00:00:00
I'm going to just be honest. There were times where Joe Biden greatly disappointed me and frankly, you know,
00:00:07
angered me. Like on the day of my debate with Trump, the stakes were so high. And
00:00:12
the president calls and he said to me, it just was so unnecessary.
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And you took something from that that his motivation was all about himself. Do you think he wanted you to win the
00:00:24
election? Madame Vice President, there's nothing you said I couldn't ask you. Cuz I have a lot to say. And so it
00:00:34
Okay. So, do you wish you hadn't ran? No. But I do regret that we did not have more time. And then the debate that came before
00:00:39
with Biden and Trump, it was a car crash. I mean, this was clearly an individual that was very much struggling.
00:00:45
He didn't want that debate. I could tell something was a little off. How do you know? Well, I could start with this.
00:00:50
And what about not going on Joe Rogan's show? I definitely regret that we didn't do it, but there was a lot of games
00:00:55
being played. And then on that night when the election hasn't gone your way, what would I have seen if I was a fly on the wall in the
00:01:01
room? I was in a state of shock. Like I haven't felt anything similar to the emotion I felt that day other than the
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grief I felt when my mother died and I knew what was going to happen to our country. So I had a hard time
00:01:14
reconciling that we can't still do something about it because I grew up in an environment where everyone was fighting for justice and for equality.
00:01:21
So, I do think about how different it could have been, but sometimes the fight takes a while. Does that mean that you're going to run
00:01:28
again? I
00:01:35
I see messages all the time in the comments section that some of you didn't realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you
00:01:40
could do me a favor and double check if you're a subscriber to this channel, that would be tremendously appreciated. It's the simple, it's the free thing
00:01:46
that anybody that watches this show frequently can do to help us here to keep everything going in this show in the trajectory it's on. So, please do
00:01:53
double check if you've subscribed and uh thank you so much because in a strange way you are you're part of our history
00:01:58
and you're on this journey with us and I appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank you.
00:02:06
Madame Vice President, how are you doing? I am well. I am well. I mean all things
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considered I am well my family is good health so I start there but otherwise
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you know it's a it's a it's a troubling time what are the what are the full range of
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emotions when you said all things considered what are the full what's the full picture there everything from
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grateful and feeling very blessed to extremely ly
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troubled, disappointed, concerned
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of the state of our country and by extension the world. Like a lot of
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people who are watching the news and reading the news, there's a state of
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anxiety what will happen next. I often have found myself saying to people, it
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may get worse before it gets better. And so the knowledge of that perhaps the anticipation of that I think keeps me
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and many others on edge. Do you believe that? Do you believe it's it could get worse before it gets better? I think it's very possible. Every day I
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I because actually during the book tour I've I've said it to audiences and in one city and then the next day something
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happens. There's a lot that's very unpredictable
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about this administration. Although there is almost all of it that I did predict.
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Now, I know you you only had 107 days to potentially intervene in the course
00:03:44
of history, but when you see these things playing out that you're referring to that incite those feelings you have of frustration,
00:03:51
um a little bit of anxiety, etc., do do you feel a sense of like responsibility in a weird way because
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because yeah, there was a percentage chance of sort of intervening in these things. This is a
00:04:04
complex question to ask, but it's Mhm. I do think about how different it could have been.
00:04:09
Mhm. I do think about it in the context of
00:04:14
the number of people who are being impacted in such a horrible way. I think of it in terms of the number of people
00:04:20
who are existing and living in utter fear right now, afraid of being attacked
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or afraid of being targeted with hate.
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um much less misinformation. I Yeah, I do. And I and I know that the the race that I ran for president of the United
00:04:39
States, the outcome of that election is what has happened
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and it would have been different. It would have been very different. I try not to allow myself to think too much
00:04:50
this way. I will tell you that because I for better and worse really
00:04:56
do like to be centered on the present. So, so let's go. I want to understand
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the the set of circumstances that created someone like you because you're an anomaly. There's a lot of firsts that
00:05:08
appear in your career, but if we if we start at the beginning, what is the context that shapes someone to become
00:05:15
such an anomaly in their professional career? My parents and the community that raised
00:05:21
me. My mother arrived from India in the United States at the age of 19 by
00:05:26
herself. My mother naturally at that young age became aligned with the civil rights
00:05:32
movement in in um Berkeley and Oakland, California. Met my father who had been a
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national scholar in Jamaica. They fell in love and here I am. My
00:05:48
sister and I were born and we were born in an environment where everyone was fighting for justice and for freedom and
00:05:54
for equality. every message we got was you are important and you have a duty to
00:06:01
figure out how you're going to participate. I I noticed this as I was reading through your story, how service
00:06:07
and helping others seems to be so interwoven into your DNA.
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And even we spoke to Doug Uhhuh. your husband and he was telling me a story about your first date with him.
00:06:21
Uhhuh. What did he tell you? Well, apparently you made a you made a remark on that first date that you're you're
00:06:26
here to help people and to serve people. He told me many things. We we have a I have many pages of what Duck said. Very
00:06:32
fascinating. He's um he's very in love with you, by the way. I'm very in love with my husband and he's very funny. I hope you got a sense
00:06:38
of He was hilarious guy. Yeah. Well, he he and I had such different careers, both of us being
00:06:43
lawyers, right? He went immediately into private practice. I never wanted to be in private practice. It was never about
00:06:51
money for me. was always about people and how could I do the work that was about
00:06:57
protecting people and giving people dignity. Why protecting people? I I think there's a lot um that has to
00:07:05
do also maybe with birth order. I'm the eldest.
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And from the age of 2 years old, my mother told me, "Take care of your sister. Look out for your sister."
00:07:18
You've got all kinds of pictures. Canon, I've been through everything. Yeah. This is my sister Maya. That's you protecting her.
00:07:24
And that's me protecting her. I grew up also, you know, seeing my mother who was
00:07:32
a 5-ft tall brown woman with an accent would be treated. She taught me this, my
00:07:37
extended family taught me. But then I also witnessed the importance of
00:07:44
making sure that all people that their dignity is respected and protected. and
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I because I you know I I have lived a life to see where that doesn't always happen. So you decide to focus on law in public
00:07:57
practice. Um you have a phenomenal career from that point onwards. It's
00:08:03
really remarkable what you're able to accomplish and this is I guess where a lot of the firsts come in because from the age of 24 to 51 you rise from deputy
00:08:10
district attorney to California's attorney general becoming the first woman and first black person to hold
00:08:16
both roles. Um, and you led major reforms in that time, including securing $25 billion in homeowner relief after
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the 2008 crisis, launching the back on track LA rehabilitation program, and making California the state the first
00:08:29
state to mandate body cameras for justice justice agents and much more.
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An incredible career up until that point. That could have been it. You could have bowed out at that point and
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celebrated. There's so much more to be done. There's so much more to be done. Um, I think one
00:08:47
of my strengths and weaknesses is um, I
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like to solve problems, but that means that I tend to
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once a problem has been addressed, move on to the next one without maybe taking the time to pat myself on the back
00:09:05
because now it's time to move on to the next issue. During your career, you you saw some horrific things. That's the nature of
00:09:12
your job. You deal with the dark darkest parts of reality. Parts of human behavior and nature I've
00:09:18
seen. Yeah, you're right. Give me give me some context there. What does that mean in reality? Well, for a while I specialized in child
00:09:25
sexual assault, which is about um
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the most horrendous of abuse and crime, which is an adult
00:09:38
abusing a child. And those cases were so difficult um for so
00:09:46
many reasons. I mean, there's a couple that I remember in particular where I just
00:09:52
where the children were so young that they were um they wouldn't be able to
00:09:59
testify. One was an elementary school little
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girl. And I mean, I I remember going
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into the bathroom of the courthouse and crying
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because I knew a jury would not
00:10:21
have enough to convict and um
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you know, broke my heart. I mean, and I I have thought about that little girl,
00:10:33
you know, not years and years and years later. But those cases, you know, it's the worst of human behavior, which is we
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as a society should be in the business of protecting children and protecting their vulnerability so that they can
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thrive. Um, but I've, you know, I've prosecuted homicide cases. I've, um, you
00:10:53
know, I've prosecuted fraud cases. How does how does one deal with all of this
00:10:59
stress and responsibility? And I'm not just referring to your time as attorney general, but even thereafter with
00:11:05
running for president and the ups and downs of that, the public feedback, the the pressure, the responsibility of
00:11:13
potentially running the, you know, the the free world basically and becoming
00:11:18
the most powerful person on earth and the ups, the downs, the attacks, the the the child abuses. How does one
00:11:26
learn? Is there a framework you've built? Is there are there ideas or principles that you've developed to deal with such pressure?
00:11:33
Well, this may sound trit, but I work out every day. Yeah. I work out every morning, no matter how
00:11:41
little sleep I've had. Um, I just find it to be just mind, body, and soul.
00:11:47
Have you changed over time? Oh, for sure I've changed over time. The pressure has changed in magnitude.
00:11:57
Um but the pressure that I feel in terms of my sense of personal responsibility
00:12:04
has not changed. I I put a lot of I I I hold myself to a very high
00:12:10
standard and um I tend to be a perfectionist even though I am far from
00:12:17
perfect you know I mean even during the 107 days every night I would stay awake
00:12:25
thinking what more could I have done with that one day 24year-old Kamala Harris who starts as
00:12:32
that sort of uh becomes eventually becomes the deputy district attorney. If I sat her there Uhhuh.
00:12:38
and you're sat there now as um madame vice president, what would be the notable differences in personality,
00:12:46
mentality, in perspective? Oh, that's interesting.
00:12:52
Well, I mean, I I don't know if that's changed, but she was fearless.
00:12:59
She was fearless. She was fearless. She didn't hear no, it can't be done.
00:13:06
and whether it was the first case that I had and I was a young prosecutor and I
00:13:15
was going through the files and it was a Friday evening and I realized that the
00:13:21
person who had been arrested had young children at home, a woman and all the
00:13:27
courts were shutting down and I went to the courtroom and I asked the judge,
00:13:32
"Please take the bench again. She has young children. She can't stay in over the weekend.
