Transcript of VP Kamala Harris on Defeat, Democrats, and the Fight Ahead

Hello, everybody. My name is Jon Stewart. I host the Weekly Show podcast with Jon Stewart. How convenient. It is Wednesday, October 29th. Tomorrow is Thursday, October 30th. That's probably where you're going to be hearing this stuff. We got a nice guest for you today. She ran for President just recently. Yeah, that's right. Vice President Kamala Harris is going to be joining us later, and we'll be talking about all kinds of different things. I'm assuming we can only conduct the conversation because the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is overseas, where he really seems to enjoy it much more than being here. I really think the problem that he has with America is we don't throw him enough parades with cultural music. I think if we just, no matter where he goes, have a red carpet at the ready and people playing the music of countries he's never actually been to, dressed in cultural garb, and then we just give him gifts. I think this is the way we can get through these next three years. Every day is Christmas in Malaysia. That's what we have to make America, the shit that they are giving it.

I don't know who is running through the gift list there, but when the new Japanese Prime Minister gave him a gold golf ball. I was like, that's just nailed it. When they came up with that idea, they were tossing things around. What should we give him? How about a new cryptocurrency? Now, he's already the billions in the world. Put his name on something here now. Gold golf ball. To combine, it's the Reese's peanut butter cup of gifts you could give to Donald Trump. It's a golf ball walking by a gold. I don't know what... Something gold. I probably should have had that more at the ready. Yeah, that was a good one. But beyond that, let's get to our golden golf ball for our audience. This is the segue of the century, for God's sakes. Let's just get to it. Folks, we're delighted today. We are joined by the former vice President of the United States of America, who has just written a book called 107 Days About the Campaign for President in 2024. Please welcome Vice President Kamala Harris. Madam Vice President.

Hi, John. How are you?

How am I? How are you? I'm good.

You know, all things considered, and there is a lot to consider.

Yes. How is the tour? You conceived of the book. Was this a way for you to memorialize the run? Did you view it as a postmortem? What was the impetus behind recording this and putting it down?

Well, there were a number of reasons. One, listen, it's part of America's history, and it's going to be written about. And it was important to me to make sure that my voice is present in the way those 107 days are talked about and written about. But there are other reasons. It was an election that is unprecedented in America history, in recent American history. But we had a sitting President who was running for re-election, and three and a half months out from the election decides not to run. The sitting vice President takes up the mantle against a former President who had been running for 10 years with 107 days to go.

You sound like you're pitching this to NBC Universal. I was like, imagine this. Jessica Chastain is the vice President.

But think about it. Just think about it. But it is. I wrote the book like a journal. It's like a journal. So specific days and what it was like. I think more than anything, the utility of the book, I hope, is to really lift up the hood on how this all works. I think that there's so much about, obviously, who becomes President of the United States that impacts all of us and people around the globe. But the process by which it occurs is really quite opaque. I think this is part of what is a problem in this moment, which is there's just a lack of transparency around how these systems work, how government works, how politics works. And And so I do believe that there is part of that aspect of the book that is meaningful.

Because that, to me, is fascinating because I think it's also, I agree with you, learning about that process for me in the book was wild. What parts of that process do you think Americans most either misunderstand or should understand that helps people understand better how candidates are chosen, how candidates are managed, how candidates become elected?

I think part of it is that there are a lot of variables that go into the whole process that are not obvious to the American people, whether it is about a consideration of a candidate's strength or viability based on their ability to fundraise, who is going to support them, where is that support going to come from? I think there is a huge aspect of the modern campaign that is about profound and vast amounts of mis-and-disinformation. And how does a campaign actually address that, especially if the process by doing it is at this point arcane, which is that we have not updated the process to be in the 21st century and understand how social media and technology can influence the miss and disinformation that has a huge impact on where voters start. And then you want to go through a process of talking with voters. I mean, John, part of the... I think what's wrong is this assumption in the language that talks about low information voters. Voters aren't low information. They are filled with information.

Too much information, voters?

Well, not too much information, but don't start with the assumption that you're working with a blank slate. People have information, and to the extent that they have been targeted with or are receiving miss and disinformation, the challenge is not just so-called educating the voter, but actually first being aware of whatever it is that they've been hearing, and then figuring out how you are going to have that conversation to challenge the assumptions that people are coming with. And I say that to everybody. I've been talking recently during the book tour about the assumptions that we are making about the people who voted differently than us. And we should challenge some of those assumptions, meaning that we have assumed that someone who votes differently than us may have a different set of morals or values or principles that are important to them. But let's first step back and ask the question, are we working with the same information? I purposely say information because fact is fact, two plus two is four. But are we working with the same information? Because I think we are finding this environment that we aren't always working with the same information. And so the conclusion that we draw is not based on the same set of facts.

And that's part of what is the challenge of this environment.

Do you think so does that then relate a campaign to a process of education?

Yeah, but first being educated about- Educated yourself. Yes, about what we think people are working with in terms of information. For example, here's part of why I say that I think it's arcane. I have knocked on a lot of doors in campaigning for myself and other people. And in a nutshell, I'll oversimplify, but in a nutshell, here's what we do. We call them canvassers, door knockers. We send them out with a clipboard and a piece of paper, and it says, okay, on a scale of one to five, find out how Mrs Smith feels about candidate John Stewart. And then you record, Okay, really hot on John Stewart, don't like him at all, ambivalent. So you take that information back to headquarters. And then two weeks before the election, if they were anywhere from open to the idea of John Stuart to love John Stuart, you say, Hey, Mrs. Smith, election is next Tuesday, and this is your polling place. Instead of sending them out to knock on Mrs. Smith's door, and when she starts talking about, I heard this thing about John Stewart on my Facebook group, on my fly fishing or my knitting group.

And I heard this thing about it and asking, What exactly? What's the name of the group? What exactly did you hear? And listening, listening to that voter, that person. Wait, what did they hear? They heard all kinds of things. I mean, the fly fishing community, they're not sure about you.

