Episode description

Perhaps you’ve noticed: the news is newsing in overdrive lately. Notes from America is meeting the moment with an extra podcast drop on Thursdays starting today. Welcome to On the Call, a pop-up podcast series of conversations about politics, voters and democracy right now.

While most of America was still processing the news that President Joe Biden would not seek re-election, Black women across the nation were receiving notifications to join a Zoom call in support of the person Biden endorsed to replace him as the Democratic nominee: Vice President Kamala Harris. In the end, an estimated 44,000 people joined that virtual meeting, which managed to raise more than $1 million dollars in a matter of hours. One person on that call was CNN national politics correspondent Eva McKend, who says at times it was more like a prayer circle than a political event. In this episode, she joins host Kai Wright from the campaign trail to reflect on the meeting, what’s happened since with organized efforts in support of Harris, and what these investments of energy in a new contender mean for the 2024 election.

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Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.