00:13:38
And the clerk was like, "Nope, he's gone for the day. He's leaving for the day." And I would not leave. And they call the
00:13:46
case, you know, but not hearing no. I just I um that has been probably a
00:13:52
throughine of my my life. I don't rest easy with the idea that something is not
00:13:58
possible. um at least I don't rest easy with it without trying
00:14:05
to show that it is possible and that's probably not changed. I also have
00:14:11
started to sit better with the idea that but you can't change everyone.
00:14:16
Mhm. How does that change your approach knowing that you can't change everybody?
00:14:21
I'm better able to assess a situation
00:14:28
to figure out what is the potential there. Okay. Yeah. And be perhaps a bit more realistic
00:14:34
without being I think jaded about it. Yeah.
00:14:40
And I guess that's wisdom and experiences. Yeah. It comes with it comes with I think a bit of experience
00:14:45
which allows you to be more efficient and effective. And that's right. Yeah. That's exactly right. That's exactly
00:14:50
right because that is how I reconcile it which is the effort is better placed
00:14:56
somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. And at what point in this in this journey did you realize that you wanted
00:15:02
to be president of the United States? Like was was there a a lunch or a dinner
00:15:08
you had with Doug? When does that decision get made in your career?
00:15:14
It was when I was in the Senate. Yeah. I ran into a friend who came up,
00:15:20
Doug and I were at a basically a a family table in a local restaurant eating and he said to me, "You should
00:15:27
run for president." And it had not occurred to me until then. It had not occurred to me to run for president. I
00:15:33
There are people who are born thinking they're going to be president. There are people who look who look in the mirror every day and see a president. I was not
00:15:40
one of those people. But then the thought it kind of germinated and then of course
00:15:46
being vice president and doing the work of vice president of the United States I met with over 150 world leaders,
00:15:54
presidents, prime ministers, chancellors and kings. I've negotiated very important
00:16:00
deals and and and issues on behalf of the American people. Um I've spent
00:16:05
countless hours not only in the Oval Office but the situation room and traveling around the world. And so in
00:16:11
those 107 days, I was fully aware of not only the importance of the job, but
00:16:18
fully aware that I had the experience and knowledge to be able to do it effectively.
00:16:24
I mean, this is one of the things I was actually talking to a friend of mine downstairs, Lucy Mangini, who sat out there, and we were talking about this
00:16:30
idea of like, does imposter syndrome ever leave you? And I imposter syndrome is a bit of a loaded term,
00:16:35
but you kind of assume that people in higher places than you are have some like genetic or mental or some gift.
00:16:43
They have all the answers. But higher you climb with your own continued naivity, you start to suspect that no
00:16:48
one really is genetically gifted or like has some superpower that you don't have.
00:16:54
Right. And I'm wondering if you've experienced that in your career where the higher you've climbed, you've realized that actually everybody up here
00:16:59
is like I'm like that like or I'm at least on their level. Have you had that experience in your career? Yes, I have. And but I've also had the
00:17:06
imposttor syndrome experience and that was when I was first elected DA
00:17:12
and I challenged then in the incumbent. Um I started out at six points in the
00:17:17
polls which is six out of 100. Uh you know people recently asked me how about polls polls. Well, you know, if I
00:17:23
listened to polls, I would have never run for my first office and therefore we wouldn't be having this interview probably. And I won. And it was, you
00:17:30
know, it was not expected that I would, at least when I jumped in the race. And there I was sitting in the office and I
00:17:36
thought, "Oh my god, I'm I'm now the elected DA of a major city in the United States." In hindsight, it was maybe it's
00:17:45
we call it imposttor syndrome. to your point maybe it is a very loaded term because I think there is nothing wrong with having um and I think that there's
00:17:53
a lot that is good with having a certain level of humility and in particular when the people have
00:18:00
vested you with great power right to understand it's not about you
00:18:06
right I think that that is that is part and parcel of what we call imposttor
00:18:11
syndrome or who has it I think often it is because they understand how serious
00:18:17
The job is on behalf of others. Yeah. Yeah. And I applaud a bit of humility, honest
00:18:24
humility, not feain humility. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Cuz there are plenty of people that are, you know, self-deprecating for
00:18:31
the sake of the shtick of it all. Yeah. But yes, to your point, the higher you go,
00:18:37
it does. It does because the more you're exposed to to being the more you're in
00:18:43
the rooms with the people who are who otherwise feel untouchable, the more you understand that they are
00:18:50
not untouchable. It's a polite way of putting it,
00:18:56
the more you understand everyone's got a little dust on them. Yeah. And they're not not everyone's shiny.
00:19:02
But it's liberating to know that that that's the case because you know there's we all put a ceiling above us. and we
00:19:08
think that's my level and everyone above that has some gift that I will never be able to attain. So I won't even strive
00:19:14
to break that ceiling because you know I don't deserve to be up there.
00:19:19
But but and also don't discount the signals that that many people are sent
00:19:25
that you don't belong there. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know, I I especially
00:19:32
when I'm mentoring people will often say to them, don't ever limit yourself
00:19:40
based on other people's limited ability to see who you are. Mhm.
00:19:46
That's their limitations to see who you are in your capacity. Don't impose those
00:19:51
limitations on yourself. Well, I mean, this that photo I showed you before we started recording that LeBron posted is a pretty iconic
00:19:58
example. I'll put it on the screen, but it just goes to show I think all the vice presidents that came before you,
00:20:04
and frankly, they all look the same. So,
00:20:09
one might fall into the trap of thinking that if I don't look like this, then I
00:20:14
can't do this job. You know, that's what I think the human mind logically might arrive at that conclusion. It looks for
00:20:20
pattern recognition. It might think if I'm not one of these here, one of these men here with this suit on and this kind
00:20:26
of hair and this age, then that's not a position I can thrive in. I'll
00:20:32
see you and add one. Okay. And everyone else thinks that this is
00:20:39
the image of who can do the job. Yeah. So the added challenge is not only the
00:20:47
limitations one puts on themselves but the limitations one might be met
00:20:53
with around other people's perceptions about who can do what. And have you had that through your
00:20:58
career? Yes. Is there any particular examples that always sit at the front of your mind where you really really felt that
00:21:05
the room you were in, people were discounting you purely based on appearance or gender or race or anything
00:21:12
like that? I mean, there are times in my career
00:21:17
when I walked in the room and someone said, you know, something along if they didn't know me. Mhm.
00:21:22
If they didn't know what they were walking into, you know, they were waiting for my boss.
00:21:28
And how did you deal with that? How do you stop that suppressing you? Because it's very easy to feel that and go and
00:21:34
to shrink. You will often be, you may often be the only one who walks into a boardroom, a
00:21:42
courtroom, a meeting room, who looks like yourself or has had your
00:21:48
life experiences. But when you walk in that room, walk in that room, chin up, shoulders back,
00:21:55
knowing there are so many people who are not in that room, who are so proud of you walking in that
00:22:02
room and expect that you will use the voice that you carry. Mhm. you know, and and there are there
00:22:10
are tools that one has to employ when you otherwise are aware that you might
00:22:19
be presenting the unfamiliar. But but but what I also would caution is
00:22:24
is don't walk in that room with the assumption that your value will not be
00:22:31
recognized. Right? And so again, this gets back to my point about we all have
00:22:36
to moderate what limitations are we putting on ourselves with what limitations are being sent our
00:22:44
way. And when you say tools, well, just like that, don't don't when you walk into that room, see all the
00:22:51
people. I think sometimes of Mrs. Francis Wilson, who was my first grade
00:22:56
teacher who attended my law school graduation. I think of my mother who would say to me
00:23:03
calmly don't you ever let anyone tell you who you are you tell them who you are right and you think of these people
00:23:10
when you walk into these important rooms to remind you I I it's a tool I have used over a
00:23:15
period of time and um and it has served me well yes there's Mrs. Wilson. That's
00:23:23
at my law school graduation. And that's my mother. That's exactly right. How about that? Yeah. Where'd you get all
00:23:29
these pictures? Well, stopping you, you know. Yeah. That's Mrs. Wilson. And so, why is thinking of Mrs. Wilson
00:23:36
helping you when you walk into those rooms? Because
00:23:41
there is, I think, a key to success that each of us who has achieved success
00:23:48
probably shares, which is there has been someone at least, and it could be a
00:23:54
parent, it could be a teacher, it could be a neighbor, it could be a pastor, someone who convinced you you were
00:24:00
special. You may not have been particularly special, but they told you you were and
00:24:06
you believed them. I know that's true for me. I may not have been particularly special, but I
00:24:13
had a few people who told me I was and I believed them. Mhm. And and but with that came
00:24:20
therefore don't do this thing. Mhm. Cuz you're you know you shouldn't be doing that thing but go in that room. I
00:24:28
think uh you know when we talk about mentorship, when we think about the
00:24:35
signals that we as a society send to children and I mean all of our children,
00:24:41
our own children, the children of a community which we should think of as our children.
00:24:46
to send them signals that tell them they are special and then back that up with
00:24:52
giving them the resources would make us a much stronger society.
00:24:59
as you said that I was reflecting on little passing comments people in my life made at certain points that at the
00:25:05
time I was suspicious about like you know them telling you that you're going
00:25:10
to be special or do something great one day that I might have not fully believed myself but I believe they believed it
00:25:15
right and that was enough but that's that's what I'm saying they told me and I believed them I didn't
00:25:21
think of it and maybe that's why I don't look in the mirror and see all these things but yes
00:25:26
have you got any tools around how you've leared to hold yourself. Thinking back to 24y old comma versus
00:25:33
this Kamla, is there a certain way you hold yourself in those rooms that also garners that respect? I noticed when you
00:25:39
speak, you you don't rush and I think people that are younger in their career,
00:25:44
they tend to Yeah. Right. Because they're they're kind of almost trying to excuse the amount of time they're taking and they kind of are a
00:25:50
bit more I just wondering if there's anything you've any tools in that regard that have helped.