A river does not run through it when it comes to John Steer.

But taking that information back and seriously listening to accumulate the information and data about where people are. Because if we are assuming that we know everything they know based on the fact that we only watch CNN and MSNBC, we're screwed.

Here's where I would imagine, because what's interesting to me is you're saying that the processes by which we elect a candidate are now outdated. If the process is by which we elect a candidate- A lot of them are. Right, so that we won't know. Yet, when I think back Cambridge Analytics scandals or the way that data is used. I'm assuming that campaigns know more about the voters that they're targeting, that the idea that canvassing would be the manner by which campaigns would learn about voters. Seems quaint to me because I assume, like it is in television, we know more about the consumer or the viewer or the voter than we've ever known in the history of knowing things, and that canvassing is always going to be a blunt instrument, I would think.

Right. One would argue outdated, to be frank, with people having their nest and all the cameras. If they see somebody coming with a clipboard, they're probably not even answering the door. To your point, I agree with you. But fundamentally, yes, it is knowable to your point, right? In particular in the private sector, and certainly, corporations We have huge and complex systems to understand where, to your point, the consumer is, what are their likes, dislikes, what language works for them?

The government probably has the most of that, doesn't it?

Well, but again, we're talking about campaigns. We're not talking about the government. We're not talking about corporations. And part of what we need to do, I'll speak for the Democratic Party, that in my experience as a Democratic nominee, part of what we've got to do is upgrade our systems of knowing where the voter and where people are. And that is about having mechanisms that allow us to, yes, collect and analyze data correctly, but also to challenge ourselves, are we listening to everyone? For example, in my book tour, the assumption was, I'm going to go to New York, LA, DC, Chicago. I said very clearly, and so we have done this, I'm going down south in addition to those places. So I said, I want to go to Durham, which is where we went. I want to go to Birmingham. John, do you know in the first 24 hours of announcing the book tour, Birmingham sold out in the first 24 hours. So I remember that we had two shows in Birmingham? Great. I'm going to Nashville, of course, Atlanta.

You sound like a comic now. This schedule sounds like my schedule.

Well, but let's go where the people are, right? Again, I think underlying a lot of my concern is, let's challenge our assumptions about where people are, what they're thinking, what they know.

But are you learning, are the people that are going to come to see you in Birmingham or Durham or LA or New York? I understand the regional differences and things along that matter. But in the same way of canvassing, are you really learning about them in a real way, embedding yourself, or is it a prescribed experience that each experience is the same, knowing what it's like, and I can't imagine what it's like for you, but you are, I would assume, insulated from the reality of those experiences unless you go out of your way to design something. But outside of the people that would come to see you.

I have been doing that. I've not been doing it with the press, but when I I've been visiting these various cities, and I have not made it, I guess this is the first time I'm actually talking about it publicly. What the hell?

Are we breaking what?

Hey, hold on. But I have been. But I have been. And so bringing people together, in particular people under the age of 40, bringing people together, a cross-section of people, a cross-section of race, and obviously, geographic location, background, educational level, and literally listening to them. I ask one question, How are you doing? And then the rest of that time, one to two hours at least, is listening. For me, I'll speak for myself, I want to do that more because people have a lot to say. And when you give them a safe place to do it, where it is okay to disagree, where it is okay to talk about your fears and your hopes without judgment, people have a lot to say. They have a lot to say.

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Yes, some of it has. I mean, first of all, number one issue for everybody is the cost of living. Number one issue. I actually believe that when we think about the election in '24, we should understand that there are, I think, a significant number of people who voted for the guy who's in the White House based on one belief.

I haven't finished the book. Don't tell me who I don't want to know the ending.

It's a thriller. It's a political thriller. All right. But they believed him when he said he was going to bring down prices on day one. And of course, he lied. Inflation is up, unemployment is up, the cost of food is up. But one of the things that I'm hearing is that number one concern, especially for people under the age of 40, is the cost of not only groceries, but housing, a real concern about the future of work in terms of technology. And another thing I'm hearing, in particular from parents of younger children and high school for middle-aged children is the impact of social media on their kids and their mental health. And then for every parent or anyone who's parenting affordable childcare is a huge, huge issue. I campaigned on that issue. I believe probably that and then what I intended to do, which is have Medicare cover home health care for people, especially in the sandwich generation, who are raising young children and taking care of their parents. It's a huge issue.

Is any of that Is any of that markedly different from what you would imagine? I would imagine what you're laying out, in some respects, is what you would have been laying out in 2020 when you guys were running in. As you went along in terms of governing, is It doesn't sound like any of those things are markedly different from what you would have been hearing from people for a while.

Here's what I would have done differently in terms of our administration on this. What we did on infrastructure, what we did with the Chips Act, incredibly important in terms of job creation, in terms of making the United States the manufacturer for the world on this important commodity chips. But I would have sequenced our priorities differently. I think we should have started with the care economy. I think we should have started with our agenda around affordable childcare, which would have been at 7% of someone's income, extension of the child tax credit, which reduced child poverty by half in America, paid leave.

During the pandemic you were talking about.

We talked about during the pandemic, but the effect of it as a priority would have been if We had sequenced it differently that it would have been beyond the pandemic. It would have been permanent. I think we should have done that first. Then we have to address the needs, the current needs, the existential threats to people getting through the week, much less than month.

All right, here we go. Now we're getting into the meat. Here we go.

Yeah.

Folks, get out your knife and forth.

I want to do that, but here's the other thing I want to do because it's connected. Just one other thing in terms of what I'm hearing.

Please.

And this is a subtext to a lot of what I'm hearing. We have a huge trust issue in America. It is what has existed, including highlighted during the pandemic, which is the trust or the distrust or mistrust that the people have in their government and in its systems, many of which failed the people during the pandemic. But also, and we're not talking enough about this, the distrust that exists between the American people of each other. I'm not talking about just, Can I leave my door unlocked at night? I'm talking about, Can I trust that you are not a threat to my very existence? I think this is a very real issue in our country right now, and we have to deal with it. We have to deal with it, and it cuts a lot of ways.

