Kamala Harris' Calculated Progressivism?

In Episode 8, Katy, Robert and Cody discuss presidential candidate and California senator, Kamala Harris.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart Radio.
Welcome Together Everything, So don't don't don hey, and welcome

(00:22):
back to Worst Year Ever. My name is Katie Stole.
Obviously mine's not, but it is Cody Johnston. And I
also am a person who has been named legally in
birth certificates and similar documents. And what was that name
that are on your birth certificate and similar documents. That's
a great question, Katie. Should we start the show absolutely?

(00:46):
Robert um uh this week, guys, I think we're all
pretty pumped to be talking about Kamala Harris is pumped
the right word. Yeah, thrilled, um, ecstatic, I'm just over
the moon. Yeah, as the British would say, I'm jim
Chim Cheru about it. I'm really chuffed about it, chuffed

(01:08):
that used to use chuff, right, Walgard about it. Yeah,
I'm I'm pufful the tough old about it. I'm stunned
by our linguistic skills. Yeah, I know the world. Yeah,
you're right Walgard about it in it. I know if
you're aware of this, Katie, but we are the world.
We know all of it's all of its slang. Yeah.

(01:31):
So this was originally just going to be my episode,
but it's a big one, so we kind of divat
it up. But I'm gonna get it started right. We're
we're kind of revising this as we go along and
how we we do this show, and I think we
might we might wind up doing future episodes like this
where we all take chunks of a candidate's history. Who knows,
we're learning how to do our jobs in real time

(01:53):
and let us know what you guys think, much like
a bridge builder. Yeah, you know, just if if this
is a more interesting way to present the information, or
if you just want one person monologuing for an hour.
You know, we're people for the people, so learning together.
We value your feedback. Um, but let's just let's just
dig in on Kamala, all right, Harris Harris, because there's

(02:15):
a lot to get through. Kamala was born in Oakland, California,
six four. I just want to real quick, make controversial statement.
I am pro candidates who have been born Okay, putting
that out there, bold take. Why don't you put a
pin that. Listen to the rest of the episode and
see if you still have that. Okay, so far, I'm
I'm I'm pro pro birth Okay Great born in Oakland, California.

(02:41):
Her mother is Shiamola Goppolin, who immigrated from Indian nineteen sixty.
She got her doctor and into chronology at UC Berkeley
and conducted breast cancer research. Her father, Donald Harris, immigrated
from Jamaica to go to grad school at UC Berkeley.
He's now an econ professor at Stanford. Her younger sister,
Maya Harris, is a political analyst for MSNBC, worked on

(03:02):
Hillary Clinton's campaign, and is now campaign chairwoman for Kamala. Uh.
This is quite the impressive family. Uh. Kamala attended Howard University.
That's interesting because I was under the impression that people
usually picked to run their campaign members of the weird
beach cult that they grew up in. Is that not

(03:25):
the standard? Apparently it's not the standard. After Artoli episode,
I also thought that but no family members close family
members who have also worked for Hillary Clinton? Is maybe
more learning a lot Anyway. She attended Howard University, studied
economics and political science, was on the debate team. She
also was I guess is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha,

(03:49):
which is the nation's oldest black sorority and actually an
incredibly powerful, influential group of women, a lot of very
cool people in at Groom community. While at Howard, Harris
decided that she wanted to become a prosecutor. Uh. And
this was confusing for a lot of people, especially her parents,

(04:11):
you know, being an African American woman from Oakland. Uh,
it didn't seem like the logical step for her. But
this is a quote from The Atlantic, which is actually
quoting Harris's book, Uh Yet growing up a protests, Harris writes,
she'd seen the mechanics of fighting for justice from the outside.
That dynamic did not appeal to her. She wanted insider power,

(04:33):
establishment power. When activists came marching and banging on doors,
Harris writes, I wanted to be on the other side
to let them in. Okay, Okay, she wanted them And
that's a really I think that's a really Like I'm
in contact with a lot of activists just as a
part of my job, because I cover protests and activism
a shipload and a number of people who have been

(04:55):
like talking with over the years and over like you know,
successive sort of things they've been involved with, have started,
you know, expressing that exact same interest, where like, I'm
tired of feeling like I'm just shouting at a wall,
and maybe if I get into office, I can do
something like I do think that is like a pretty
common sentiment to be absolutely I get that, if only

(05:15):
we could be bricks in that wall, just another brick
in the wall, you know, Cody, I think you're onto
something here. You should cut a fucking album based around
that sentiment. I would love to. That would be amazing.
The edifice, yeah, the blockage, the obstacle, the tall, thin obstacle,

(05:38):
between the obstacle between inside and outside. That's good, right,
pretty good. I think I think this album could be
hugely successful and also wildly misinterpreted by generation listeners. That's
the best kind of art, all right. She got her
j d from the University of California at Hastings College

(06:01):
of Law UH and she then became an Assistant d
A for Alameda County UH and she specialized in prosecuting
child sex abuse cases. Harris UH in that position saw
how much power prosecutors have, and apparently sometimes she kind
of relished it. Quote. When I was prosecuting child molestations cases,
I will tell you I was as close to a

(06:22):
vigilante as you can get. It was also during this
time that she began a relationship with an attorney, California
Assembly speaker and future mayor, Willie Brown. At this time,
Brown was sixty and Kamala was thirty. Brown was married
but had been separated for a long time. Um, and
they were together for a few years. From everything I've read,
her relationship with Brown elevated her profile and standing in

(06:44):
San Francisco social circles, which would end up being helpful
for her as she entered into politics. UM, that's that
seems fine to me, to be honest, Like, people can
say what they want, Like, thirty years is a huge
age gap, but if you're thirty, you know what you're doing,
you know what you're Yeah, it's not the problem. I
mean it's a big age gap, but you know she's
an adult woman. Um, this is the next This next

(07:05):
part is what people take issue with, which is that
Brown appointed her to to patronage positions the Unemployment Insurance
and the California Medical Assistance Commission, which earned her over
four hundred thousand dollars over five years. Willie Brown became
mayor of San Francisco and Kamala broke up with him
shortly after his inauguration UM, but she has received a

(07:27):
significant amount of criticism for relationship with Willie Brown over
the years. Tommy Lauren even accused her of sleeping her
way to the top. There's one thing we know about
Tommy Lauren, It's that she is of moral consistency. That's
very funny coming from u UM. And you know, look,

(07:50):
sure it's not great that he gave his girlfriend very
lucrative jobs. I'll admit that he certainly gave her a
boost both professionally and socially again in the Unity, avating
her status. But ultimately that criticism from our perspective now
isn't quite fair and it's also a bit sixist, you know,
it's something that you wouldn't necessarily say about a man.
Commal is clearly a driven woman and a politician, and

(08:14):
Willie Brown can't take credit for where she is right now,
but he certainly helped her, you know, get her career started. Now,
let's talk about her as a d A. Uh In
Kamala became the assistant d A to Terence Hallinan, who
is known as one of the most progressive, if not
the most progressive days at the time. Uh. This is