00:25:57
It's important to have some sense of conceptually
00:26:03
what you mean to say and you not that you have to rehearse what you're going
00:26:08
to speak before you speak it but do have a sense of what you intend to
00:26:14
communicate. Mhm. And I think it's also important to
00:26:19
especially with complex issues in the context of a discussion
00:26:25
deconstruct in your mind what the issue is so you can speak logically.
00:26:32
Mhm. And what about appearance generally? Do you think much about that? So do you think much about because you're I mean
00:26:37
you look very your outfit's stunning today. You're very Does it matter? Sadly it does.
00:26:42
It does. I mean depending on context. Um
00:26:48
sadly it does. I I we are still I think in a world where the way you appear when
00:26:56
you walk in the room impacts first impressions. Mhm.
00:27:01
um including just for example again even in mentoring people people will look at
00:27:06
their watch or their phone to see if you've walked in the room on time
00:27:12
and will judge something about your character that the piece of how you look that is
00:27:19
going to suggest the pride that one has in themselves as a matter of self-respect I mean I've
00:27:27
always this is you know I grew up in the black church, you dress up
00:27:33
and it's a it's a reflection of your dignity and the respect you have for the place
00:27:40
that you may be. And in January 2019, you launched your
00:27:45
presidential campaign for the first time, which was up until you you dropped out later that year in December.
00:27:52
Correct. Why did you drop out of that uh presidential race? What's the what's the full context behind the scenes? There
00:27:59
was a lot there. Um, mostly we ran out of money.
00:28:04
Yeah. But I learned a lot of lessons obviously about running. Um, but that was that was
00:28:10
the main reason. And at some point you get a call from Mr. President.
00:28:15
Mhm. I got a call from then nominee, Democratic nominee Joe Biden. He um we
00:28:22
facetimed it was during the height of COVID. Yeah. And he asked me to be his running mate.
00:28:28
and it was a a great honor and I was honored to do it. Did you have any inclination before that
00:28:33
moment that he was going to ask you? Had there been like a side conversation? So, no. I had an interview. I had an
00:28:40
interview and it was like something out of a spy movie where I had my assistant
00:28:46
drove me to one location. This was in DC. And then it was a mall. And then I
00:28:52
got out of that car to get in another car that was because the press were
00:28:58
watching everything to see who there was a short list that was out who was going to be. So we had to do this whole
00:29:03
clandestine thing. And then I got into another car being driven by one of his assistants and then we went to this, you
00:29:11
know, this very circuitous route to a house and then through the back door.
00:29:16
The windows were closed, the shades were closed and I had my interview. went back
00:29:21
to because Doug and I were in our apartment in DC because I was senator at the time and again height of COVID then
00:29:28
the vans the press vans were parked out front and we would just want to go for a walk. Remember during co everyone just
00:29:35
wanted to get some fresh air they must have thought we couldn't see them. They were like in unmarked vans. So from time
00:29:42
to time I just walked up to him and say we're going to get some coffee. Can I bring you anything back? We'll be right
00:29:47
back. I the day I actually got the call from from Joe Biden asking me to run
00:29:55
with him was the same day earlier where one of my girlfriends has a house in
00:30:01
Virginia and it was the end of summer and she had all these beautiful end of summer tomatoes. I like to cook. She brought me this big
00:30:07
box of tomatoes and I was going to make a bunch of marinara and freeze it. Then I get the call from
00:30:13
him. I said yes, of course. And I don't know, it felt like within seconds
00:30:19
a parade of people walk into our apartment with a parade of binders sit down. Everyone's in masks to tell us,
00:30:26
"Okay, this is what the campaign is going to be." And because I hate to waste food, every one of them walked out
00:30:32
with me handing them to as they left. I'm so intrigued to know. I've done many
00:30:39
interviews in my life. I've been in a couple of interviews myself. How does someone get interviewed to be the vice
00:30:44
president? like what are the questions one is asked? Well, having been in the position of
00:30:49
both being the interviewer and the interviewee, yeah, um it really as much as anything comes
00:30:56
down to chemistry. Oh, okay. Because by the time that that interview
00:31:03
is happening, it's usually narrowed down to about three people. So, all the vetting has been done. I
00:31:09
mean, my the vetting I had such a truncated experience when I was running for president of of just a couple of
00:31:15
weeks, but I think Joe Biden took like nine weeks to make a decision. And so
00:31:20
there's vetting when I was being vetted for vice president. I had a I don't know 9-hour interview with a lawyer going
00:31:28
through everything, everything. My taxes, my professional record,
00:31:34
everything that was everything, everything. I mean, talk about a colonoscopy.
00:31:42
It was just virtually. That's kind of what it was. And so when all of that has
00:31:48
been done and it's kind of green light, green light through that, then it's about sitting down and just deciding um
00:31:55
because it it is going to be a partnership, right? And it has to be it has to be where you feel that you can
00:32:02
trust someone. You you could work with them. You are you're doing it for the same reasons.
00:32:07
Was it what you thought it was going to be being vice president? Yeah. I didn't know exactly what it would be
00:32:15
because there's nothing that can compare to it. I mean, I was the 49th vice president of the United States. There have only been 48 before me. Right.
00:32:22
Mhm. And I don't think anything can truly prepare you for what it is because
00:32:29
it is um a very unique position where you are
00:32:35
again you are number two in command. Wow. you. So the the seriousness of the
00:32:42
responsibility is is that um I I give all credit to now the late President
00:32:49
Jimmy Carter who decided when he was president having come off of you Kennedy
00:32:55
and Nixon and everything. He decided that the vice president should be given
00:33:00
greater responsibilities than had been the case because God forbid something happens to the president. There should
00:33:05
be a smooth succession. And so Walter Montdale was his vice president and was
00:33:11
the first to have an office in the West Wing. Mhm. The responsibilities were again to meet
00:33:17
with world leaders. The responsibilities were to travel the country um on behalf of our administration and our policies.
00:33:25
Um it's it's an incredible responsibility and um you know meeting
00:33:31
with the variety of people who for the most part just want us to achieve good
00:33:40
things. When I was reading your book 107 days, one of the one of the really
00:33:45
surprising things was but also makes sense when I understand human nature was that you talk about how some of the
00:33:52
president's staff were basically suppressing you a little bit, suppressing your accomplishments because you're a threat to them and you I think
00:33:59
you were told pretty early on or you had heard pretty early on from a chief of staff that the the vice president is kind of seen
00:34:06
as a threat to the president. So, the lore has it that
00:34:11
the outgoing chief of staff to the president will tell the incoming chief
00:34:16
of staff to the incoming president regardless of political party. Rule
00:34:21
number one, watch the vice president. Lore has it that that's the case. And um
00:34:27
and then I had of course run against Joe Biden. I was very and acutely aware that
00:34:34
I would have to over and over again prove my loyalty
00:34:39
that it wouldn't be assumed. You say in the book the president staff was adding fuel to negative narratives
00:34:45
that sprung up about me. Yeah. The president's inner circle seemed fine with it. Indeed, it seemed as if they
00:34:51
decided I should be knocked down a little bit more. Yeah. I was shocked when I read that but
00:34:56
at the same time understood it because it's human nature but also shocked
00:35:02
because one wouldn't expect it was and it was counterproductive was absolutely counterproductive. Was
00:35:09
there a particular moment where you realized that this was happening for the first time? To be candid with you, I
00:35:17
had a sense of it for quite some time, but it was after the election that I really started to hear the stories about
00:35:23
it. I mean, I I had a sense of it. It was clear to me in terms of just the challenges with getting them to uplift,
00:35:31
getting them to defend, especially when there were inaccurate, unfair attacks.
00:35:37
And then I started to hear more stories after. And what you mean by that is when there were unfair media attacks on you that
00:35:43
could quite easily have been rebuttled or debunked, there was no desire to debunk
00:35:49
them. There was there the staff and the
00:35:54
resources under the president as compared to the vice president are enormous. Mhm.
00:36:00
And to the extent that the vice president is being attacked, resources
00:36:05
were available but not used to defend the vice president in the way
00:36:12
that they could have that would have inured to the benefit of everyone involved. Cuz that's what I think. There was an
00:36:17
argument to say it was in their interests because if the if if you and
00:36:22
Joe Biden are strong, you're more like Joe Biden's more likely to then win the next election. Exactly. That's my point.
00:36:30
We rose and fell together. Yeah. And did did he did Joe Biden know that
00:36:37
that was happening? I don't know if he did, but it's the staff underneath him that are in charge of that.
00:36:42
Yeah. Okay. So, they would they So, you're saying that that you think they they wanted you to be weaker in public
00:36:48
perception because that kind of keeps you in your place? I
00:36:54
think that that was part of it. I do. I think that they decided that, you know,
00:36:59
there are far too many people in this world and in professional life
00:37:04
who approach things with a zero- sum game. Yeah. Yeah. If I have more, you have less.
00:37:11
And it is incredibly shortsighted. And I think it's actually quite provincial
00:37:17
thinking when you're talking about the stakes that were at play in our administration and of course in
00:37:24
the election and they you were talking about in the book as well in on page 47 of 107 days
00:37:30
that they also didn't promote your accomplishments because when I read through all the research of
00:37:37
the things that you had accomplished I wasn't aware I know there doesn't seem to be a megaphone
00:37:44
shouting about the things you accomplished. So, um it was very frustrating. I can't even tell
00:37:49
you. Frustrating and painful really. And well, and also not just for me, but
00:37:55
for the people who knew my career and knew what was not being said and what was being said.
00:38:00
What wasn't being said, the accomplishments, the um the the the
00:38:08
credibility of um of my leadership.
00:38:13
They thought that, and you say this on page 51, if you were shining, then Joe Biden was dimmed. So, it was very much
00:38:21
in their interests to make sure you were dimmed.
00:38:26
One one could argue then so that Joe Biden was shining. Yeah. And that was um
00:38:33
again, it was very shortsighted. Are you friends with Joe Biden? Yes.