Well, I think a lot of that is probably related to, if you look at social media and the incentive structure of it, it's designed for hostility and anger. If that's the main driving force of communication between people, I think it's probably pretty clear that it catastrophizes generally so that everybody finds themselves in a constant state of lather because that's how the algorithm is designed to do that to you.

It's designed, we talked about it, and I'm It's not like psychology 101 in college, but the id, right? It is...

But it is- Our deepest desire is animal, primitive.

What is most primitive, that is part of the reason for the life of the human species is to instill fear, which then creates fight or flight, right? Yeah. And what can create fear more than you believe you are being attacked. You believe that your very existence is the subject of another's ire. And this has happened. So your point, I agree, the algorithm systems around social media are designed to make you feel something. It fosters it. But it's designed to make people feel something. Not just think, but feel something. And one of the most primitive, to your point, Feelings that we have that translates into action, because that is the point. That is the point. What feeling translates into action?

And by the way, in political terms, both sides are quite adept at weaponizing those feelings and creating... Trump is an existential threat to this. Kamala is an existential threat to this, and it does create that. I don't know that politics has never not done that. I think generally, that's the idea to portray your opponent. But social media certainly amplifies it to an extent that most people's brains have not yet figured out a way to filter. Would that be fair?

Yeah, that is part of what As we say, is that allows for the clicks, right? There's this whole, what do they call it? The attention capital, right? So if you want to market your product, if you want people to stay on your site, whether you are an influencer or a corporation, you want people to feel something continuously. Again, that's about tapping into people's... Their deepest feelings. They call it the attention economy.

It weaponizes and incentivize it. But I want to get back to because I think what you said about trust, for me, is the crux of this issue. So much of what the postmortem for this election was, and I think in the book as well, a, time, you expressing a desire for more time, and other things that had to do with the lying that Trump did, the unorthodox methods of campaigning that he did. But it was a lot of... The elephant in the room was the record of the Democrats. Democrats, I don't know, have reconciled with what may be the primary factor, at least in my mind, which is a dissatisfaction amongst the people that government was being responsive to the needs of the people that it purports to represent. It was a level of dissatisfaction with that. You got to it a little bit with, I maybe would have reversed a couple of things. But I wonder, is competence the antidote to fascism? That's interesting. Are the Democrats reconciling with the dissatisfaction that people perceive with government's performance rating as it relates to their lives?

I agree with you that one of the biggest One of the biggest problems that we have right now, and to your point, it gets back to the trust issue, is do the people believe that government is actually meeting their needs? Do the people believe that government is even responsive to their fears and their dreams, even if it falls short?

And the Democrats are the party. And the Democrats are the party that believe, and so they have a special responsibility here, they're the party that believes government has a role to play in improving the conditions of their lives. The Republicans are selling a product they don't believe in. But Democrats aren't. So how does that square?

We need to do better.

I mean, this is- I guess we're done.

Well, we do. I mean, we need to, and it gets back to, again, dealing with the highest priority issues and addressing them. Now, Democrats do address this, and we can only get so far without the support of the willing and reasonable on the other side, right, to get some of these things passed. But you look at, for example, the battle that's happening right now in terms of the shutdown. Democrats are standing firm, and I applaud the Democrats in DC for standing firm on saying, We're not going to compromise on the access to affordable health care for the American people. So it is about standing on our values and principles. And then to your point, we got to execute on it and actually deliver. And we're going to have to do a better job because we are dealing with a reality, which is that, look, in 24 Therefore, one-third of the voters voted for him, one-third voted for us, and one-third didn't vote. I think a big part of our focus needs to be on that one-third that didn't vote and why didn't they vote. That's part of why I'm going around and actually just sitting down and letting people talk.

Why didn't they vote? I think a undercurrent there is because I don't believe that when I participate, I get anything out of it.

Right. You brought up the shutdown, I I think that's a great example. Democrats are in a position now where they are shutting things down so that subsidies for the ACA can be extended because insurance premiums are are driving- And will skyrocket.

Will skyrocket. Yeah.

But to the point of the Democrats approach, I guess what I'm driving at is, are the reforms that Democrats are talking about not enough to are they basically tinkering at the edges of a system that is inherently corrupt and not delivering, as opposed to rethinking that system so that it delivers more directly. Let's talk about the ACA. Basically, it's a conservative fix to a healthcare system that is an outlier in the civilized world. It gives people a coupon that allows them maybe entrance into this circus that is our health care system. Now Democrats are fighting to keep the cost of that coupon slightly less. Are you now trapped in a program that ultimately wasn't the fix that we wanted it to be to a system that inherently won't function well because of externalities in a straight capitalist supply and demand way? Does that make sense?

I think so.

As Because I was talking to them. I was like, Does it make sense? I'm not sure. It just makes sense.

Well, what makes sense is that we still have work to do to make America's health care system deliver for all the people and not be a function of how much money you have in your back pocket. Democrats do come from that place of believing that health care should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it. How do you get there? Well, part of how you get there immediately on this issue of where we are with the shutdown is to whole firm as they are doing. Part of it has to be to continue to reform the system. The Affordable Care Act was a significant reform for its time. But there is more work to be done, which includes, for example, the affordability of prescription medication. We pushed for a $35 cap on insulin, which had a huge impact on so many people. We wanted to do it, not we did it for seniors. We wanted to do it for everyone. We couldn't get the support of Republicans in Congress.

But again, it speaks to incremental change. I guess my point is- Which is never satisfying.

That's right. It's never satisfying to say we've got to be incremental. I'm not advocating incrementalism, but until we win back majorities in the Senate and the House and take the White House, that may just be where we are. It's not where we should be, and it should not satisfy us that we have a accomplished incremental change. We should be completely pissed off about that.

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I don't know who the establishment is at this point.

Right. Oh, God, that's a whole different problem, isn't it?

Yeah, isn't it?