(08:36):
from The Atlantic about Helenan, a legendary civil rights activists,
defense attorney, former city supervisor, and an outspoken advocate for
marijuana legislation. He swiftly fired senior prosecutors in order to
hire more minorities and reformists. He instructed his deputies to
avoid the practice of objecting to a proposed juror for
criminal trial, an unusual stance that weakened the hand of

(08:58):
the d a's office to avoid and paneling all white juries.
So he's kind of a cool guy, right, sounds pretty cool.
I'm I'm pro that pro that. I'll talk a bit
more about him in a second. But Harris and Helena
had a bit of a contentious time while she worked
under him. Uh. There was this proposition Prop. Twenty one
that would allow prosecutors to try juvenile defendants in superior

(09:19):
court rather than juvenile court, and both Helenan and Kamala
opposed it. Um and Kamala actively campaigned against the measure. However,
she got a lot of interviews and attention as opposed
to him. Uh. And that's something that the District attorney's
public information officer allowed to happen, and that didn't sit
well with Terrence, who accused Harris and the public Information

(09:40):
officer of conspiring to make Harris into a star so
she could run against him in the two thousand three election.
Harris claimed that she wasn't going to run against him
because that would be unprofessional. But then there was all
this drama. He demoted Harris, uh and like set up
a canary trap to see if she would link information.
She didn't. But ultimately, what is it? What a So?
What is a What is a canary trip? Because the

(10:02):
only one I'm familiar with is when you put one
in a mind to see if it dies. I think
it was that poison. No, I don't know exactly what
it was. It was it was referenced in this article.
You know, it's like a little a trap for her
to set into, like something to see if she would
leak information something that's not necessarily true. Probably like I
know who did that because it's the only person I Okay, Okay,

(10:24):
so that makes sense. I don't understand calling it a
canary trap. Okay. Anyway, she didn't leak it, but she
did end up running against him in two thousand three.
Maybe it was because she was angry at their situation,
or maybe she'd always planned to run um. But let's
talk about that a bit. At the time, the early

(10:45):
two thousand's, we'd just come through this whole tough on
crime period of the nineties, well in the eighties, and
a lot of people in San Francisco didn't trust helen
An's progressive policies, and that is exactly what Harris ran on.
She literally used the line quote it's not progressive to
be soft on crime for her campaign quote. She carefully
cultivated a base of support among police officers, domestic violence advocates,

(11:08):
wealthy donors, and a diverse range of local officials and
community leaders who had bristled at helen AND's leftist politics
and abrasive styles. Throughout much of the campaign, Harris attacked
helen And is too weak and ineffective to keep community
safe from dangerous criminals. In contrast, Harris promised to get
tough and I want to talk a little bit about Helenan,
uh to contrast with Kamala spared with me here a bit.

(11:30):
Helenan's office had a low felony conviction rate, far lower
than the rest of the state because Helenan was pushing
a lot of resources into rehabilitation programs instead of convictions,
which on paper looks like just a dismissal. Also, San
San Francisco is a really liberal city, so juries were
more lenient. But the thing is that despite that, overall

(11:51):
crime rates were plummeting. Violent crime had gone down close
to sixty in San Francisco since he took office, but
that did not matter. Lown fiction rate became the headline
that the media latched onto and the talking point that
Harris pushed her campaign argued that Helen and had failed
to keep communities safe from surgeon gang violence and with
you know, points pointed was low conviction rate. They you know,

(12:14):
they'd flyer the city's you know talking about this, uh
and it just got really ugly. And again they really
tapped into that whole tough on crime narrative. You know,
it doesn't sound like she's opening the door to the activists,
yet I know it sure doesn't. So yeah, that's why
it's important. She's like leaning out the window throwing waded
up garbage. Yet does the bricks in the wall and

(12:38):
like yeah, try just try, yeah and have good I
built this wall, keep that in mind as we talked
more about this. Uh. During during his time in office,
Helen and had also really tried to crack down on
police misconduct, bringing cases against cops to trial, introducing a
ballot measure to increase police oversight. Um. So, the tensions
between him and the police department were very strained, and

(13:00):
ultimately they ended up endorsing Kamala Accountable. No. I know
it's wild, but they endorsed Kamala citing her as the
law and order candidate. So like, if you were to
say the phrase like Kamala Harris is a cop, that
wouldn't be necessarily the most inaccurate. It wouldn't be. And
we're gonna talk so much more about that. She's got
it a little bit of an interesting relationship with the cops.

(13:23):
Definitely will explore that. Also, outgoing mayor her ex boyfriend
Willie Brown also endorsed her. Obviously, UH again got her
the support of elite, wealthy San Francisco people like the Getties,
but real quick Worth noting Willie Brown had issues with
Helen An like how he was investigating city corruption cases
and speaking of activists, encouraged handing out soup to homeless people.

(13:48):
Even going so far as showing up to Ladle soup
along with volunteer organizations, which is a problem because it
was illegal in the city at the time, and that
piste off a lot of people because he was blatantly ignored,
ignoring a latently dumb So anyway, I wonder why really
endorsed his ex girlfriend. Anyway, spoiler alert, Kamala one she won,
Helenan was out once in office. Kamala did keep some

(14:12):
of his legacy, uh, you know, like focusing on drug
diversion programs and providing rehabilitation resources. She also had this
re entry program from minor offenders, the Back on Track Program,
and it received a lot of praised, although many criticized
it because it only affected miners that had no previous
criminal record. Um so they felt like that felt short.
But she felt the pressure to live up to her

(14:34):
campaign promises you know, tough on crime, and according to
former prosecutors, Harris adopted inflexible charging procedures you know, to
look tough on crime, most likely in preparation for running
for state wide office someday. Another key issue in Harris's
tenure as d A, which many of you have probably
heard about, was truancy, which she saw as a crisis.

(15:00):
Harris believed that students who have high truancy rates at
every level of schooling or more likely to be the
perpetrators or victims of crimes. So she attempted to solve
this issue by criminalizing truancy for the parents of truant children.
Quote from Kamala, the crisis is not only crippling our economy,
it is a basic threat to public safety. Um that

(15:22):
seems like something with no unanticipated downsides. No, you know,
not criminalizing parents for their kids being absent, uh, not
capitalizing on people's fears, and like creating a bad guy
that doesn't necessarily need to be considered the bad guy.
Maybe they need other kinds of resources than being put

(15:43):
in jail, I don't know. And not not unfairly criminalizing
the poor, because the poor are the ones who are
most poor. Working parents are the ones who are most
likely to not have as much time to watch their
kids and you know, be worked, both working full time
and thus unable to police them as much as they
need to. It certainly is a problematic position that she held.
I like it. I think peri justice is the best

(16:04):
kind of justice. It goes back to the roots of
like people were surprised coming from where she came from,
where she was surrounded, grew up in a community of
people that you would think she would be able to
empathize with. You know. Well, I was against all this
until Cody framed it as putitive justice because that makes
me think of like how laser guns sound, And now