00:38:38
Is the relationship good? It's a good relationship. I just talked to him. two days ago he called me for my
00:38:44
birthday. Is it Is it complicated?
00:38:49
Yes, it's very complicated. It is. And as I write in the book, I um
00:38:55
it is very complicated. I have a great deal of affection for him. Um, and
00:39:02
there were times that I've been quite candid about where he greatly disappointed me
00:39:09
and frankly, you know, angered me. Yeah.
00:39:16
Can you give me context on it where he disappointed and angered you?
00:39:22
So, I write um and I, you know, I I I thought about this. Was I going to write
00:39:28
about it or not? And I I decided in writing this book, I was going to just be honest and these are the facts and
00:39:34
the reader can take what they want from it. on the day of the debate, my debate
00:39:39
with Trump. And you know, so going into a
00:39:45
presidential debate is an incredibly intense and intensive project, including
00:39:53
what has historically happened that we even called debate camp. Can you imagine? And it's no camp at
00:39:59
all. It's going into um where you basically are sequestered for a period of time immediately before
00:40:06
the debate. Where did you get all of these? This is
00:40:11
Phipe who played Donald Trump in your debate camp. In my debate camp and he never broke
00:40:17
character ever. So this is a fake Trump that was brought in. This is the fake Trump. He would do the makeup, the orange makeup, the long red
00:40:24
tie. He was just awful. Awful. awful in the best way in trying
00:40:32
to get me prepared and um and there were a lot of people like Phipe there were a
00:40:37
lot of people who are you know I I'm very fortunate I have people who have been with me for years and years and
00:40:44
years through these various offices and you know even if they go on to different
00:40:49
positions they always come back when needed and so debate camp was this intense basically a preparation process
00:40:58
where you you know your team will basically try to
00:41:04
they'll break you and then build you back up. So the day of the debate was
00:41:10
after that intense period of preparation and then that morning I had a meeting
00:41:16
with my team. I thought it was going to be more prep but they actually were wonderful and just basically said to me
00:41:22
you're ready. So, okay then being a woman running for president and many women in various high
00:41:29
level positions get their hair and makeup done. Back to your point about presentation and it can take hours.
00:41:37
Hair and makeup got done. I'm in the hotel room with Doug, with my husband,
00:41:43
and the president calls and I they I was told that he wanted to call me so that
00:41:48
I'd be ready. And I was so sure it was to buck me up and go go get him.
00:41:56
And he did say that for the first beat. And then he went on to talk about a
00:42:03
group of people in Pennsylvania who were saying bad things about me.
00:42:09
because they heard I was saying bad things about him. And when I hung up the phone, I was just
00:42:16
I was it was unbelievable. And I was Yes, I was angry and deeply
00:42:22
disappointed. It just it was so unnecessary. There
00:42:27
only two people in the world other than me that has debated this guy, Hillary
00:42:34
Clinton and him. And you know what it's like? It's going into a debate with the stakes being that high and and Trump
00:42:40
hadn't agreed to another debate. The stakes were so high.
00:42:46
So that's an example of what I mean. You took something from that. You took a
00:42:54
an underlying message about one's intentions from that. cuz I would if
00:42:59
someone called me in the leadup to de debate prep and said something like that to me, I would assume that they don't
00:43:05
want the best for me. My takeaway is his motivation was all
00:43:12
about himself. That's what I would assume from that. I would assume that. Yeah. Right. Obviously, right?
00:43:18
Yeah. It wasn't about my performance at the debate.
00:43:24
Do you think he wanted you to win the election? I do because
00:43:31
I was the only one who would be able to preserve his legacy. But even that's about him.
00:43:38
Well, if I had to assume one of the reasons why he'd want me to win
00:43:44
if Yeah. And of course, you know that this all wouldn't be happening. I don't think
00:43:49
anybody who cares about the future of the country um the democracy or even just
00:43:59
protecting the Constitution of the United States would have wanted this.
00:44:07
Yeah. just a bit of a reminder to me that a
00:44:12
lot of people in the highest places in in power are maybe a little bit
00:44:18
self-focused. Yeah, that's that is the case. I think it um I think that is the case.
00:44:25
I've seen it. I've seen it. Maybe dare I say that it that's how they
00:44:33
get there. I think that may be a big part of it if
00:44:39
they don't have something else that is the pull or the push. Yeah. Cuz I look at your life and your
00:44:44
career and I see a dedication to the same thing which is like serving people and it's at the expense of financial
00:44:50
opportunities and other opportunities you could have pursued and it seems to be really really authentic to me that your your agenda was to serve people. Um
00:44:58
I can't say that about everybody else that I've studied or interviewed in the political environment. And the other thing the other thing that so I watch
00:45:04
all these debates. I've been I'm such a big fan of American politics. So I was I was up at 12 years old watching Obama
00:45:09
get inaugurated or whatever it was. I can't it was roughly I was a young kid at the time. I I stay up and watch all the debates. I
00:45:15
always have since I was a kid. I watched that debate. But the debate that came before with Biden and Trump.
00:45:20
It was so apparently clear. Yeah. That this was not okay. And it felt like it felt like the whole
00:45:26
of the Democratic side of politics was pretending everything was okay. Mhm.
00:45:31
That's kind of my observation from the UK. I was like, why are they all pretending everything's fine? But this
00:45:36
was clearly an individual that was very much struggling with articulation, with ideas, and in the face of someone like Trump
00:45:42
who to his credit is able to pounce on that to be very
00:45:48
clear. and and he and he interestingly enough because of course I watched that debate very closely for many many
00:45:55
reasons including um I had four interviews right after his debate
00:46:01
okay to speak on behalf of the president during the debate and what was
00:46:07
interesting in that debate was also to watch how it's a very rare circumstance that you see Donald Trump actually
00:46:15
moderate it was fascinating
00:46:21
You must have known. You must have you sat you sat there. You were in LA at the time, right? I was in LA at the Fairmont Hotel
00:46:29
watching watching and taking vigorous notes. I had ordered,
00:46:35
you know, like they had a little crude tape plate and I was like, "No, this is a pizza night. Ordered pizza for everyone." I had my a number of people
00:46:42
with me, but I had a tight group of people with me in the room.
00:46:47
He called me from debate camp. Mhm. The president did, Biden did. And I
00:46:54
could tell something was a little off. And I was concerned about I I just he I
00:47:04
don't think he wanted to debate is my point. He didn't want that debate. And you know, it's like any competition you
00:47:11
go in, whether it's you're bidding for something, you're if it's sports, you got to want it.
00:47:17
Yeah. Right. If you don't want to be in the competition, it will absolutely have an impact on
00:47:24
your performance. And I don't think he I'm pretty sure he did not want to debate. How do you know? What were the signs?
00:47:31
Well, we had conversations about it. I think he got talked into it. And in any event, so I'm watching the debate with
00:47:38
my tight team. I wanted it to be a small team so I could just be candid as it's happening because I know I have four
00:47:44
interviews right after. And you know, in every debate, I don't care who you are,
00:47:50
there will be statistic wrong or you know, you name this country, but it was
00:47:55
that country. That always happens. There is no such thing as a perfect debate. So
00:48:01
there will be something to clean up. Yeah. And I expected that. And then, you know, we saw what we all
00:48:08
saw. It was a car crash. It was a historic car crash. I actually can't think of a I'm a little bit of a historian of these
00:48:14
debates because I I think they're fascinating sort of experiments and demonstrations of human psychology and
00:48:20
how these zingers emerge and the binders full of women thing and you know the Obama's whole thing about the um
00:48:26
the Romney and Obama in that debate where they talked about the the the military was no longer horses and
00:48:32
bayonets. I just think it's so interesting because it's funny how a a sentence or a phrase can sway the
00:48:40
general public in such a profound way and stick and stick and then as a marketer I spent 10 years in marketing I think about this
00:48:46
a lot how like that that horses and bayonets the fact that I can remember that but I can't really remember anything else right that's interesting
00:48:52
you know the power of the words so that in my view and the delivery right so the words combined with the delivery and the
00:48:58
timing yeah and this is what you learn that has to that all has to coincide so what was real strategy going into
00:49:04
that debate with Trump because you had those same moments where the cats and the dogs and all those all that unbelievable stuff and and also you it
00:49:11
at home I was thinking oh she's she's trying to trigger him and it's working. Yeah, because he's so predictable that
00:49:18
way. What were those things for you? Well, the first thing is that we had empty pads on our um podium and in in the
00:49:28
debate camp and then therefore when I walked on stage after I shook his hand went back to my podium, I wrote a smiley
00:49:34
face and cuz I just decided I was going to have fun
00:49:41
because one of the things about these kinds of debates in particular is the person who's having fun wins.
00:49:49
That's so true. We watched it back the other day and you're smiling and you you look like you're enjoying it
00:49:55
and he looks frustrated. Yeah. So, that was intentional was to if you look like you're having fun,
00:50:01
well, have fun, but though not just look cuz I think it's very difficult to look like you're having fun if you're not, right?
00:50:06
Um, so you've got to find you've you have to find you have to this is a true for
00:50:13
life. You got to see the humor in it. Otherwise, it's just going to undo you. Especially if you're dealing with heavy
00:50:19
stuff, you've got to see the humor in it. And you know, like when he pulled out the cats and dogs thing,
00:50:27
I couldn't even believe it. I couldn't because here's what happened. So
00:50:32
I didn't know that he that this was being said, right? Let's give context for anyone that doesn't know.