Well, wouldn't you be considered as the flag bearer for the Democratic run for presidency? I would assume that you're at least in the conversation as the establishment leader of the Democratic Party. I would say you're probably the most well known, and probably Bernie is the establishment leader of the progressive wing of that party. But I would imagine that your leadership in that area would be significant.

Yes, I agree. And part of the work that we have to do for the Democratic Party going forward is really come to terms with what are we fighting for and not just what we're fighting against. I think part of the problem with where we are now, call it establishment or something else, whatever label we want to put on it, is my fear is that we cannot be a party that is so almost myopically focused on the guy that's currently in the White House, that we are not paying attention to, one, how we got here, which is that this is about a pattern that was decades in the making. But two, understanding that where we are right now, there's a whole apparatus around support for this guy and what he's doing. It is part of an agenda that they published it in Project 2025. That thing didn't come out of thin air. It's a product of a lot of folks, including Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. And so part of how Democrats should be thinking about leadership and getting through this moment is, yes, fighting what's wrong, doing what we're doing to fight against redistricting.

But also we've got to understand that we cannot just be focused on Donald Trump. We need to not only be against something, but also we need to be understanding of how we got here and that it's a bigger apparatus and not just the one guy. But the second point that is equally important, which we're not emphasizing, is what we stand for. And so not just fighting, it's about anti-Trump, anti Trump, but it is about health care. It is about affordable housing. It is about what we need to do around childcare. Because people got to know what you stand for so that they're clear about what they're fighting for.

The issue One of the times that I have with the Democratic Party is there's certainly a high-minded rhetoric around what they stand for, because I've heard that health care is a right and everyone deserves a... It's generally framed as a moral argument. The rhetoric is somewhat audacious, locked into that sense of purpose and being and what we should be. But the governance is generally, as we talked about, more timid. It's the audacity of hope and the timidity of what the Republicans will allow us to do. I think what's frustrating for, and I can only speak for myself on this, is the dance that we end up doing. Because I look at health care as, Is it a right? I don't know. But it's certainly a commodity, and it's one that the market has failed on. If government isn't at its purpose there to help with outcomes that the market fails on.

Yeah, absolutely right. I agree with you. I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you on that, which is we are so mired in process, especially people who have been in the system for a while, that we are almost blind or we place a secondary importance on the progress piece because we get mired in the process piece. Look, here's part of how I think about this moment. Things may get worse before they better under this sky. We, at the end of this, are going to be looking at a whole lot of debris. They are breaking things. There is a moment then of how we should be thinking about this, a moment for which we should be also thinking about where the opportunity will be. And part of the opportunity, I believe, will be in transforming some of these systems that were broken before, that were failing us before, and that we cannot afford to be nostalgic about trying to recreate something that actually wasn't even working before this guy got there. And that's where There's going to have to be a moment of clarity around honest conversations about the failures of the system, with an acknowledgement also of the importance and the strength of those systems, like the fact that government should maintain its principal responsibilities around public health, public education, and public safety.

But on all three counts, one could argue, yeah, good job, but not. So let's also, and this is part of how I've been thinking is that we've got to also have as part of our capacity to leapfrog beyond this moment and think about when we get back some leverage around Around the House, the Senate, and the White House, how are we going to transform systems to make them better with an acknowledgement of what wasn't working?

So in the reflection of that, having been a part of the system, not so much as a prosecutor and district attorney and attorney general, but as a senator, as a vice president, as a candidate for president, in all those different roles. You were in those roles for, I think, a good decade, I would say, probably more, right?

Yeah, sure. About a decade.

The 107 days wasn't maybe enough time for you to consider that being in that crucible, but certainly your experience in that past decade and in the year since the election, with a little bit more time to reflect, what is it fundamentally about the system that you think We've gotten wrong.

I think fundamentally, what we've gotten wrong is we have mired progress in processes that are outdated and are not grounded.

A bureaucratic system.

But yes, and we can label it the bureaucracy. But more specifically, we have not grounded our measure of effectiveness based on metrics. We think if we're just working hard and we're moving and that wheel is moving, then all is good instead of, frankly, adopting an approach more aligned with, I think, what the private sector, how it thinks in terms of asking ROI, what is the return on the investment? What are the metrics? Giving ourselves timelines and deadlines to actually implement a good plan, but also, and this may sound contradictory, giving ourselves enough room to actually come up with a good idea that can work, so not rewarding a bunch of grand gestures that actually are meaningless in terms of the ability for implementation. You understand my point, right? I don't think any good public policy ends with an exclamation point. I just. But also then giving ourselves and holding ourselves accountable for speed around implementation.

Talk me through rural broadband. Rural broadband, we had a ton of money that was earmarked for it through the government. It's certainly a very worthwhile project. It's bringing areas that don't have accessibility to the information systems that they will need to progress economically and all those different things. The government comes up with during Biden administration, a rural broadband investment plan. Billions of dollars are spent, No rural broadband is delivered. How do you change that program? Because I think the fundamental thing I'm getting at here is, taxpayers don't feel like they get any value. That government has divorced money from value. And that problem fundamentally has to be fixed. So rural broadband being the specific example.

I think this is a great example.

How do you redo that?

Well, Part of it is one, a critical examination. Part of it is this. When you're coming up with the good idea, at the very same time that you're thinking about the good idea, there should be an equal amount of attention being given to how's the thing going to be implemented. Instead of everyone sitting around clicking their glasses, Oh, success, success, because we got the thing passed. In terms of whether it's a bill or whatever it is, executive order, whatever it that is necessary to actually proclaim the idea.

Is it in the design? You got an idea. We need to get rural broadband out to areas that don't have it. Is it the committees that design the bill? Is it the lobbyists that influence the bill?

I think it's everyone. It's the whole system is not working directly. Well, it's not. It's focused on implementation. If you're focused on it, this is where we're going to get very micro, but I'm good with it.

Get it, baby.