(16:25):
I'm on board jailing poor parents. In recent years, Harris
has said that her goal was not to arrest parents,
but rather to you know, provide a stick to the
school district's carrot. Whatever that means that this is the stick,
is the stick arresting parents? Like what you just I know,

(16:48):
I shot at you to make you dig faster. The
goal was not to hit you with the bullets. The
goal was to provide a stick that was the bullets
heading towards called motivation. Um, it's just a hang in
their baby poster. Yeah, well, you know doesn't It doesn't
matter what she was going for. Parents of truant kids

(17:11):
were criminalized, and Harris has since apologized and tried to
distance herself from the issue. But that's why we're here, baby,
your past is coming back. Um. There was also this
story about how Deborah Madden, a police crime lab technician
who routinely testified as a witness for the prosecution, got
caught stealing the cocaine that she was supposed to analyze

(17:33):
as evidence. Um. And after that, it was then realized
that she had had this previous felony conviction for domestic violence.
And I guess a big part of the responsibility lay
with the police department for not disclosing all the information
to Commla's office, or at least that's what they say,
But Kamala had been informed multiple times that Deborah was
an unreliable witness, and ultimately Kamla's office got in trouble

(17:55):
for not disclosing that information to defense attorneys or the
defendants who should have that information. And it was older
in like sises being dismissed. You're you're you're missing some
really important data, Katie, And yeah, was it? Was it
good blow? Was it some primo ship or was she
like was it some of that like garbage that gets cut.
I dug around and I couldn't find it. Um. And

(18:17):
I've got, you know, a search on on Deborah Madden's
and I'm systematically hunting them down to see if it's
that Debora Madden and as soon as I find the answer,
I will report back to you guys on the quality
of listeners. If you did cocaine with Deborah Man and
him in, let us know if it was the good ship,
because I really don't think we can have a solid

(18:38):
take on this until we know the quality of thee
and I apologize for my feelings. Please send any information
you have to Tips at Worst Tips at worst pod
dot cocaine. That's it, that's the address. That's that's for
just cocaine related tips. Any that you have UM as

(19:00):
d A. She also set about repairing relations with the
police department that had weakened under Helenan, but ultimately she
faced backlash from law enforcement pretty quickly into her time
there when she didn't seek the death penalty for a
gang member who was convicted of murdering an SF police officer,
Isaac Espinoza in two thousand four. Kamalos staunch against the

(19:21):
death penalty, and it's one of the reasons people describe
her as progressive. Um but that moved distanc from the
law enforcement community. Quote our members never forgave Harris that
was then president of the police Union Gary de Langness.
I wonder if she'll ever prove to be not totally
consistent about the death penalty. I wonder wonder that anyway

(19:44):
she felt that lack of support from them when she
ran for California Attorney General in two thousand and ten.
At that time, only one law enforcement group endorsed her,
and she she barely won, So she spent her first
term as a g actively courting their approval. I guess,
and I think that this is when she really earned

(20:04):
her reputation as a cop um, which I am assuming
Robert will be digging into it in a minute. Um. Anyway,
by the time she was up for re election, Uh,
once she had completed her first term, she then had
the endorsement of a dozen law enforcement groups. So that's
a big swing in the support. Out of the park,

(20:28):
out of the park. I wonder if someone wrote six
pages about why that might be. I wonder if someone did.
I also wonder if it's time for us to break
for an ad real quick sylph. He's nodding, yes, everything,

(20:49):
we're back, We're back. Oh my god, those services I
am uh exploding with capitalism is how I would just
grabbed myself right Now much like I don't know one
of Raytheon's fine guided thermobaric missiles um, which you can

(21:10):
all buy if you sign an arms contract with the
United States government. Anyway, let's talk about Kamala Harris is yeah.
Kamala Harris's career as a California's Attorney general. She was
elected in two thousand eleven, as Katie stated, in making
her the top cop in the state. She held the
job until two thousand seventeen, when she was elected senator,

(21:30):
replacing longtime incumbent Barbara Boxer. Now. One of the more
controversial decisions by A. G. Harris during this period was
her attitude towards the treatment of transgender people in state custody.
In two thousan fifteen, she fold legal brief which argued
against providing gender confirmation surgery for a prisoner mickel Lyle Norsworthy.

(21:51):
The prisoner in this case argued that being forced to
go without the surgery counted as cruel and unusual punishment.
The advocate describes this as quote what some see as
the only blot on her l g B t Q
rights record. Now, I should note that the advocate, which
is a fairly mainstream Queer Focus news site is generally
positive about Kamala Do in large part to her pioneering

(22:12):
history fighting against the trans panic defense. Is a defense attorney,
this is something she can bean like a big, like
nationwide like conference of of lawyers and das and ship
in San Francisco when she was um the d A
to try to deal with and like basically provide arguments
against the trans panic defense in case out of where, Like,
the trans panic defense is this thing people would use

(22:33):
to claim like people when they murdered transgender particularly transgender women,
would defend themselves by saying that, like, they were so
freaked out by the fact that a transgender woman was
flirting with them that they just went crazy and murdered
her and can't be held accountable for their actions. That
there's something about transgender women that so upsets men that
they can't be considered in their right mind when they

(22:55):
murder them. People got off as from murdering people as
a result the gay panic defense. I have a friend's
brother a while back was murdered, and uh, the guy
got off on a gay panic defense even than the guy.
It's a thing. It's a and Kamala did a lot

(23:16):
to fight against it and provide, um, like lawyers and
stuff who were who were arguing against people who had
committed that crime, prosecutors, um, with ways around that defense,
with like ways to argue against it in court and stuff.
So she does get she has to get a lot
of credit for that. That That was a that was a
big deal, and she did it at a time when
she was, you know, one of the relatively few voices

(23:37):
in law enforcement really making that an issue. So there
there's a reason why, um, someone like the advocate would
give her, you know, would describe her what she did,
you know, arguing against Michel Leonore's worth these gender confirmation
surgery is the only blot on her record. Um. Now
it's interesting to me how the advocate describes Kamala's defense

(23:59):
of her stance on mckel lyle nor's Worthy's case. Um.
She pointed out that when she was attorney General, the
state's Department of Corrections was a client of hers and
she had to represent its interests, but she worked behind
the scenes to get the policy changed so that any
inmate requiring such procedures could receive them. Now, I I'd
have not found any hard evidence that she did in
fact work behind the scenes, nor have I found any

(24:20):
evidence that she did not, nor's worthy one her case.
So I'm not really sure how much fighting behind the
scenes was even necessary UM. And in fact, like at
the time at which like Kamala was arguing against this
woman's right to transition UM, the state courts in California
had confirmed that she had a right to do it. Now,
the fact of the matter is that Harris wrote more
than one brief opposing incarcerating trans women's rights UH to

(24:45):
get quartered ordered surgeries. So this is not a one off.
This is something that happening number of times while she
was the Attorney general. Now, in January of two thousand nineteen,
Kamala Harris was questioned about all this by The Washington Blade,
which is another queer focused UM sort of a new site,
and I believe a responses here are rather telling. So
the Blade asks, how would you address concerns about seeking