00:50:38
Okay. Yes. Right. you well well so from what I understand it's faint in my memory but um there was this
00:50:43
like crazy rumor that I think it was im illegal immigrants were eating cats and dogs that Haitian immigrants regardless of
00:50:50
their legal status in Ohio were eating their pets
00:50:55
cats and dogs so I hadn't even heard about it cuz I'm
00:51:01
in debate camp right and then two members of my team see him
00:51:08
get off his his Trump plane with the main
00:51:14
purveyor of this nonsense and then they realize if she's on the
00:51:19
plane with him it is very possible last thing he heard was this thing. So they
00:51:25
last minute tell me by the way um a lot of them call me boss because it's like
00:51:31
this is what you do in law enforcement and it just stuck crazy. Hey boss, we got to tell you something. We didn't mention it to you. There's this whole
00:51:38
thing that they're saying on that side about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs. And I was like, are you kidding
00:51:43
me? That's ridiculous. No, but it's what they're saying. So just it may come up
00:51:48
in the debate. Sure enough, it did. But see, here's the thing that I would say to you, Stephen, that
00:51:55
again, one of the reasons I wrote the book is also there are lessons to be
00:52:01
learned from those 107 days to be applied today.
00:52:06
I believe that part of what is the method is say the outrageous thing,
00:52:15
then everyone is going to focus on that outrageous thing. And meanwhile this is happening,
00:52:22
right? And so meanwhile misdirection. Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:52:28
And misdirection includes, by the way, talking about immigrants eating cats and
00:52:34
dogs and not talking about what's your plan for working Americans to bring down the prices.
00:52:41
So then the press covers that whole thing and not oh where was his plan for
00:52:47
bringing down prices. Here's what I've come to learn um in the last sort of 10 years working in in
00:52:53
marketing is I have this um particular chapter in my last book where I say useless absurdity defines will define
00:53:01
you more as a brand than useful practicality. And what I mean by this, right, that's beautifully said,
00:53:06
is when I, this is the analogy I give. I went to this gym in Canary Warf and I walk in and it's got this 100 foot
00:53:11
climbing wall. It's massive gym, incredible. I come home, I tell my girlfriend, I go, "Babe, there's this incredible gym." And then the next
00:53:17
sentence out of my mouth is the most absurd thing because I know that will be the most impactful. So I say, "They've even got a 100 foot climbing wall." Cuz
00:53:23
if I say that, it implicitly tells them, you know, tells my girlfriend, "This gym is big." And and even in my last
00:53:29
company, the thing that the press focused on in my office wasn't our work, our case studies, the clients we had. It
00:53:35
was that we had this massive blue slide that went into a ballpool. So whenever the press came, they said, "Can you go
00:53:40
stand by the blue slide?" It was all about this blue slide. The most absurd thing gar all the attention. And I
00:53:46
actually think to Trump's strategy is he leads with he's a
00:53:52
master labeler. Sleepy Joe. You know, you can't is very gifted.
00:53:58
Don't discount the guy in terms of that. How do you beat someone playing that game? You have to be relentless on focusing on
00:54:05
what's actually happening. Does that work? And it means it means also deconstructing. So that I mean one of
00:54:11
the things for example that I've been talking about recently is there's a word that applies so well to him in this era
00:54:17
which is a phrase gaslighting. Right? So there's a whole lot of gaslighting happening which is basically
00:54:24
misrepresenting, lying, scapegoating, distracting, right, from what's really occurring, including like this whole
00:54:32
thing where he's coming down so hard and with these mass deportations which is
00:54:38
picking up a lot of American citizens by the way in the process, hardworking people in the process. And what he would
00:54:45
have people believe is that your predicament
00:54:50
is because this is what he actually is trying to sell. Your predicament is
00:54:56
because of relatively powerless people. So you don't focus on the powerful
00:55:01
people. He's basically saying to the American
00:55:06
people, you have less because of people who have even less than you. Here's the
00:55:13
counterpoint. It works. Yes, evidently. But there is, you know, but at some
00:55:19
point the veneer and the the the deflection has to wear off. I don't know when
00:55:26
exactly that is going to happen. And I think that, you know, listen, um, the tariffs taking hold and when we get
00:55:32
around to the holiday season and people realize how many toys are made in China,
00:55:38
what strengthens that approach is the rapid amount of dis disinformation that
00:55:43
is spreading. It's so much and it just spreads like wildfire. And trying to
00:55:49
stay in front of that with fact, much less, to your point, practical messaging and logic, it is a real challenge. It's
00:55:56
funny because I I sit here a lot with neuroscientists and psychologists who tell me about how the brain works and they at a simple level they talk about
00:56:04
these two parts of the brain which is like the rational prefrontal cortex and then the emotional center like the lyic
00:56:09
system the amydala and they always tell me that the most memorable um the part of the brain that holds memories the
00:56:16
easiest and the best and that garners the most attention is the emotional center of the brain the amydala. So if I say
00:56:21
that these people, these brown people are coming over and they're rapists and murderers.
00:56:26
Yeah. It's much it's much more emotionally captivating than you telling me about
00:56:32
like statistics on on how America recovered faster than any so-called wealthy
00:56:38
country economically from the pandmic. Yeah, I I'll forget that within 10 seconds of you just saying it. But the
00:56:43
rapist and murderers thing, like my objective sense goes, well, no, come on. It's not the problem. But there's part
00:56:49
of me that remembers that and that's even as someone who I think is relatively informed on the the reality
00:56:54
of the situation. I still I remember um Dr. I think it was Dr. Tally Sharet. She's a neuroscientist. So she
00:57:01
understands that vaccines don't give kids autism. Yeah. But she recalls this time in the
00:57:07
election many. She recalls um I think it was Ben
00:57:12
Carlson or someone talking about the science and then she the camera pans to Trump and Trump is saying recounting a
00:57:19
story where a child who was this big three-year-old beautiful child and they
00:57:24
came up to her with a needle this big and they gave her the vaccine and she got autism. Now science on one hand an
00:57:33
emotional story in the other. I know. Tally, I think, said to me at the time, she goes, "Even though I know it's not true, there was part of me
00:57:39
that was a little bit scared." I know. So, my question here is how does how does the Democratic Party win in such a
00:57:47
war when you're being fought with emotion and fear? How do you win with logic and rationality? like huh
00:57:55
I'll I'll answer your question directly but I want to just add to the question um that I think part of the question has
00:58:02
to be what is the responsible of media what is the role of corporateowned media
00:58:09
um god bless independent media because a lot of it is also about what
00:58:17
set of information are people working with you know for example I've talked to a number of people who voted voted for
00:58:23
me. Saying to them who are having debates,
00:58:28
disagreement, you know, ending relationships with people who voted for him.
00:58:34
And part of what I'm asking people to do
00:58:39
is not to assume that the people with whom they disagree are working with the
00:58:45
same set of information. Now, I didn't say facts because 2 plus 2 is four,
00:58:51
but I think it's a big mistake for us to assume we're all working with the same
00:58:56
information. And then when you compound that with, you know, intentional efforts to
00:59:03
misinform and disinform and targeted, I I was a member of the Senate
00:59:09
Intelligence Committee when we investigated Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
00:59:15
We declassified our findings. We made them public. It included the fact that this adversarial nation included in what
00:59:22
they targeted. They targeted black voters with the assumption that there are
00:59:28
certain people and demographically certain groups who are more susceptible to an argument about why they should
00:59:34
distrust their government because they have a lived experience that tells them that. And so I would say flippantly, oh,
00:59:41
so now all of a sudden the issue of race in America is a national security issue. So everybody needs to deal with it. We
00:59:48
know that certain demographics are targeted with miss and disinformation. Be they what we've seen around targeting
00:59:54
young voters or other groups based on race or gender. So when we talk about the role of the
01:00:01
Democratic party, there is a very big role to play and there is a role for us
01:00:06
to to to require social media companies to play, media companies to play and so
01:00:12
on because information is coming from all of these places and and the
01:00:18
challenge is as big as do we are we all working with facts.
01:00:26
We have a team at my company, Flight Story, called Flight X. And their primary responsibility is innovating
01:00:32
across our business so that we can save time, money, be better at what we do. And one of the recent challenges I've
01:00:38
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01:01:05
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01:01:11
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01:01:18
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01:01:25
you use my code diary. A word you said there um piqued my interest, which is the word independent
01:01:32
media. Yes, I am independent media. Bless you. And I'm in a group of my peers like the
01:01:39
big podcasters in the world like Joe Rogan, etc., and Alex Cooper. I know who show you Anton um in as part of your
01:01:45
campaign. The media landscape is changing before our eyes rapidly. You're sat in a set now. You're the
01:01:51
madame vice vice president. You're sat in effectively my kitchen, my old kitchen where they started, you
01:01:56
know, and that's crazy. Like 20 years ago, the thought that you'd come to my kitchen is
01:02:01
such a crazy thing. But it's in part now because of the democratization of these platforms and creating the content is
01:02:07
much cheaper and we have distribution now across these big platforms. Many would say that it changed the course of the election. Podcasting,
01:02:14
not just the podcast you did or didn't go on, but just the conversations that take place on these podcasts. And
01:02:19
as I have to say, you know, as podcasters, we don't have the same rigor as traditional journalists, who I
01:02:25
respect a lot. We don't have the same teams and real time fact, all those kinds of things.