Let's think about, okay, so we have a plan for rural broadband, but it's going to have to go through all these administrative processes once the plan has been agreed on. This is part of the challenge, frankly, of a democracy, but we need to do better. We need more efficiency in our democracy because here's how democracy works. You come up with the idea and the plan, and then everyone says, okay, plan has been made. Now let's debate the plan. What ends up happening is we start then challenging the implementation of the plan around the bureaucracy, around agencies, and how long it takes for them to do their review.

There are 90-day periods and 120-day periods.

It needs to be shortened, and it can be shortened. Here's the other piece of this that I think is going to be maybe controversial, but here you go. Ai can help us with a a lot of that. For example, reviewing permits. It literally is about looking at numbers and figuring out what are the patterns to figure out, is this thing possible? There is a piece of this that is about government adopting technology, not around making policy decisions, but certainly about assisting us with the part of the process that's about just checking the numbers, checking the patterns. There is that piece of it.

In terms of where the need is or what patterns are.

In terms of the patterns that exist around, if you input this many dollars and we expect this output Does that math actually work? It's about math. It's not about policy. It's literally about math. Permitting, ask anybody who's trying to get a permit. It's about math. The rules are already set around this is the number of things you can have, this is the size, this is the width, all of these things. But permitting to build new housing takes forever. Because a bunch of people have to okay all these forms.

Isn't it in some ways though, that the Democrats are certainly more enamored of if you're going to fix one problem, that fix also has to address every other problem. In other words, if you're going to put in rural broadband or you're going to put in housing, it also has to fix climate. It It also has to fix environment, it also has to fix fair employment. All of those things together. There are lobbyists on the business side that insert things into laws that Well, that is true. Advantage them.

That is certainly true.

But there are certainly things on the democratic side that are inserted that disadvantage efficiency.

Here's what I would say about this. We cannot ever overlook impact. That's part of what would be the impact on a rural community? What would be the impact on children? What would be the impact on the environment? We should always ask those questions. Those are smart questions to ask. But we do need to also just address efficiency. Okay, I'll give you an example of something when I was vice president, I was focused on, the issue of maternal mortality. When I started looking at the details of it, I realized that states had the ability to expand Medicaid coverage for postpartum care, and that all of the states except three had not expanded it from 2 months to 12 months. I then basically issued a challenge, and it was shaming people like, Hey, why aren't you doing it? By the time I left as vice president, 47 states had done it. And it was just a matter of just like, Hey, you can do this thing. Why haven't you done it? It will improve the quality of life and life itself. These kinds of things are also part of how I think of how leaders have to think about increasing efficiencies in the system, which is about creative thought as opposed to, well, it's never been done before.

Not many people are doing it. There must be a reason they're not doing it. Let's just let it be. We have to challenge the system. So that is about an ethos.

How much of a teardown is this process? Now, to bring it to the East Wing, how much of a demo in your mind needs to be done after experiencing the frustrations of some of this in terms of wanting to get things done? How much of a demo project would you take to that process? Do you watch how Trump, forget about what he's doing, the way he's doing it? Is there a part of you that thinks there are lessons to be learned from that?

I believe it's important we not conflate disruption with destruction. I agree that disruption has a very important role to play, which is basically, as far as I define it, as much as anything about challenging the assumptions, challenging the status quo. I can tell you from my lived experience as a public servant, challenging the status quo is brutal. There is an assumption that status quo is static, that it is there. Let me tell you something. You start challenging status quo, you will find it is quite dynamic, and it will fight against change every step of the way. I know because I have tried and I have had successes, but I also have the bruises to show it. And so, listen, Disruption is important, but destruction for the sake of some grand gesture of look what I can do quickly overnight and just get rid of a thing without any plan for actually what's it going to... Why? And what is it going to actually do to improve people's in his lives. And not to mention, I mean, are you fucking kidding me? This guy wants to create a ballroom for his rich friends while completely turning a blind eye to the fact that babies are going to starve when the Snap benefits end in just hours from now?

Come on. I'm not going to be distracted by, Oh, does the guy have a big fucking hammer? What about those babies?

Right. I guess the point is, if you're, and I feel obviously your anger on it, how do we convince the Democrats that the system needs to be disrupted enough so that a person that's going to build a ballroom to the disadvantage of people on Snap, and we're conflating, it's obviously not the same money, but you're looking at- But let's talk about- Obviously, the vision of it.

But, John, let's talk about $20 billion going to Argentina, and it cost $8 billion to keep Snap going for poor children?

Right. Come on.

A taxpayer dollars, by the way.

When I think about your campaign, have we lost sight that the old rules don't apply? You've got a great thing in there. I think David Pluff said to you at some point. Said you got to nail four things. You got to nail the rollout, you got to nail your debate, you got to nail your convention speech, and you got to nail, I think there was one other thing, might have been your VP. But by all measures, you nailed every one of those. You just did. That convention speech, the debate, the rollout, the enthusiasm, you literally changed the dynamic in people's minds so that you felt that surge of possibility and excitement and joy. You nailed all of those status quo, conventional mileposts that they would put out for a candidate to be successful, and it wasn't. Is that consultant status quo establishment complex also part of when you talk about the status quo fighting back, it's not just coming from outside the house, it's coming from inside the house. Aren't we ready for the disruption that reimagines this? So that we don't find ourselves in this situation again? Because it's so hard to get any sense of people taking responsibility for that.

There are real shortcomings and flaws in how we're doing politics right now and how we're running campaigns. I give you that. When we look at 2024, at least when we look at those 107 days, I think we have to distinguish that between what was leading up to those 107 days. I do believe one of the biggest factors that was at play in the 107 days, we just didn't have enough time. We didn't have enough time.

Or was it too much time? I mean, if you had done In the election after 60 days, I think you went. Honestly, there seemed like a stagnation point. Then if you look at the lines, it doesn't look like... What would have changed?