(25:06):
to deny surgery for trans inmates as California A g.
Kamala Harris. So, I was, as you are rightly pointing out,
the Attorney general of California for two terms, and I
had a host of clients that I was obligated to
defend and represent, and I couldn't fire my clients. And
there are unfortunately situations that occurred when my clients took
positions that were contrary to my beliefs. And it was
in office with a lot of people who would do
the work on a daily basis, and I do wish

(25:27):
that sometimes they would have personally consulted me before they
wrote the things that they wrote. Yes, I do, but
the bottom line is the buck stops with me, and
I take full responsibility for what my office did. But
on that issue, I will tell you I vehemently disagree
and in fact work behind the scenes to ensure that
the Department of Corrections but allow transitioning inmates to receive
the medical attention that they required, they needed and deserved.
Then the BLADE asks to be clear, should transitmates throughout

(25:50):
the country have access to gender uh reconstructive surgery and
Kamala Harris responds, I believe we are at a point
where we have got to stop vilifying people based on
actual orientation and gender identity, and we've got to understand
that when we are talking about a particular transgender community,
for too long, they have been the subject of bias
and frankly, a lack of understanding about their circumstances and
their physical needs in addition to any other needs they have,

(26:12):
and it's about time that we have a better understanding
of that. You will notice she was asked a yes
or no question and did not respond with yes or no.
That yes, right, yeah, yeah, which is like, that's not
what you're being asked. She from what I under the

(26:33):
bit that you so you dug into this more she
was like in the Norseworthy situation, specifically as she was
for her receiving hormone therapy but not for having any
sort of reconstructive surgery, correct saying that Northworthy was not
in mediate physical danger, but Norseworthy received. Didn't she get
attacked in prison? I believe so. Yeah. I mean it's

(26:56):
I'm not sure about Norseworthy specific case. I should have
looked into it more. There was a lot to look into. Um.
I will tell you that transgender people, particularly transgender people
who have not had gender reconstructive surgery and so um
cannot do not like physically present um as their as
their gender, are attacked and murdered in prisons at a

(27:17):
rate wildly higher than the general population, which is part
of the judge. This is not just a matter of
like people in the right will be like, oh, what
their prisoners, Why should care about their feelings? It's not
a feelings thing. It's a people get murdered, um and
like yeah, it's uh. And and also one of the
horrible things that prisons often do to like oh, because
they'll get murdered otherwise, it's put these people in solitary confinement,

(27:39):
which is essentially torture. So it's this is very a
lot of fucked up things are going on around this,
and I don't want to like we're focusing on commalit
today because we have to. Please don't take this as
like my comprehensive take on the treatment of transgender people
within the prison system. There's a lot to cover. Um,
this is a very fucked up and dark top pick.

(28:00):
So you'll note a few things about that response she
gave to the blade Um, which is that she obliquely
blamed other people in her office before she stated that
the buck stops with me, and that she didn't actually
answer the question about gender reassignment surgery. Now Dot Triple
threat um out dot Com takes a more critical look
at Kamala's record than the advocate um, and they noted

(28:21):
in this response to her non answer. They noted this
in response to her non answer, uh quote. Senator Elizabeth
Warren to Massachusetts, who was also seeking the Democratic Party's
presidential nomination, very recently came out in full support of
state funded gender affirming surgeries for incarcerated trans people, though
it should be noted that she vocally opposed the manner
while running for senator in two thousand twelve. I don't
think it's a good use of taxpayer dollars, she said

(28:43):
at the time. Now, I think it's really important to
be fair here um, when we talk about the attitudes
of elected leaders towards trans rights and towards gay rights.
President Obama didn't officially back gay marriage until a year
after Kamala was elected Attorney General, and support for trans
rights lagged well behind that. As we see with Senator Warren,
it was not at all uncommon for Democrats to be

(29:03):
non supportive of gender afform affirming surgery for incarcerated trans
people the time that Kamala was arguing against it for
the state of California. That doesn't excuse being wrong, but
we can't focus on only Kamala in this and blame
her for something that all Democrats were wrong on. That said,
I do believe her behavior in particularly her answers in
the modern day, are very troubling. Um And I believe

(29:24):
that the pattern of behavior you see with her that
you saw in this case is troubling if you look
at it in the greater context of other morally questionable
decisions she made as the attorney General. Um Like. For
one thing, you'll notice, like Elizabeth Warren also wrong on
this issue in two thousand twelve, just like Kamala now
was willing to take an affirmative stance on it, where
Kamala is still not really willing to answer that question.

(29:45):
Um So. In two thousand four, as d A in
San Francisco, as you noted, Katie, she refused to seek
the death penalty for a man who shot a cop.
Um Now, this hurt her support with uh like police
officers and like, really made it more difficult for her
to get elected. Um and so that that is a
brave and unpopular stance. You have to give her credit

(30:05):
for that. That's fucking hard to do, is the d A.
Um So, you would think that that's just something that
sort of runs through her whole career. This like kind
of vehement opposition to the death penalty. But in two
thousand fourteen, well into her time and office as a
g she appealed to judge's decision that called California's death
penalty system unconstitutional. Now, Harris justified this in a lot

(30:27):
of the same way she justified her opposition to gender
reassignment surgery for inmates. She said she was just advocating
for her client client. This is what she says now.
She also, at the time, though, made the peculiar claim
that this band undermines important protections that are courts provide
the defendants, the people who might get executed. Um. Now,
it's worth noting that while she she she argued essentially

(30:51):
in favor of the death penalty because she says she
had to because she was advocating for her client, she
did not, as Attorney general, always choose to reflectively refle
acxibly represent a client when that client's stances were counter
to her own beliefs. As Attorney General, she declined to
defend Proposition eight, which banns same sex marriage, so clearly
she was able to use her own discretion on other issues. Um. Interesting.

(31:15):
So yeah, that's that's really interesting to me. So this
is not a situation where she just had no alternatives,
could have made the choice trying to be easily moved
brick in the wall and deciding when to actually do
that and when to not do that. Well, it's also
like whose approval is she courting with this specific decision.

(31:40):
I would say that Prop eight that is a more
popular across the board in progressive circles to be opposed to, versus,
you know, the maybe the groups of people that she's
been trying to win back over that she you know, relationships.
I think you absolutely if you want to look at
it as just sort of like a cross political move,

(32:03):
it makes sense that way, because yeah, Okay, if I
don't back this death penalty thing, um, that's going to
piss off more cops, and I need more police groups
to back me in my re election campaign. But cops
on the whole in California don't really care all that
much about gay rights. They're not there. They don't support
Prop eight more than the rest of the population does.