01:02:31
Podcasting, there was lots of conversation around you going on Joe Rogan's show or not going on, which what is the what is the truth there for
01:02:37
anyone that hasn't yet read the book? Um because Trump did like a hundred million views on Joe Rogan's show and it in
01:02:44
three hours sat there getting to know Trump and for better or for worse you probably walked away from that
01:02:50
conversation feeling like you knew who he was. I wanted to do Joe Rogan show and there was a lot of games being played but I
01:02:58
wanted to do Joe Rogan show. I think podcasting is a very
01:03:03
powerful medium for people to get information and and to your point a lot
01:03:10
of people that is a main source of information and it's important for us to support that. Joe Joe says you wanted he
01:03:18
want you want him to come to you which is very un Joe like in terms of he doesn't really travel in hindsight
01:03:26
do you wish you'd gone and done the show for 3 hours at his studio in hindsight
01:03:33
it I' I'd mean really it just would be what what were we giving up I wanted to do his show and a lot of people advised
01:03:40
me not to do his show because they assumed as it turned out to be correct that he was supporting Trump and that it
01:03:46
would not be a productive piece for me. But just like when I went on Fox News with Brett Bear, my perspective was
01:03:55
they may have their bias, but there are people that listen who are open-minded, and I'm going to go there and give them
01:04:01
a chance to get to know me and give me a chance to make my case to them. So, that was my perspective on Joe
01:04:06
Rogan, just like it was my perspective on Fox. There was a lot of games being played
01:04:12
around the scheduling and it didn't happen. Um, and you know, I I don't have
01:04:18
anything against um certainly not against the people who turn on to Joe Rogan and would love to be able to talk
01:04:24
with him in a direct manner um as I wanted to during the campaign. Do you in hindsight wish you just put
01:04:29
your foot down and said, "I'm going to go do it." I don't know if it would have made a difference,
01:04:35
but yeah. No, I wanted to do it. So, let me just say that, right? So, I wanted to do it and it would have been great to do
01:04:41
and I think it would have been helpful to do. Yeah, I think so. So, it's just I mean that the issue it was really about
01:04:46
what's the tradeoff in terms of votes and where I spend my time. Do I spend my time traveling for 5 hours and back
01:04:53
versus being for that period of time in a swing state? Mhm. And that was the tradeoff. I guess it goes to the point
01:04:59
it wasn't about I don't want to do Joe Rogan or it believe me at that point in
01:05:04
a campaign it's not about oh is somebody coming to me or me going to them. I could care less about that. Pride is not
01:05:10
associated with it. It is more about it's it is literally about return on investment.
01:05:15
Okay. And this goes to our point about efficiency earlier. Yeah. Exact exactly right. The only there's only one candidate.
01:05:23
So where am I spending my time to get the greatest return on the investment? If I was in charge of your campaign
01:05:30
I would have 100% put you in that environment. Even when I
01:05:35
look at the trade-off in part because someone like me and I consider myself to be like genuinely really objective and my friends know me as being extreme
01:05:42
not just objective on camera but objective in my personal life. I would have when you see a certain
01:05:48
environment present someone in a certain way. You really like the
01:05:53
the thing that can burst that bubble is seeing that person go into that environment. And like when I saw you on Fox News, I watched that interview as
01:05:59
well. Um I actually think it strengthens strengthens your supporters and actually
01:06:05
those independents who are in that space too can can get a feel for you. So I would have love to see and I actually think
01:06:10
I hope in this next election cycle when is it 2028 I really would love to see
01:06:16
both sides going to both sides and I actually think that's happening now going into those going into those environments. I do also tend to think
01:06:22
that Joe would have been fair. Mhm. Well that's why I wanted to do it. I had to assume that that was possible
01:06:29
and either way he's very popular. I would have loved to watch that. I I regret that we didn't do it. I
01:06:38
definitely regret that we didn't do it. And um listen, I have
01:06:45
been doing my work long enough that for me it has I've never had the luxury
01:06:51
of saying I don't want to go into uncomfortable situations. Mhm. You would need to have a different profession.
01:06:58
PR people some some can sometimes [ __ ] things up for for other people. I think I think in the new world there's this
01:07:05
new requirement to be more like a glass box and less like a black box. I think in 20 years ago the whole strategy of
01:07:11
businesses and brands and CEOs executives was to basically be black boxes where the PR team paints the
01:07:17
perception on the outside and in this digital world where it's like the media and platforms are distributed and all of
01:07:23
my employees here have cameras on them at all times. The defense is like transparency because
01:07:29
I'm not going to let you craft my narrative. You're going to see it. That's why I wrote the book. Exactly. History is going to write about those
01:07:35
107 days and I'm not going to let that piece of American history be written without my voice being present.
01:07:42
Are you going to run again? Cuz I look at the polls. I looked at the polls and you're leading for the Democratic side
01:07:47
and there isn't really a clear Democratic candidate. I I interviewed Gav Gavin Newsome as well, but when I look at the
01:07:52
polls, you're still leading. Yeah. You don't know. I don't know. Honestly, I feel like you know in your heart.
01:07:59
What do I know in my heart? I feel like you know if you're you're going to run in your heart or if you have a calling or a feeling to is
01:08:06
something germinating. I you know I'm focused on the book tour sincerely. Yeah. And part of how I'm
01:08:12
feeling right now, part of the reason I didn't run for governor of California, I
01:08:18
really don't want to be transactional right now. You know, I don't I don't
01:08:23
want to be present because I'm asking for a vote. Okay. Yeah. What's the case for running
01:08:29
again and what's the case for not running again? H I think the case for running again is
01:08:38
if I can make a difference. Honestly, if I can make a difference, you know, if I feel that I can offer
01:08:46
something as president of the United States that would be
01:08:54
not only uplifting to the American people, but would be um
01:09:01
about, you know, getting us on a correct trajectory.
01:09:07
Do you know what my next question is going to be? What do you believe that you can offer something to the United States that's going to be uplifting and get us on a
01:09:12
better trajectory? I mean, that's why I ran the last time. Um,
01:09:19
so 28 is is a far it's I mean it's practically tomorrow, but it's it's not
01:09:25
and we'll have to see what happens over the course of these next few months, several months. Is there a case against running again?
01:09:33
What would that be? You know, it's difficult to run for president. takes a toll on your family. Takes a real toll on your family. You
01:09:40
know, anyone running for president should really take very seriously the
01:09:47
decision cuz it is not for the faint of heart. You have to be able to take a
01:09:53
punch and throw a punch, but you got to be able to take a punch. A lot of punches.
01:09:59
Yeah. There's something that comes with success. whether you're running for president of the United States, build a successful business, have a public
01:10:05
profile, um, which is among the the the difficult
01:10:13
aspects of it, and there are so many positive aspects, but among the difficult aspects is
01:10:21
putting yourself out there in a way that you invariably
01:10:27
will be in a position hopefully Not with a lot of people,
01:10:33
but where you will be misunderstood. That's an awful feeling. Yeah, it is. Yeah.
01:10:39
Oh, it's an awful feeling to be misunderstood in this environment in particular.
01:10:45
Invariably, you will put yourself in a position where some people will hate you. It's awful.
01:10:53
They don't know you, but they'll hate you. And
01:10:59
so to do anything that is about distinguishing yourself
01:11:05
by virtue of the thing you can offer or a differentiation from yourself and
01:11:11
others of you know in a similar category it it exposes you to a lot. Um and so
01:11:21
you have to know why you're doing it. And I believe that you have to do it for
01:11:29
something that is bigger than yourself, not about your own power, not about your
01:11:36
ego, not about your entitlement. It has to be because to endure the the the the not
01:11:45
just the process of getting into the job, but the job itself, you got to be clear about why you're
01:11:51
there. on that night when you the results come in and you realize that the
01:11:56
election hasn't gone your way and that Trump is going to be elected. What would I have seen if I was a fly on the wall
01:12:01
in the room? I was in a state of shock. Really? Did you think the day before that you
01:12:07
were going to win? Mhm. Yeah. And so when did the the proverbial penny
01:12:13
drop? when I got a call from my campaign manager that it looks like we need 200,000 more
01:12:21
votes that we can't find. Meaning, it's just the map, the numbers.
01:12:28
And the thing I kept saying over and over again, I was in a state of shock. I I
01:12:34
was I was so inarticulate, but maybe very articulate. What I kept
01:12:41
saying over and over again is, "My God, my God, my God." Really, over and I couldn't stop. I
01:12:49
um I haven't felt that emotion, anything similar to the emotion I felt that day in for quite some time.
01:12:56
Um other than the grief I felt when my mother died,
01:13:04
I fel I knew what was going to happen to our country. I knew I knew the harm that was going to
01:13:12
happen to people and I I knew it. I knew what was going
01:13:17
to happen. You know, it's um
01:13:23
it's not like it's not about winning
01:13:28
versus losing. It was never it was I knew the consequence
01:13:35
of the outcome of that election and that pained me. So I can still see the pain in your face.
01:13:42
Oh, it's awful. It's awful. You look at what's
01:13:47
happening. It's I mean it it's awful what's right now.
01:13:55
The man is building a ballroom for a bunch of his rich friends
01:14:02
while millions and millions of people are about to lose their health coverage in
01:14:07
terms of their being able to afford premiums for their health care. You look at the weaponization of the
01:14:15
Department of Justice against political enemies. How titans of
01:14:21
industry are so afraid that the capitulation that we're seeing
01:14:27
across the board, whether it be universities, law firms, media companies,
01:14:32
what's happening around gutting the Department of Education, lunch programs for for for lowincome
01:14:40
children. I IEPs, individual education placement for for
01:14:47
special needs kids have I recently I'm hearing the stories from mothers in
01:14:52
particular whose children have special needs and they can't get an IEP.
01:14:58
These are babies, the children who are most in need, their parents who are struggling. If you know a parent who has a special
01:15:05
needs child, what that means to their life emotionally, physically,
01:15:11
financially, and and we're not even giving them assistance with their educational
01:15:16
program for their children. Meanwhile, you're building a a gilded ballroom.
01:15:25
So, the harm, it's extraordinary. all those working people, the tariffs,
01:15:31
what this is meaning for people. He he made a promise that on day one he was going to bring down prices and
01:15:39
prices are higher for groceries. Inflation is higher. Unemployment is higher. And by the way, Stephen, it must
01:15:45
be said the failure of the Democratic party will be going forward
01:15:52
to overlook the fact that it is bigger than this one guy.
01:15:57
It is not just about this one person who occupies the oval office. We are
01:16:02
witnessing what is the swift implementation a high velocity event that is the swift implementation of a
01:16:09
plan that has been decades in the making. The strategy for dealing with this moment has to include having some
01:16:16
historical perspective on how we got here. That project 2025 didn't just fall out of the sky. The idea of going after
01:16:23
public education, that's not new. the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation,
01:16:29
what's what the the gerrymandering of districts, the the packing the court,
01:16:34
this stuff. This is about a an agenda
01:16:41
that is not going to begin and end with one person. And
01:16:47
the destruction, it's profound. There are there are however
01:16:54
a small group of people who have access to the power and are close to the power
01:16:59
who are doing quite well. the rest you look what what's going to
01:17:05
happen terms of working people does the again as an objective observer
01:17:10
the democratic party needs to take responsibility for you know because the US operates as
01:17:17
this sort of two-party system where it's kind of like this person versus this person left versus right right
01:17:22
the left lost they played it wrong from the the Democratic perspective they're paying the price of losing the game of
01:17:28
chess and so I think about the Democratic party and you know They can point at the the consequences of losing
01:17:34
that game, but I feel like the Democratic Party needs to get their [ __ ] together so that they don't lose the game again. I agree.