But there's so many variables that went into the outcome of that race because you can also look at where you start to see an infusion of resources going into miss and disinformation. I talk about, for example, the Elon Musk in the book. You can look at that there were certain inflection points that had an impact on the race. To your point, it was, as David Plouffe said, it was those traditional inflection points, and there were others. I don't want to reduce what we need to do going forward to any one factor around what we could have done better, what I could have done better in those 107 days, what was happening before. I think there are a multitude of factors that all need to be addressed, including, again, in particular, the prevalence of mis-and-disinformation and our need to do better around data collection and analysis.

How do you feel about... And, boy, this is going to be a really broad sentiment, but when you took over and the way that the crowds were responding and that sense of possibility and that hope, and there was this real feeling of, Hey, man, the momentum has shifted. We're in this game again, and all that. But as the campaign moved on, misinformation, disinformation, all those things which existed, did it mean that the shift went from the emotion of the change to, once again, the defending of the status quo? That the real foundational problem is once it moved into you having to defend this status quo that people were dissatisfied with, would more time have changed that if that's the fundamentals?

I don't want to relitigate the campaign- Sure. Per se, but I will say that Part of what our challenge was, was we needed to... People in marketing will say that people need to hear things about three times before they've actually... It settles in. For example, our policy around Medicare covering home health care. We know, and the data has shown us, it was incredibly popular with a lot of people, regardless of how how they've registered to vote. But we needed more time for more people to hear it. We needed more time for people to hear the point that I was making about price gouging and that we were going to go after, for example, price gouging. We were going to go after corporate landlords who have been buying large amounts of property and jacking up rent. It just required more time. But again, there were a multitude of factors that contributed to the outcome of the election. I think all of them have to be taken into account.

The difficulty of that with when you talked about earlier, the trust factor feels eroded between people and their government. So even when you present certain things, if the trust isn't there, that's probably a more difficult sell at that point.

Well, right. Because, for example, on that, you can have someone who says, Kamla, I agree with you. I love that plan. And I believe that you understand it. I mean, look, my Medicare covering home health care was born out of my personal experience taking care of my mother when she was dying of cancer. But there is that. Then to your point on the trust of government and systems, that person saying, so I believe this is all genuine. I know it is, but can it be implemented? Can it actually happen? When will it happen in a way that impacts me? That gets back again to this issue that we have to address. It's going to take some real deep work, which is around restoring trust in the system systems and in government to actually do what we say it can do and will do. That's work.

Did your feelings of affection and loyalty to the President affect your ability to make that case as maybe as robustly as you wanted to make it for fear that it would be seen as upsetting to him or any of those, or did that not factor in?

No, I actually write about it extensively in the book about my feelings for the President. I care about him deeply, and I did not want to to pile on with all the criticism that he was facing. I didn't think it was necessary for me to wait on already what was so much. I do realize also in reflection that I did not fully understand how big of an issue it was for some people for me to distinguish myself from him. I I felt that the distinction between he and I was pretty clear. I think that was something that was a real issue. But knowing what I knew now, I would have probably approached it a bit differently.

I don't mean that in the personal sense of not ready. I meant it more in the sense of the policies that he wanted to implement or the way that they were implemented or the governance obstacles more than the competence conversation.

I'm not talking about competence. Oh, okay. Right. No, I'm not talking about competence at all.

Right.

No, I believe he was fully competent to serve.

Do you really?

Yeah, I do.

That surprises me, actually.

No, I do. But there's a distinction to be made between running for president and being president. What's the distinction? Well, being a candidate for president of the United States is about being in a marathon at a sprinter's pace, having tomatoes thrown at you every step you take.

That sounds lovely. Yeah, it's It's more than a notion.

It's more than a notion.

Get involved in public service, ladies and gentlemen.

To be the seated president, the sitting president, while doing that, it's a lot. It's a lot.

Yeah. I think it's a hard case to for people that he didn't have the stamina to run, but he had the stamina to govern, because I think most people view the presidency as a marathon run at a sprint with tomatoes being thrown at you in terms of governance. I think drawing that distinction. Again, I recognize the incredibly difficult place you are in with that, with personal relationships. I've been surprised at how much people talk about loyalty. It's funny in the book, it creeps in every now and again because it'll be like, I love Joe. I'm loyal Joe. He's the best. But he gave that 11 minutes speech, and it wasn't until 10 minutes in that he said anything about me. It's hard, I guess. You're still people. It's hard to get the personal feelings of rejection or upset or loyalty out of this.

Well, that's why I put it in the book. Because as people have commented, I'm very candid in the book, and it was a complicated relationship. Yeah, he disappointed me. Yes, he disappointed me.

It was clear, I think they It's not like you had disappointed them. That was so wild about it. It's tough. Do you have that relationship still?

Yes, we do. In fact, it was my birthday last week, and he called for my birthday. We had a really great conversation, and we plan on seeing each other. Like I said, it's complicated. I care a great deal about Joe Biden, and I know he cares about me, and that's not going to change.

Maybe some distance helps be reparative in that way.

Listen, relationships are complicated.

That's why I don't have them.

Well, let me tell you something, Kamal. Let me explain something that you've done about relationships. Here's my advice.

My advice is this. Lone wolf, baby. It's lone wolf. It's introversion, and you keep to yourself. These people are complicated. What about with Pete Buttajage? I imagine he had some feelings about the vice presidential selection. You make the case in the book.

I have nothing but praise for Pete. Yeah.

Have you guys talked about that part of it?

Yeah, I called him. Listen, I put out facts in the book, and With as much as anything an intention to create a permission structure for these difficult conversations to happen among all of us. I do believe that the conversations have been happening, probably in some small way because I put it in the book.

No, I understand. Because it's the candor that I appreciate it, very much so. I think it's the candor that, if conducted more publicly, could help improve the trust that people have. Because I think it's things that people feel like that must be going on, that must be the conversation behind the scenes. If they were to see that more publicly, maybe they would feel like, Oh, all right, this person, this feels more real to me.