(32:24):
And if I if I support Prop eight, uh, that
will cost me more net votes. So I'm going to
oppose prop eight like that makes sense to me. And
I don't think she took a stand for trans people
because she and I guess she was correct in this. Um,
she didn't think that there were enough of them to
matter electorally exactly wasn't worth the fight. Political climate was

(32:45):
such that people barely even understood what trans meant, and
it wasn't something that it was. It's an issue that
could have been potentially harmful for her at the time. Um,
she just really seems to have been positioning herself straddling
that line between progressive policies and also catering to you know,

(33:06):
this tough on crime. Yeah, it's trying to be trying
to be a progressive cop. Yeah, it's trying to be
a progressive cop. But it's also it's not trying to
be a progressive cop. Or at least one way you
could look at this is she's not like it looks
this looks to me less like she's she's an actual
progressive cop and more she understands where the winds are blowing.

(33:26):
She's in California. You want to seem like a progressive cop,
but you also the most important thing is to get reelected.
So when being progressive means pissing off a bunch of
cops in favor of a tiny number of transgender people.
You're gonna you're gonna throw the trans people under the bus. Um, Like,
that's that's what I see here. Um Now, I I

(33:48):
do have to say, like stating all that, Um, I
wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I didn't point
out some very significant ways that she did earn like
the title of progressive, that she really pushed some very
progressive program. So I'm gonna quote from a really good
vo article on her background here. She expanded her back
on Track program to other parts of the state after
Black Lives Matter took off. She introduced and expanded what
her office described as first of its kind training to

(34:10):
address racial bias as well as procedural justice, earning praise
from local newspapers. She made the California Department of Justice
the first statewide agency to require body cameras, and she
launched open Justice, a platform that, among other data, allows
the public to track reported killings by police officers. That's
all great, but yeah, there's there's this is a butt

(34:33):
full article. Um So. Her office also sought to release
fewer prisoners. When the U. S. Supreme Court found that
California's prisons were so overcrowded that it counted as cruel
and unusual punishment to keep that many people incarcerated, she
argued against releasing people because, and this is cartoonishly marged,
releasing too many prisoners would deplete the prison labor pool.

(34:54):
It's unbelievable. It made me gasp when I was reading
about that, Like that's like Garga levels of evil, because, yeah,
I would negatively impact cheap prison laborer because I guess
they could having them go out to fight wildfires only
cost them two dollars a day. Yeah, yeah, should that
That was specifically part of the justifications that we wanted

(35:15):
as many of the incarcerated people that we pay under
a legal minimum wage to fight our fires, fighting our fires,
some of them, all of them not being able to
have that job when they leave prison. Um, maybe there's
other ways to deal with this problem of not enough
wild firefighters. Maybe let them take that job after doing
it in prisons rehabilitation programs. Um, do you have this

(35:41):
extending to for one credits quote from her lawyers, because
if not, I want to share this at the time
Harris's lawyers argued that extending to for one credits to
all minimum custody inmates at this time would severely impact
the fire can't participation a dangerous outcome while California is
the middle of a difficult fire season in a severe drought.
And then later on, Harris claimed that the arguments uh

(36:04):
that she was shocked by those arguments that were made,
and she said she wasn't aware of her you don't
know specifically claimed she didn't realize they were using that
argument until she saw negative news that full quote, if
you want to, I want, oh beautiful, hit me up.
It's really it's it's really such a everything that we've
been talking about, because it's literally just I will be

(36:28):
very candid with you, very candid. Yeah, because I saw
that article this morning and I was shocked, and I'm
looking into it to see if the way it was
characterized in the paper is actually how it occurred in court.
I was very troubled by what I read. I just
need to find out what did we actually say in court.
It's baffling to me. It's not baffling, you're lying, you

(36:48):
know what. I'm looking into it. It's all just that anyway,
buck stops with me. But also I didn't know they
were doing this. Again, that's ship I'm gonna take. I'm
gonna take some responsibility, and I'm gonna get to the
bottom of why who did this. We're very we're very
strongly looking into it. Quick question, has literally anyone who's

(37:10):
ever said the buck stops with me actually been arguing
that the buck stops with them when they use that statement?
Or is it always used to be like, the buck
stops with me? But here's who's faulted about. I mean,
every case that I've seen in the last never, never, never,
ever has anyone said the buck stops with me and
I resign. Yeah, never followed up with that, Yeah, amazing. Um. Yeah,

(37:36):
so there's a bit of a pattern, you can say. Uh, Now,
it's fair to note that the AG's office of the
largest state in the Union handles way too many cases
for any one person to keep up with. That is
absolutely a reality, and maybe there should be some structural
changes to a number of things in order to address that.
UM But in you know, Justice Department UM policy did

(37:58):
not require state lawyers to seek approve from the A A. G.
So it is true that the people making this argument
did not have to clear it with Kamala Harris. But
it would have been completely within Kamala Harris's prerogative as
Attorney General to change that policy to institute a more
hands on approach that would have given her in her
office more approval and allowed her to catch things like this.

(38:20):
She did not institute this. It is suggested by some
that the reason she didn't is because it would have
antagonized her employees and law enforcement. We're seeing that same. Yeah.
Now this is where I should note that people today,
including myself, have taken to calling miss Kamala Harris a cop,
which some people say is unfair and reductive. I want
to note that during this time, she described herself as

(38:42):
California's top cop. So if you're calling Kamala Harris a cop,
you are calling her what she called herself. And it's fine. Well,
if you're gonna if we're gonna be more accurate, don't
say is a top as a cop, Say Kamala Harris
is the top cop. She was the top cope. And maybe,
if you want to be whimsical, suggest that Kamala Harris

(39:02):
was the time cop so that we can imagine her
in Jean Claude Van Damn kick fighting their way through history,
which I do enjoy. Let's all do that. I've just
take a moment to imagine it's a cod which would
you mind giving us a time machine? Noise? Oh god, Now,

(39:22):
just as you listen to this, I just imagine Kamala
Harris looping back in time to stop Hitler with the
support of is this adult Hitler Hitler? I think both.
I think she's really I'd rather take that She's gonna
throw baby Hitler at adult Hitler like Ahab throwing his
harpoon at the white whale. That's just going to destroy

(39:45):
the entire universe. It might, it might, and that would
really hurt her chances of elections. So she's yeah, we
would be calling certain people Nazis, and everyone be like,
you mean that obscure group in Germany that like, for
a year and a half are concerned about that? What

(40:05):
are you talking about now? Because of her progressive past
and decisions like declining to seek the death penalty for
that cop killer, Harris, like you said, was initially elected
a g with very little support. In her two thousand
ten victory was narrow enough, it was less than one percent.
She won by so incredibly narrow um and you know,
as you noted, uh, once she was in she seems

(40:27):
to have felt the need to throw red meat to
law enforcement in order to secure re election. So I'm
gonna quote again from that box right up from the
two sketchies cases that resulted from this trend. Harris also
overlooked and defended law enforcement officials accused of misconduct, and
one such case, state prosecutor Robert Murray falsified a confession,
using it to threaten the defendant with life in prison.
After a court throughout the indictment, Harris's office appealed it,
dismissing them misconduct because it did not involve physical violence.