01:17:40
And that's the personal responsibility point, which is like how do how do you stop yourself from finding yourself in a
01:17:45
situation where at the last minute Joe Biden is pulled out with 100 days to go and no one mentioned it. I mean, you say
01:17:51
in the book that you you you at the time thought of it as grace. You talk about this on page 46. You say you thought it
01:17:57
was grace to not basically mention that there was a problem and grace not to tell Joe Biden to pull out earlier,
01:18:03
but actually in hindsight, you now think it was probably reckless not to tell him to pull out on my part. Yeah.
01:18:08
So what what what is that to you? What does the Democratic Party need to to do to
01:18:14
First of all, you know, if I had if I had done it over
01:18:20
again, part of the reflection, um, you know, we had the infrastructure
01:18:26
deal. We had the Chips Act, so we're building back up America's infrastructure. It's 150 years old.
01:18:32
Chips is about manufacturing chips. um US manufacturing
01:18:38
both incredibly important. If I had to do it over again, I would have first gone with our family policy that was
01:18:46
about extension of the child tax credit, affordable child care, paid family
01:18:52
leave. We needed to deal with the immediate issues affecting the American
01:18:58
people. In fact, that's why I ran for the 107 days on those issues, including having Medicare cover, for example, for
01:19:05
people in the sandwich generation who are taking care of young children and older parents, Medicare cover home
01:19:10
health care, right? Why I offered for small businesses that they would get a $50,000 tax credit
01:19:18
because nobody can for startup small businesses because nobody can start up a small business on a $5,000 tax credit,
01:19:24
right? So do you think the left is somewhat seen as the enemy of entrepreneurship? I think I think there is that
01:19:31
perception. I don't know if that is the case in reality but I think we need we have some work to do. Yeah. I mean I I talk about in the book
01:19:38
for example I think it was a mistake to not invite Elon Musk when we had um and
01:19:43
I'm no fan of his but I admire his work as an innovator and um as as you know the what he has
01:19:52
done in terms of American manufacturing of electric vehicles. We should have had him at the White House when we had all
01:19:58
the other electric vehicle American electric vehicle manufacturers. Right. I think this is part of the problem. And
01:20:04
when I read that, I was really happy to read that cuz you can disagree with someone in part, but still have the
01:20:10
nuance to be able to acknowledge this part's good, but if you just shut them out because of one thing, then you
01:20:15
really drive the vision. I mean, this gets back to my earlier point about what's the motivation
01:20:21
for the decisions that a leader makes. And the motivation I has has to be what is
01:20:28
for the greater good and and have the ability to put aside
01:20:34
you know those things that may may fall in the context of being more personal. Mhm. But I think we have to do a better job
01:20:40
of also focusing on being a bit more bold.
01:20:46
For example, I think we should reduce voting age to 16.
01:20:53
I'll tell you why. So, Gen Z,
01:21:00
they're age about 13 through 27. They've only known the climate crisis.
01:21:05
They missed substantial parts of their education because of the pandemic.
01:21:11
If they're in high school or college, especially in college, it is very likely
01:21:16
that whatever they've chosen as their major for study may not result in an affordable wage.
01:21:23
They've coined the term climate anxiety to describe fear of not only being able
01:21:31
to buy a home, but that fear it'll be wiped out by extreme weather, but fear of having children.
01:21:38
Um, it is expected that Gen Z will have 10 to 12 jobs in their lifetime. They
01:21:43
are a larger number than boomers. There are specific generation of people
01:21:48
who are going to impact our nation and the world. And I think we must invest in
01:21:54
them. But I think that they are rightly impatient with a lot of what is the
01:21:59
tradition of leadership right now. And if they were able to vote because they
01:22:04
know everything that's happening right now is going to impact them more than anybody older than them for the most
01:22:09
part in terms of how these systems work. If they're voting right now at 16 and
01:22:17
up, they're going to be talking about the importance of climate. They're going to be talking about the importance of
01:22:23
figuring out how AI is going to affect the future of the workforce. They're going to be focused on what are we
01:22:29
really doing about affordable housing. And basically in politics, here's the the hard truth about this. There are two
01:22:37
centers of power that tend to influence how politicians think. Groups that vote
01:22:44
the most and people who write the most checks. And I'm going to go every day with the
01:22:50
people the people and and thinking about how do we strengthen people actually
01:22:56
going to the polls and voting. Back to my point in 2024 one-third of the electorate didn't vote. Let's focus on
01:23:01
why and are we talking with them? Are we offering them bold solutions?
01:23:08
Are we bringing ideas forward that are speaking to their immediate needs?
01:23:15
Are we are we doing it in an effective way? Back to your point about podcast and other mediums.
01:23:22
If you run again, do you think you'll go into those more rightle leaning environments, media environments? Would
01:23:27
you go on, you know, I'm not saying Joe's rightwing, but would you go on Joe's show? I would certainly I would go at Joe's
01:23:33
show if I'm not running. I have a lot to say. Do you know when you'll make a decision? Like what's the time frame for someone?
01:23:39
I don't know. I mean, I I don't know. I obviously at some point we'll need to make the decision. I haven't thought
01:23:45
about the timeline. Probably in the next year. I mean, it's what is it? November of 28. Primaries would be in June.
01:23:53
And since that day when Trump won the election and you were sat there saying, "Oh god, oh god, under your breath." How
01:24:01
has the balance of that decision shifted over time? Has the conviction grown from that moment? Like in that, if I had
01:24:07
asked you in that moment when you were saying, "Oh god, oh god, under your breath." Would you have said never again? And today are you more on the side of
01:24:14
potentially? That's a great question. I think
01:24:19
well I could start with this. I think my family would have said never again. I think that as time has gone by. Um and
01:24:28
people have had a chance including myself to kind of sit with it, reflect on it. Writing the
01:24:35
book was very cathartic. Um being away from it in terms of space and time. It it has a way of mitigating the pain of
01:24:42
what that process was. Just like grief. Yeah. Use the word grief to describe that
01:24:48
feeling. So you get to acceptance at some point and Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, you're right. That's right. And you get
01:24:55
to process it in a way that also is about what's my role to play
01:25:02
and what could I have done differently as a way to help guide future decisions, whatever that be. I've built companies
01:25:10
from scratch and backed many more. And there's a blind spot that I keep seeing in early stage founders. They spend very
01:25:16
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01:25:23
And I can't fault them for that. At that stage, you're thinking about the product. How to attract new customers, how to grow your team, really, how to
01:25:29
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01:26:17
Right guys, going to go get Steve. The guest is here. Ready? Come in. Oh my god. Steve, what
01:26:24
what are you doing? This is uh the Bontage face mask. It's good for blemishes, wrinkles, uh clears
01:26:30
up the skin. It's red light. Have you not used it before? No. I tried this before. It's um it's really
01:26:36
really good. It shines red light on your face which helps increase and boost collagen production. Actually found it
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out cuz of the misses. Seen her wearing it. She terrified me a couple of nights in a row. Um I thought it was to scare people with but actually it's really
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really good for your skin. So they are a sponsor of the podcast and uh I've been using it every day for about a year and
01:26:54
a half now. Wow. Well, Steve is great. Yes. And Boncharge ships worldwide with
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01:27:07
you have to order through that link. That's bondcharge.com/diary with code diary. You talked about being
01:27:15
bold. Is that also in communication? Cuz as I've seen you on this book tour, it seems your communication has become
01:27:21
increasingly more bold. I've seen you get up a couple of times and start shouting a little bit at certain things
01:27:27
that pissed you off and being a bit more unfiltered. And I think funnily I think polish is actually
01:27:34
uh detrimental. That's what I love about podcasting. It's so unpolished. Like I sit here in my [ __ ] socks and it can it just
01:27:41
there's no your team's pretense. There's no pretense. There's nothing you said I couldn't ask you at all. Right. I was
01:27:46
wondering if that's you've noticed that in yourself and if that's you think that's important.
01:27:53
Right. Like, am I just like, "Fuck it."
01:28:02
Yeah, exactly. Don't ask the question with pretense. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I mean. Are you just like, "Fuck it, now
01:28:08
it doesn't matter." Cuz the book had [ __ ] energy. Yeah, I think there is that energy in the book. But just like here, but here's
01:28:16
part of it that I um in writing it and now this is how I feel about it.
01:28:22
In so many ways, I've been in the belly of the beast
01:28:29
and I I feel that the consequence
01:28:36
of an election for president of the United States impacts billions of people around the world.
01:28:44
And yet the process can be so opaque.
01:28:51
And what I also hope to do with the book is just lift up the hood on it so people
01:28:56
could see how it runs and in a way that if it's for a journalist, if it's for a high school
01:29:03
student, if it's for someone's grandmother to confirm or enlighten around what
01:29:11
people think it is in a way that they can see themselves in their own power, you know,
01:29:17
and that does require um demystifying it and I guess part of demystifying is yeah
01:29:24
like I'm not going to hold on to oh this kind of thing should not be talked about. Do you regret running with only 107 days
01:29:31
notice? Do you wish you hadn't ran? No, I don't regret running. I wish we
01:29:37
had more time. I truly wish we had more time. I truly wish we had more time. I
01:29:42
don't regret running. Had you known the outcome, would you have still ran? probably
01:29:48
because you know one of the things that happened
01:29:54
and to this day men and women, girls and boys come up to
01:29:59
me and say there was something about that campaign that excited something in
01:30:05
them. I can't tell you the number of people who have come up to me and said, "I decided to run for office because you ran."