And hopefully, then asking of ourselves, and as a voter, would it have mattered to me? Would it have made a difference? Because that's part of what I hope to invite, which is a level of introspection on behalf of all of us. I mean, John, for example, for example, if I had made different choices and the outcome were still the same and I were doing this interview, would you have said, Why did you do that?

No, it's a good question. I don't know. Why did you do that in terms of being more so candid?

Making it or making certain decisions in the campaign where there was perhaps a risk factor associated with it.

You know what? It's probably my prejudice, too, is then I filter the things that I look at that I would... I liken it to being a sports fan, being the armchair quarterback. Like, What are you doing? Calling a run? Yeah. I think I probably filter those decisions through the prejudices I have about what's wrong with the system. I use that as evidence that I'm right, that here's why the system doesn't work. I guess you can build your case from all kinds of different directions.

You know, one of the things that you're raising that I think is very present Distrust can quickly lead to cynicism. That's part of what we need to deal with, right? I mean, including Even some people, not recently, because no, Kings Day this last week was such a success. But people have asked me, why do you think more people aren't taking to the streets? People have asked me these kinds of questions. And part of the response has been that there are a fair number of people that are like, this system is just broken. It's never going to work. It doesn't work. And why should I participate or have any expectation of it being different? And a lot of people don't want to have that awful experience of being disappointed. And one way to avoid disappointment is to not have an expectation expectation of something that fails you and therefore disappoints you.

That's interesting.

Yeah, the cynicism piece is something that I think is acquired From a learned experience of learning that something was not worthy of their trust.

I think that's correct. I will say, and boy, is this a narrow focus group. My experience right now is the level of thirst that people have for an alternative for leadership is as high as I think I've ever experienced it. While cynicism is certainly the exhaust that can come out of the manifest, I also think the potential for idealism and for change and for excitement. I would say when people say, Why aren't more people in the street? I would say, Because they're not sure why they're there yet. Right now, they're just there as an amorphous, Listen, we're a constitutional Republic in a democracy, and this feels like an alien skin graft to our culture.

Yeah.

But I do think as you move more towards national midterms or things like that, or if the opportunity being for a leader, hello, Madam Vice President, to address with specificity that new way forcefully, it's there. It's there to be taken, I guess, is my... You spoke of it earlier. What an unbelievable opportunity. If we really do want to be a big tent, you've got to show. If Liz Cheney can be in the party, Mom Donnie can be in the party, too. Oh, for sure. And there's got to be- Of course. That drive.

Of course.

Is that the plan now for you? Because right now, they want to know who the leader is. They want to know what to follow. They want to know what this all means, and I don't think they're getting it.

I think I've started calling it our If you're complex, and I think we shouldn't.

Man, guilty as charged.

I know. Don't do it. You are dead right. Don't do it. It's hard, man. Wait for the Messiah. Don't do it. It's hard not to. We have so many stars in our party. There are so many stars, and let's not be afraid of them. You talk about Mamdani. I mean, he's exciting this group of people who who otherwise don't think of themselves as being aligned or apart or even seen by the system. You just look at the range of what we have so many. Jasmine Crockett, who I just talked to recently. I mean, we have so many stars. And if we're going to spend full-time in these circular conversations about who is the one, and we're overlooking... I mean, people like Greg Cossard. I don't know if you're following I mean, there are so many interesting people. I think it's a time to understand everyone has a role to play. Everyone has a role to play. And there are a lot of good players, a lot of strong players on the field. Back to your sports analogy.

What's the larger... Right now, is the Democratic Party a party of influencers, or is it a national movement towards something coherent?

It needs to be both. Which would you place in the Kamala Harris hierarchy of needs? Well, one works with the other, right? Because having a sense of direction and vision and then having the influencers who with their capacity to hold a mic in a way that people listen is going to be very important. It's going to be very important, and it is very important.

Do you feel you've re-energized from this? Do you feel this past year has been... What's been the importance of this past year for you?

It was rough at the beginning when we went back home after the inauguration. The election happened on January sixth, and I fulfilled my constitutional responsibility and duty.

You're talking about not the January sixth, the The January sixth where you did it without the fighting.

No, not the January sixth when I was sitting in the DNC when there was a live bomb outside of it, and I was vice president-elect. Not that January sixth. You're talking about the other January sixth. I'm talking about the other January sixth. It somehow went offThat always went fine. When I, as vice president of the United States, performed my constitutional duty-Yes, that's right. To certify-How it was supposed to look. Pre and fair election. That's right. Exactly. Which for some reason was big news because we-We peacefully transferred power again. We're back, baby. Look at us. Look at what we've done. Yeah. But I think that we've been through a lot for me, for my husband, Doug, our family. We had a period of transitioning, and not just transitioning, it was so much more than that, of really just starting to reflect. I mean, that's part of why I wrote the book.

Sure.

I did not allow myself any reflection for those 107 days. It was about, I need to get it done. Every day, can I do more? Can I do more? And then after that, after the inauguration, going back home was about literally and figuratively unpacking. I mean, literal boxes and just unpacking it all and reflecting and processing.

And even the scene of as you were doing that, the fires, you didn't even know what you were coming home to.

That was just-We were evacuated from our house until January 19th, the day before the inauguration, when we had to leave. Anyway, look, a lot of people have been through a lot. For us, there was a period of just trying to find the normal. And then I started writing this book, and now I'm on this tour, and I love traveling our country and just creating a space, hopefully, for people to come together and feel a sense of community. Some people have been telling me that the book actually gave them some closure around that whole period. And so let's get beyond it and get back out there and not a time to be passive or put the covers over your head saying, Wake me up when it's over. There's no time Wait, it's going to be over?

I think.

Well, like I said, I think it may get worse before it gets better, to be candid, but we have to be active.

I really appreciate you taking the time, reading the book and seeing... I mean, I hope people understand the dichotomy of that moment when you found out, I'm doing this, the explosion of enthusiasm of walking into rooms now of 20,000, 30,000 people, and they're chanting. To go in a third of a year from that to it's over, go back. I hope people can appreciate the emotional whiplash that I'm sure must have been a large part of that journey.