(40:50):
Harris also resisted some attempts to hold police accountable for shootings,
including a bill that would have required the Attorney General's
office to investigate killings by police, and efforts to create
statewide standards for police own body cameras. She also defied
calls to have her office quickly investigate certain police shootings
in California. So that's good. Now. The darkest, maybe the

(41:10):
darkest chapter of Kamala's history as a g is the
story of George Gauge. Have you guys heard this? It's
fucked now. I'm gonna quote next from a New York
Times article, an opinion column titled Kamala Harris was not
a progressive prosecutors by someone at the Innocence Project. Quote
consider George Gauge, an electrician with no criminal record who

(41:31):
was charged in nine with sexually abusing his stepdaughter, who
reported the allegations years later. The case largely hinged on
the stepdaughter's testimony, and Mr Gage was convicted. Afterward, the
judge discovered that the prosecutor had unlawfully held back potentially
exculpatory evidence, including medical reports, indicating that the stepdaughter had
been repeatedly untruthful with law enforcement. Her mother even described

(41:51):
her as a pathological liar who lives her lies. And
two thousand fifteen, when the case reached the United States
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco,
Miss Harris's prosecutors defended the conviction. They pointed out that
Mr Gauge, while forced to act as his own lawyer,
had not properly raised the legal issue in the lower
court as the law required. The appellate judges acknowledged this

(42:12):
impediment and sent the case to mediation, a clear signal
for Miss Harris to dismiss the case. When she refused
to budge, the court upheld the conviction on that technicality.
Mr Gauge is still in prison serving a seventy year sentence.
That is fun, is fun, and it makes sense. There's
other stories like that, but it also makes sense. You know,
she started off prosecuting uh child sexual abuse cases, and

(42:38):
so that's something that you know, is her calling card
is such and so I guess that makes sense now, Katie,
speaking of calling cards, Yes, this product and our service
you could call our calling card, much like Kamala's is

(42:58):
unfairly imprisoning a man for crime. He didn't you did it?
You really got through that, Robert. We'll be right together everything.
So we're back. We're back. Um, we're back, and we're
talking about about kahar Malla Harris's Carress Carress. Yeah. Yeah. Now,

(43:29):
so when we talk about the case of George Gates,
there's a couple of things going on. One of them
is that like there's kind of this war between believing
the victim and also the fact that like there are
false accusations and this is particularly when we look at
false accusations cases of children and step children claiming years
later they were sexually abused. There's a dark history with that.

(43:49):
Obviously it happens, but also there was during the Satanic Panic,
there were a huge number of kids who had like
false memories essentially like pushed onto them by hypnotherapists and
ship and a ton of completely innocent people got charged
and like people who like worked at daycares. There's a
lot of this happened in California. So like there's a long,
fucked up history in California of this exact thing happening. Um.

(44:11):
And all of the cases, even outside of Kamala's are
are are that dark. Um. So it's like this is
like really messy and ugly, and it seems like Gauges
is a case where an innocent guy was was accused
of something he didn't do. Um, And it's fucked It's
just fucked um. And I'm sure if you were to
question Kamala about this, she would say again that she

(44:32):
was just doing her job as an advocate for the
state of California. Whether you find that defense compelling or not,
as a matter of your own personal morality, in terms
of my personal morality. I think the best article I
found on this subject was a column on The Intercept
titled can a prosecutor Become a President in the Age
of Black Lives Matter? And I'd like to quote from
that last. To become a prosecutor is a is to

(44:54):
make a choice to align oneself with a powerful and
fundamentally biased system. As Paul Butler, former prosecutor and author
of Chokehold Policing Black Men, told The Guardian, as a
lawyer who went to law school with a goal of
helping black people and using my legal skills to make
things better, the realization that the law itself was a
mechanism to keep African American people down was frightening. He added,

(45:16):
Lawyers are competitive and ambitious, and the way that manifests
itself in a prosecutor's office is you want to get
tough sentences. I got caught up in that world. You
feel like you're doing the lord's work. You tell yourselves
that you're helping the community, but he vividly recalls, the
expectation is far from reality. Compare his self reflection with
Harris's reply when asked about her decision to become a prosecutor.

(45:39):
There is a duty and a responsibility to be a
voice for the most voiceless and vulnerable and to do
the work of justice. And that's the work I wanted
to do. Harris revealed that her own parents questioned her
choice to become a prosecutor. My family and extended family
thought at best it was a curious decision, she recalled,
saying that she had to defend it like one would
a thesis. They asked, in Harris's words, why would you
go and be part of an institution that is not

(46:00):
always fair and does not always pursue justice? Now. That
column went on to compare Kamala's history as a district
attorney and an a g very unfavorably to Larry Krassner,
the recently elected district attorney in Philadelphia. In his first
weekend office, Krastner showed a distinct lack of fox for
how his actions would affect the likelihood of law enforcement

(46:20):
supporting him for re election. He fired thirty one prosecutors
who were not on board with his reforms immediately. Under Krastner,
the Philadelphia d A no longer charges sex workers who
have less than three prior convictions. It does not prosecute
marijuana possession plea bargaining no longer starts with the highest
possible sentences, and prosecutors are required to add up the

(46:42):
cost of incarcerating a prisoner and justify why the expense
is worthwhile to the city based on their crimes. Um,
that's not like. That's to show like you can go
in as a prosecutor with a very progressive mindset and
make changes like that. Um, it would be unfair to
say that Kamala Harris did not do anything progressive, either

(47:02):
as a d A or as a as an attorney general.
She did a number of very progressive things, but I
do not think it's fair to call her a progressive prosecutor.
She is a prosecutor who wanted to get reelected, and
she took progressive stances when they were popular and increased
her odds of getting elected. That's not a hundred percent
of the time. She did take some bold cases, but
that was not the norm for her career, right. I

(47:23):
think that's where I land on this calculated it's a
calculator prosecutor. She called herself a tough progressive prosecutor. I
believe I saw that quote somewhere and you know, yeah again, yeah,
it's it's not as progressive as you think she would like. Yeah,
not quite. Um, yeah, yeah, it's all very interesting. One
quick thing about her time is a g I guess

(47:45):
in she did not prosecute Steve Manuchen's bank One West Bank,
despite their being evidence of misconduct, and later Manuchin donated
two thousand dollars to her campaign. Uh how about that?
Why do you think he did that? Well, you know,
why do you think one? Why does one and why

(48:06):
does one not? But Comma, it's important. Though she did
not vote. She voted against his confirmation as as Secretary
of the Treachery. So yeah, the buck stopped there. The
buck did stopped there. Sometimes the buck does stop where
where it should stop. Cody, do you want to talk
to us a bit about her platform and how that
is changed? Um? And I think honestly we've covered We've

(48:28):
covered a lot of it just sort of by talking
about these events, because, like we said, like she is
against the death penalty. Now that that is part of
her platform, her history, and that is a little shaky.
Um Yeah, clearly clearly choosing to to be that sometimes
and not be that other times. Um. She wants to

