opportunity for coalition building, right for bringing in all the folks that have been fighting for reproductive health rights and maternal health rights, all the folks who've been fighting for voting rights, all the folks who've been fighting who successfully fought for marriage and now we still have a lot of work to do in terms of trans rights and everything else, but

bring everybody together. At what point did you think I can make a bigger impact in a bigger stage When I ran for DA one of the reasons I ran was because the incumbent hadn't and there should have been a whole division set up to deal with child sexual assault. There needed to be greater attention being given to the issue of Domestic Violence. Vice President. Harris was born as

the daughter of an interracial couple in the sixties. Her mother, who was an accomplished breast cancer researcher, had met her father through the civil rights movement, so basically action was in her blood. So it was kind of the same idea, which is, okay, well, I'll do it right, and I mentor a lot of people because when I ran, there had never been a woman. This is San Francisco, California, with all of the reputation it has, there'd never been a woman. There had never been a person of color.

When I was elected DA of San Francisco, I was the first black woman to ever have been elected any DA of anywhere in the state of California. Thirty eight year old Kamala Harris came out of nowhere and was swept into office of San Francisco's District Attorney. And as she did, she made history. She was the first woman ever to be the city's top prosecutor, and she is the first African American in such a job ever in the state of California. Most important things don't come easy,

So it's not going to be a cake wak. There's a lot of work to do, and so you can imagine when I decided to run and I took on an incumbent, the number of people that said to me, Oh, they're not ready for you. It's not your time. It's going to be hard work for bride. And I didn't listen. And with all of the people that I mentor, I

say them. I just had a group of students actually yesterday that I was talking with and I said, look, don't you ever hear no unless And then they were a little younger, so I said, unless it comes from your parents, but don't ever hear no that it can't be done or no one like you did it. And then I have this thing I say, you know, look I eat no for breakfast. I have to admit one of the many reasons I left my career in politics was due to burnout. Not only were the hours unsustainable,

but the emotional weight felt heavy. It's something I know that many of us experienced after twenty twenty, so I wondered how she kept going through it all. The first political thing I ever did was I was in college during the March for Women's Lives and I went down. I was supposed to go down with my mother and my grandmother. And as I was on the way down, we went to go pick up my grandmother and my grand so we are literally passing it along, and my

grandmother said, oh, I've marched enough. It's your turn, right, So you know. But there's also there's a quote that all I paraphrase all the time, and I will do that here from Kreta Scott King who famously said the fight for civil rights, which is again, it's the fight for justice and equality, freedom. The fight for civil rights must be fought in one with each generation. And I think there are two points to that. One is it is the nature of it all that whatever gains we make,

they will not be permanent. So the second point then is therefore understanding it is the nature of it all, do not be overwhelmed, do not be tired, Do not throw up your hands when it's time to roll up your sleeves. It's just the nature of it all. So knowing that good, I'm up for a good fight, you know, Yes, So I have to put on my magazine editor at hat here and ask you how you must be exhausted, Like how do you keep going? Do you have like

a routine here? Like, what do you do. I work out every morning, all right, no matter how much sleep I get, I just have to. It's for me. It's mind, body and spirit and just But it's not I mean, just half an hour on the elliptical usually that's when I catch the morning news. I love to cook when I have the opportunity and the time to cook, it's just so therapeutic. And you know, you got to work stuff out. You just chop, chop, chop, chop chop. Who

are you envisioning on that shopping board. As we began to wrap our interview, it was important to bring in hope. Well gives me hope? Is our willingness to fight for this country that we love. That gives me hope. And I'm going to tell you why there is so much about this issue again, all of the layers to this issue. That the fact that this is about as much as anything, our democracy and the state of our democracy. And I think that I think of democracy as being there are

like two sides to it. There's a duality to it. On the one hand, when the principles upon which our democracy was founded, freedom, liberty, justice. When a democracy is intact, it is extraordinarily strong and the power it gives the people. The duality is that, on the other hand, it is extremely fragile, this democracy. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it. What gives me hope is I know we are prepared to fight for it. That gives me hope. We're not gonna let it go,

Madam Vice President, Madam Lieutenant Governor. This has been i'd say, my favorite live episode of she pivots. Thank you so much, and thank you for having us. Thank you all, Thank you. Vice President Harris continues to work every day on behalf of the American people. She's made problems solving the through line of her career, pivoting her spotlight back to the issues that matter to Americans over and over. From her work advocating for women for the LGBTQ plus community, reducing

black maternal mortality, gun violence, prevention, healthcare, and more. She's always led with action, and as she treads fearlessly into the unknown, she leaves behind a legacy that will lead to a better future for people like my daughters. I think this tweet by at Katie Rogers sums it up perfectly. Quote Kamala Harris continues to make room for herself, sometimes literally, The administration ordered a new desk chair to fit her because no one thought about a five to two woman

holding the VP role. It was a true honor to interview the Vice President for the season premiere of She Pivots. We recorded the interview live in front of an audience in Minneapolis alongside Lieutenant Governor Peggy. I could not have asked for a better interview partner and want to thank her for the work she's doing in Minnesota. I'm so excited to share that we're teaming up with Social Goods

to launch our new she Pivots merch. You probably remember their nineteen seventy three shirts from when Amy Schumer wore it on SNL and everywhere else. This is a perfect partnership because we are so aligned. Look, I come from politics, they come from politics, and now we're both in a place that we're trying to change culture through conversation. They're doing it through their merch. I'm doing it through this podcast.

Our She Works Hard for the Pivot merch is inspired by the iconic Donna summer hit She Works Hard for the Money, and it honors all the ways women overcome life's challenges and to find their own success. For every item sold, a donation is made to Bottomless Closet, a nonprofit that helps disadvantage New York City women enter the workforce and achieve success. Shop the collection now at social

dash gooods dot com slash she pivots. Thank you for listening to this episode of she Pivots, where I talk with women about how their experiences and significant personal events led to their pivot and eventually their success. We're just getting started with an incredible lineup of dynamic women for season two, so subscribe, leave us a rating, tell your friends about us. She pivots as an amazing community of women who understand that the personal is the professional. Join

the community on Instagram at she pivots. The podcast a special thank you to our partner Marie Clair and the team that made this episode possible. Talk to you next week. She Pivots is hosted by me Emily Tish Sussman, produced by Emily eda Veloshik, with sound editing and mixing from me Apollock, and research and planning from Christine Dickinson and Hannah Cousins. I en yours t pagents get the best workout with the best kept secret in fitness, Hydro the

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