You are a sensitive guy, Jon Stewart. What?

No. You are. Not at all. I don't even cry. You understand feelings. Can I tell you something, though? This is going to sound awful. There's a couple of times in the book where you're like, and I told myself, I'm not going to cry. I'm like, there's no way that I could have done that. I remember I went on the show after my dog died, and 10 seconds into it, I was like, You don't understand. It was Dippa.

He's the best.

The idea that you could have the emotional fortitude to just be like, I'm not crying. Kudos. Thank you. Because I couldn't pull that off. Madam vice president, thank you for spending some time with us.

Good to be with you. Thank you for your voice, too, John.

Really appreciate it. Thank you. Take care.

Take care. Bye.

Interesting. Yes. That's it. Sometimes frustrating. I know I could not get on board with the catharsis of the book. She said someone found it cathartic to read. It felt like it was a countdown to then times. It's just like, oh. You knew the ending. It's Defcon 5 to Defcon 1. Yeah. I think it's hard for me. I always get the sense when I'm talking to these folks that they know more and feel more about what's right than what they are able to let on. The minute you get them beyond the confines of where they think they might make a misstep, things are communicated much more clearly, and I wish that that was the starting point. Does that resonate with you guys in any way? I think for a politician, saying nothing is better than saying something wrong. That isn't to say that she said nothing. No, I get it. But it's just a very cautious approach. But there were some moments I don't quite understand. The thing you brought up, John, about the difference between campaigning and governing. At least since, what, 2008, it's been the same, the constant- It's a constant. Campaign for everyone.

I should have mentioned that because it was... She talked about Biden could have governed, but not campaigning. I was like, Mm-hmm. It's the same now. And part of the problem with that is part of being president is being energetic enough to relentlessly fight back against the narratives that come out against whatever policies you I want to do. To be, unfortunately, you've got to be the person that is designing, implementing, and also selling. I just don't think it's possible. Yeah. Actually, this is something that I feel like Brittany can relate to. I was like, it's like the difference between running and being the president is Taylor Swift preparing for the Ares tour versus Taylor Swift being on the Ares tour. And honestly, both sound exhausting. But both are key to being Taylor Swift. Do you want to answer to that? Imagine attending four times, guys. That's exhausting in and of itself. No, what were you going to say, Brittany? I just thought the emotion when you guys were talking about Biden, the emotion that you could feel in her tone change was so authentic and real. Just hearing her talk about it, you can tell that's a heavy for her.

Oh, there's moments in the book where I'm like, she wants to be like, this motherfucker. There's real anger there and there's real hurt. But there's also she talks about they spent three a half years throwing her under the bus and not supporting her. I can imagine real grievance. And you can feel like I think she's being honest about that, especially in this conversation, which was really stood out to me. Brittany, what do we got for this week? All righty, John. First up, do you think they are trying to make CBS News a more respectable version of Fox News? I don't know that you can make something more respectable than Fox News when you're talking about the flagship station for American news. They report, We're the ones who decide, and I think we've decided. But it's no idea. I can truly... Every indication is they are using some magnetic field to pull it more clearly to the right because I guess their diagnosis is it's too far to the left. I would not suggest that the problem with CBS News is that it's so left wing, to be quite honest with you, and certainly not the problem with the 6: 30 broadcast, which is...

I think they should start with the graphics first, or they should just go the David Muir route, which is, Tonight, breaking news, America on fire. We have the video on fire, underwater, in attack. It's like a constant... Abc News is like, whatever the fuck they got on video that day that's exploded, that is what's going to be on there. Cbs, especially with Dickerson and Maurice Dubosc, more like, How was your day, John? It was good. There were some things that happened. I wanted to talk. It's mostly about education. We're going to go out to that now, but I'm not sure. Where in the studio is that? Why is that screen there? Okay. Then you just flip over to ABC and he's just like, hunger, fire, kill them. I used to write those, John. Oh, really? No way. Watching you perform them, though, is really warming my heart. Is that a directive? Is that something that is explicit? You want to catch people's attention away from their making dinner and such. Well, it works. Yeah, you were watching. I'm fucking up my dinner left and right. All right, what else we got? John, Khan, when President Trump's term ends- What?

Wait, are we breaking news? It's going to end? Dun, dun, dun. All right. How much of the White House do you think he will take back to Mar-a-Lago as It's been seven years. Here's what I think ultimately will happen. When his term is done, he will just end up still living there. More than likely, the Trump organization will rent out Mar-a-Lago for whatever the new president is, and they'll have to stay down there because nobody puts in a 90,000-square-foot ballroom for the next guy. Nobody takes the time to do... Unless you're flipping houses. Unless he's Ellen and Portia and just flipping houses and whoever the next person is. But I can't imagine the idea that they're going to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom for two state dinners, and then he's going to be like, All right, see you. That strikes me as- I'm also a renter, and I'm not allowed to drill holes into the wall. It feels like building a ball room is the question. I didn't listen. I drilled the holes, just to be clear. What? How dare you? Don't look too closely behind me. I wonder what this will do, though, to his security deposit.

They come in and go like, What's this right here? You're like, That was the east wing. Oh, yeah. No, that's not. I told you about that. It's another thing. The one thing he hasn't done, though, is tried to sneak pets in. That's the other. That's where I would get in trouble. You get in there and people would be like, Why are there cows here? He'd be like, I don't know. I don't know anything about that. I think they lived here. It's me. Excellent job, as always, you kids. Nicely done. We all read the book. We all talked about the book. It was like our little book We had a little book club. Yeah, let's do it more. I liked it. Same time next month. On 107 days. It was doable. Not like that Jill Lepore book. That Jill Lepore book, nearly broke me. But thank you, guys. Lead producer, Lauren Walker, producer, Brittany Mamedevik, producer, Gillian Speer, video editor and engineer, Rob Vittola, audio editor and engineer, Nicole Bois, and our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie gray. Very well done, guys. Thanks so much. See you next time. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast.

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