(48:48):
uh does issue with cash bail. She wants to reform, slash,
reduce cash bail. Um. But as her time as his attorney.
Don't know if you read about this. Here's just a
quote from her. People come to San Francisco to commit
crimes because it's cheaper to do it. So she wanted
to San Francisco lately, but she so she wanted to

(49:11):
raise cash bail during that time. I I love the
picture that paints of criminals. Hey, Chuck, you know what
this fucking I don't want to I don't want to
be criming in Milwaukee. This Let's go to San Francisco,
will any where the crimes are paved with gold. It's
warm enough to sleep on the street. Yeah, so like

(49:31):
the lots. Fine, that is a little a little, a
little much. It's a little still but also inconsistent with
how she's framing it now. Um. And also I think
it's telling that she's saying that she wants to reform
cash bail and reduce cash bail as opposed to just
abolish cash bail um. Because that, I mean, that's what

(49:53):
you would if you were like, like really progressive and
wanting to like reduce this, you would say, well, we
shouldn't have cash bail. It's easily too easily manipulated and benefits.
She just wants to want to reduce it. And because
nothing too extreme here. Yeah, it's this sort of the
middle ground, sort of calculating how how much you can go,
how much you can't. Yeah, it's like, oh, you get

(50:14):
impaled by an iron bar, Well, let's replace that with
a slightly smaller iron bar. Don't you feel better now?
It looks far smaller. It does look smaller, it feels smaller. UM.
So the cash bail is interesting. UM. She does she
wants to get rid of mandatory minimum sentencing. So that's
something where it's like, no, we should get rid of this. UM.
So I want to give her a little credit where UM.

(50:35):
One thing she does want to end is private prisons now,
although as we sort of talk about UM, it does
seem like she doesn't necessarily want to do that because
of all the free labor that you can get from prisons. UM.
And she's been criticized in the past UM for not
using her position as a g to oppose Governor Jerry

(50:57):
Brown UM in response to a prison over crowding he
wanted to move inmates to private prisons, and she did
not fight back on that. Um. So again little inconsistency
seems to be sort of calculated. Um and uh, I
just wanted to bring up this thing with the firefighting
because when you have that and that happened and you're

(51:22):
talking about things like, you know, she's supportive of things
like the Green New Deal vaguely not like not specifically
the Green New Deal, but we're talking about that and
all the sort of work that needs to be done,
it sort of makes you wonder, like where where is
that labor going to come from from? Somebody who has
uh supported keeping people in prison because of the free

(51:42):
labor that it offers us. Um. Yeah, yeah, It's one
of those things when you when I look at like
okay if um, you know again its new secret. Like
my my my top pick would be Bernie Sanders. I
think my two would be Warren. If I think about
who I would prefer outside of those, I'm not saying

(52:02):
Kamala's top of that list. She's someone who I don't
trust to make principle moral stances, and I don't trust
to take on her own serious action for things that
are are immediately necessary. Like massive sweeping criminal justice reform,
like climate change legislation. Um. I do trust that she's
someone who wants to be elected enough that is there,

(52:24):
if there is a sustained and large scale campaign to
push those things, she will do what she thinks is popular.
And and that that's not a negative when you compared
to where we are right now, where no action will
ever be to politician, a liberal politician. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. Um,
but like, yeah, also, it's it's a bummer to be

(52:47):
like to be at that point where it's like, well,
at least this person will stand up for what's right
if millions of people protest in favor of it. Yeah,
if we shame her into action, she will take action. Yeah,
which is not the worst case scenario. No, it's not. There.
Certainly have been presidents that you can't say the same before. Um. Yes,

(53:10):
you know, I've heard a lot of people when they
talk about why they want Kamala or at least before,
is that they want to see her on a debate
stage with Donald Trump. And I get the appeal of that,
but well, first of all, I don't know if Donald
Trump would show up for a debate with Kamala Harris,
but also that Donald Trump would show up for a
debate with any one. Why would Yeah, what would he

(53:33):
have to gain from it? Yeah, maybe he had nothing
to lose, nothing to gain, he would just not do it,
would be exactly as he is. But I know my
college shot here is that he will say something along
the lines of I think my record for president speaks
for itself, and I have no need to debate an
opponents ever had a story. Maybe I'll be wrong. I'm
just I am excited to see her question him in

(53:55):
an appeachment hearing or something that actually she's great in
prositutor exactly. Um. I look forward to a bunch of
lawyers who are now senators doing that in the court. Um.
I think that desiring that, aside from whether or not
he's going to show up, is a silly reason to
want somebody to be the president. Yes, I guess what's

(54:18):
going to happen when those debates are over in the
elections over us? Yeah, And I kind of think debating
is a lot like actually running for for public office.
And I think this is something I did debate, um
for basically all of high school, and I was uh
not the best at it, but I made it to
nationals one year and I was I was like very

(54:39):
highly ranked within my state. I was good at it.
And Um. One of the things, the good thing that
you do that speech and debate teaches you is how
to make an affirmative in a negative argument. But I
think it is always a helpful thing whenever you're trying
to understand an issue is to figure out the best
case for and against it and then sort of like
you can. That is one way you can arrive at truth.
The downside is that UM, and this is something you'll

(55:01):
see with allse like Ben Shapiro, one of the real
easy ways to win is to just lie or twist
the facts in a way that you know your opponent
won't be ready to counter, because all that matters is
actually scoring points in the moment. An objective truth has
nothing to do with winning a debate, And it's sort
of similar to running for office, where taking a stance
that wins the argument is often better than taking a

(55:23):
stance that is the right thing, Which is why I
get I don't, I don't. I don't like um did
bates per Se? I like, yeah, it's not value And
having all the candidates talk and argue their points, but
especially debates between politicians who are seasoned doing that specifically,
it's like, well, what do you actually believe? Oh, I

(55:44):
can actually look at your record of That's why so
many people are more drawn to Bernie and to Warren.
H yeah, if not many, if we're looking, but why Yeah,
but that that is the appeal of those two candidates.
It's why an elderly, wild haired socialist has become one

(56:05):
of those popular politicians in the country for basically shouting
numbers at people for the last six years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's Um, it's why you can It's why after six years, Uh,
everybody is saying healthcare is a human right. Yes, yes,

(56:26):
because you say it over and over because you believe it,
then everyone else will yeah catch on the history books
will love it no matter what happens. That is true. Um,
he's a lovable man. Um. Happy birthday whenever your birthday
is Bernie. Uh. Speak of healthcare, we talk about this
a lot. We talk about Medicare for all on this show.
And because that's I think gonna be a large part
of the alleged debate UM going forward, and it's definitely

(56:50):
UH debate topic amongst the candidates for the Democratic primary. UM,
and I think just sort of to color uh, what
we've been talking about in this history. Kamala was one
of the first people, UH to come out in favor
of Bernie Sanders Medicare for all plans. She ran an

(57:11):
ad in August. I was proud to be the first
Senate Democrat to come out and support of Bernie Sanders
Medicare for all. Bill. UM. It is absurd that we
are the only major industrialized nation in the world not
to guarantee health care to all people. At your name
if you agree it's not for Medicare for all, UM,
and UH, that is true. She came out, there was
a big press conference, you can see all the different
senators who support that UM. And since then she has

(57:35):
slowly drifted away from that. UM. At a large donor
fundraiser UM in the Hampton's of all places, UM, she
was heard to UH have said, uh she had not
been comfortable with Bernie's plan. And so that sort of

(57:56):
UH has driven us to where she is now, UM,
which is calling it medicare for all. UM. I will
I will say it's it is better than like a
Pete Buddha Jedge, who was like medicare for all who wanted,
or medicare if you sign you know, that kind of thing. Um,
So she's not that far from it, but it is
a she. I think she would call it a middle

(58:18):
ground attempt at a medicare plan um that includes private insurance.
Still um, which, I'm surprised that she changed your opinion.
Surprised she changed your opinion. I wonder if it's from
uh maybe donors from like the farming industry and things
like that, and just sort of sort of that calculation. Cody,

(58:39):
this is not a conspiracy theory podcast, and your crackpot
theories about money influencing politics are not welcome here. Okay, okay, okay,
I good luck with the podcast everybody. Now we're bringing
in the dog from Frasier. We are bringing in the
dog from Fraser. This is the Fraser Castle. Can please,

(59:02):
Oh Robert, that dogs dead? Oh God out the dog
that they got to play the dog after the first
dog died is probably dead. Well, I mean, I I
heart does keep a witch doctor on staff? Um. Oh,
I'm back on the pod. Make I desperately need a

(59:23):
witch doctor. Why don't we finish this episode? You're back
on the pod. Yeah, and we don't have to get
into it too much. It's just that the uh, the
comparison of now too earlier. It does seem like she
sort of jumped on the bandwagon as it was very,
very popular, and she wanted to be the first on
there to sort of get those ads out early on

(59:43):
and maybe get like an email like a donor list
and get get sort of her name and get the
access and sort of build her brand up and then
distance herself and be like, well, also, prevent sure is
really good. We don't lose that. Um So, uh, that's
just something to think about, thinking about it, just something
to think about. I love thinking. I'm tired of it.

(01:00:06):
I'm middle ground. I'm feeling Kamala about it. Well, that
was pretty interesting. We learned a lot today. Yeah. I
went through like sort of an arc as I was
reading about Kamala's time as a g where like I
started reading like some of those Advocate articles more positive
pointed out you know, she did a lot of really

(01:00:26):
good stuff for LGBT people that like was not common
in that period for someone in your position to do.
And I was like, maybe maybe I got this ship wrong,
Like maybe being unfair to her and then like it's
it's like this parabola of like hitting a certain point
and then hitting like the right articles be like oh no, no,
it was a real whirlwind, a roller coaster ride. Is

(01:00:48):
digging through it, you're like okay, oh okay. Well, I
think that's also like if you're calculated and you're trying
to do the middle ground, you're trying to please these
people at the time is right and these people and
the other times, then you're going to have that journey.
And I guess that's also why going back to what
I said at the beginning about her relationship with Willie
Brown and the criticism she's received, is like, yeah, again,

(01:01:12):
she had to start this one was a politician and
she's smart. She's maneuvered her way through this, and you
can't you can't take a give you can't give credit
to him for this career that she's I mean, listen
to her answer about the transgender prison stuff. No, that's
a politician answering, Oh my god, yeah, yeah, yeah, sir.

(01:01:34):
Were you were you drunk driving when you ran into
that family of elderly people walking down the street. Well,
you know, I think drunk driving is a real problem,
and I think we need to look seriously both the
societal and the personal emotional causes of such things. And
I really think we we have to treat it like
the problem that it is. Now, Will you help me
pull this corpse out of the grill on my fift

(01:01:55):
before I roll right along? I've got more tequila to drink.
Thunderous applause. We need to take a serious look at
the safety of cars. Yeah, not wrong. If I didn't
hear the question, I'd be like, yeah, I guess so
if that was just a random state, Okay, we got

(01:02:15):
to worry about cars, you're right, Yeah, yeah, Kamala Harris
pro drunk driving. Yeah, and you're thinking of Betto Betto
as he drunkenly skateboards in Calibunga. That's a real problem

(01:02:38):
in America. And I really if if he changed his
slogan to just Calibunga, I'd be all in. Although he
would Trump Trump would have resigned. Congress would have voted
unanimously to make him the president, like Mitch McConnell, like
sits back, you know what, yes, yes, everything you want.
Trump would have taken off his tie and put it

(01:03:00):
for better I'm sad that before we could do an
episode on him my family. I want to ask, in
a serious note, if Betto had thought drinking a beer
on stage would have won him votes, what what sort
of six back with? Because I I go back and

(01:03:20):
forth between what kind of beer he'd have brought out.
One end is he would have picked like a super
hipstory like I P A or something like like like
really niche that he could have been a beer guy about.
The other is he would have gone with like the
most stereotypically blue collar beer, possibly led out with a
Miller like or something like that, one of the water beers. Yeah,
part of me thinks he might have gone out with

(01:03:40):
a Texas beer. And if he did, like this is
only gonna make sense to Texas people. There's the right
answer and the wrong answer. If you roll out on
stage with the Texas beer, the right answer is shiner
back and the wrong answer is lone Star. And I'm
certain he would have done a Lone Star. I'm not
from Texas, and I agree with you. Also, Yeah, certain,
as someone who has vomited up his body way in
both of those beers he would have he would have

(01:04:02):
he would have rolled out with a lone star and
he would have been wrong to do it. And this
is my stance for the fourteen people from Texas listening
to righted It open and been like Kara Berna, I
didn't even say it right. You can't even do that, right, yeah, right,
all right, guys, this has gone off the rails, real real,
well it's this is the worst year ever. But we

(01:04:27):
can make it more tolerable by occasionally laughing about beatos
like strange fan fiction. The man is going to bring
us all together in He's not going to do anything
else from now on. All right, you guys can find
us online on Instagram and on Twitter at worst steer Pod,
I'm Gatti's stole. Uh say my name, say my name?

(01:04:51):
No name? Thank you, samon name Say that's a song.
I know that Destiny's Child. I got it, I got
a pop cultures. What is your name that you didn't
introduce at the beginning? Beyonce? No wait, no, that's another
person from Destiny's Child. I have forgotten that one pop
culture piece has erased my identity. Well, I'm so sorry.

(01:05:12):
We'll leave it at that, then, Katie and Cody and
co host, Thanks, guys, we'll see you next time. Sign it? Wait? Wait?
Should we? Should we tell them where to find us
on the internet dot com? I did? Oh, I forgot
that because I remember to see well, look forward to

(01:05:32):
the rest of this year. Well I where I really
learned how to walk? Who's the president right now? Beyond
nailed it? Yes, I tried. Worst Year Ever is a

(01:05:56):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.