01:30:12
The number of people who have come up to me and said, "I decided to go to law school because you inspired me with what
01:30:18
I The number of people who have told me about their young children
01:30:24
who, you know, saw something and got excited about it and wanted to be a part
01:30:30
of it. I don't regret any of that. I I I absolutely believe that we turned
01:30:35
something on." In fact, I'm going to say this differently because it's not like people
01:30:40
didn't have it in them. They had it in them, but there was something that those 107 days did to welcome, to invite, to
01:30:50
grow the optimism and dare I say the joy that people do carry with them. And what
01:30:56
I hope to do with my voice right now is to remind everyone, please don't let your spirit be
01:31:03
defeated. We may not have won the election, but our spirit can't be defeated because then they really win.
01:31:10
And sometimes the fight takes a while, right? So, I don't regret having run
01:31:18
in spite of the outcome. Um, but I do regret that we did not have
01:31:24
more time. You mean you've got more time now? Yeah. Time to do a podcast.
01:31:30
Time to run for president as well, potentially. go out. I um I look at I've got two pictures here which I thought are beautifully
01:31:36
sweet. I'll show you both of them, but Okay. I um Yeah, these these two pictures here of dog.
01:31:42
Oh, my doggy. Yeah. How you know when if I was in a situation where the election results had
01:31:49
come in and I' had that call from my my team saying that there's 200,000 votes we can't find.
01:31:56
I think I'd probably be turning to my my partner in those moments. Oh, I definitely did. Talk to me about
01:32:02
that. What's What role did he play? I mean, he is It sounds so corny, but he truly is my rock. He is um
01:32:11
My husband is just fully self-actualized. He's not pretending to be anything he's
01:32:17
not. He is a strong man who cares about his family, cares about hard work. He is
01:32:23
loyal. He has a sense of humor. He's very encouraging.
01:32:29
He's very honest. And you know I want that for anyone and everyone. I know you talk with a lot of
01:32:35
people and you know about advice about career and all of that. for any of us.
01:32:42
What I want for anyone who has ambition for success
01:32:48
have in your life and it doesn't have to be a lot of people but that circle of
01:32:54
people who have some understanding of what you're going through and are there when you want to laugh at
01:33:02
the thing you're not supposed to laugh about. You want to use the words you don't use
01:33:07
wherever you pray. Um the people who you know I talk about
01:33:14
you know if you if you slip and fall they'll laugh at you and then pick you up and push you back out there. None of
01:33:21
us has achieved success without those people in our lives. And it might be your spouse. It might be your partner.
01:33:28
It might be a family member. It it could be anybody. But but be intentional about
01:33:35
having those people in your life because look, this is life. There, you know, so
01:33:40
cliche, they're going to be the ups, they're going to be the downs. It's it's the it's the beauty of living that, you
01:33:48
know, it it involves the whole spectrum, but when you have people that can be with you on your journey,
01:33:55
it just makes it better. Do you remember what he said to you that night?
01:34:02
Well, he was in as much of a state of shock as I was. We didn't I have to admit, we were not
01:34:08
very articulate that night. How long did that last? Well,
01:34:15
not until I started writing the book and getting to the chapter on election
01:34:20
night. Do you know that was the first time Doug and I talked about election night? Really? How how many weeks months was
01:34:27
that? Months. We had never talked about election night. Never. Had never talked about
01:34:33
election night. It was when I was writing the book. That's when he told me something I had no idea, which is he and
01:34:42
my brother-in-law had been campaigning on election day in Michigan. All felt
01:34:47
good. I remember talking to him and he said, "It feels good out here. Everybody's saying it feels good."
01:34:52
Then on their way back to DC, they got a call from a friend of ours who was a Democrat who but who was a a
01:35:00
pundit on Fox News and he was in their boiler room, their war room. And he
01:35:05
calls Doug and my brother-in-law Tony to say, "What are you guys hearing? Cuz what I'm hearing concerns me."
01:35:13
I didn't know that happened. All I knew was Doug went campaigning with Tony. I was campaigning. Everybody
01:35:20
was campaigning. I had a house full of family. When he came back to the house,
01:35:25
I knew something was like a little off in retrospect.
01:35:30
What I didn't know is he had that information. And he had gone up the stairs to take a
01:35:36
shower and pray. And I didn't know until we talked about that
01:35:43
chapter because we talked about that night. And then I was talking to him about
01:35:49
we always do friends and family dinner and I said, "Doug, remember the tables and do you remember who was sitting at
01:35:55
our table?" And then and he said I said, "Remember when I gave the toast?" He said, "You didn't give the toast. You didn't give a toast."
01:36:02
I said, "I did." He said, "No, you're thinking about one of the other events cuz we used to do dinners in that room."
01:36:08
No, it was our friends and family dinner. I gave a toast. So, I looked for the photographs of that night and I found one and there I am standing giving
01:36:14
a toast. Doug was so in his head at that point
01:36:20
worried about what he heard from our friend about what Fox News was reporting
01:36:26
in their boiler room. He didn't really experience any of that. You know, have
01:36:32
you ever had those? Yeah. But you've just like something is so weighing on that you're not experiencing
01:36:37
anything that cuz that's all you're thinking. M. But he didn't want to tell me that night. He prayed it would it was going
01:36:43
to be different. In hindsight, could you tell that something was off with him? In hindsight, I could tell.
01:36:49
And I um and yeah, and we never,
01:36:56
you know, cuz we we had to function. We had a house full of people, family.
01:37:04
the next day cuz we were going to go to Howard University's campus, my alma mater, to
01:37:11
give a victory speech the night of the election, um told everybody to come back the next
01:37:17
day. And so then I had to get ready to go and give a speech, which was a
01:37:22
concession speech. And actually to the point of, you know, I had to reconcile,
01:37:29
I would close every rally by saying, "When we fight, we win. And it was not as simplistic as well,
01:37:36
you win some, you lose some. And I was trying to figure out how do I, especially for all those young people,
01:37:42
how do I help them reconcile that? And on the way to the giving the speech, I wrote into the speech, well, sometimes
01:37:49
the fight takes a while. But when I got So when we got to the when we got to Howard, we were in the, you know, green
01:37:55
room and our family was there. So this is how awful I am. I'm looking,
01:38:00
everybody's crying. And I just looked at them. I said, "We are not having a pity party.
01:38:08
We are not having a pity party." And I was just on
01:38:13
function, you know, and then it was um
01:38:20
and then it was, you know, I had the we we ended up we had a a trip planned
01:38:26
to Hawaii for vacation. from many many months ago and there was
01:38:32
a emergency happening in the world and so I couldn't go and we couldn't go and we forgot that we actually cuz we had
01:38:39
paid to rent this house and my team being so great they're like why don't we
01:38:44
see if we can get you to go to that house now Mhm. And as I reflected on it, it was
01:38:50
literally, it wasn't a vacation. It was like the oxygen mask just dropped and we put it on and went to Hawaii and
01:38:59
some friends of ours met us there and we were like zombies, you know, for a
01:39:05
while. It was just it was we it was a very difficult thing to process. Is that depression?
01:39:11
Um, probably. I mean it's it's a it's
01:39:18
there is the thing about one um about you know going going going going
01:39:26
and then all of a sudden so there is that which is just your body is physically used to this thing that
01:39:33
all of a sudden stops and I've had that happen every time I've run and win even
01:39:38
right like what it gold medal depression right right when you win the gold medal people get depressed because
01:39:44
yeah because you because you've been you've been functioning the whole time in a very competitive nature and it's
01:39:51
fight or flight and it's adrenaline adrenaline adren surging surging surging and then there is the piece that is
01:39:58
about I mean it it lasted for days which is
01:40:03
almost that you know they talk about when people um lose a limb there's the like the ghost
01:40:10
or the phantom phantom limb yeah right the phantom limb them and I had a hard time reconciling. We can't still do
01:40:16
something about it. I had a just I I knew it's just like I
01:40:23
knew I was going through the stages of grief. I knew, you know, so that's good to be able to put a label on something,
01:40:28
but it doesn't mean that you don't otherwise experience it. You weren't helpless at that point. Yeah. I wasn't I was just like there's
01:40:34
something there must be something I can do. Do you reflect on um I know your your mother passed away when in your
01:40:41
early you were in your early 40s. I think she was 70 years old roughly and she was colon cancer
01:40:48
her birthday was December 7th. She died February 11th. She was just 2 months into being 70.
01:40:53
Is her spirit and her her presence still with you in these moments? And do you reflect on what she had be thinking of
01:41:00
all this? Very much. Very much all the time. Um,
01:41:09
she I mean I can't if my I you know it's funny I've talked
01:41:16
to a couple people who have lost their parents who were
01:41:22
who've lost them recently but whose parents had a similar nature to my mother. And one of them said to me most
01:41:28
recently, she said, "I'm so glad my father is not alive to see this because it would kill him."
01:41:35
I was just talking to somebody recently who just said that. Um, oh, my mother would be I'd pro, you know, it would be
01:41:42
a great distraction for me if my mother were alive right now because I'd have to spend full time talking her down.
01:41:48
would be, oh, you know, when I talked about that safe space,
01:41:53
so early on when I was running for DA, this is when I realized I need to have like that core group of like that safe
01:41:59
space. And I thought my mother would be a perfect person to be in it. And I realized that was a huge mistake
01:42:05
on my part because my mother wanted to kill everybody
01:42:12
and then I'd have to spend full time talking her down instead of dealing with
01:42:18
how I needed to address a situation.
01:42:25
So that's my mother's nature. We used to call her mommy. That's mommy's nature. She'd be so proud.
01:42:30
Oh, she would be proud. She'd be very proud. She um Oh my god. So, she passed
01:42:38
just before my election as attorney general and I was I took care of her when she
01:42:44
was sick and we were um this is one of those days and there were weeks where
01:42:50
she needed to be in the hospital and so she was I was with her in the hospital. She's in the bed and I was in the chair
01:42:57
sitting next to her and so like I'm here and she's here and she was just kind of resting
01:43:04
and she said to me, "How's the campaign going?"
01:43:09
And she's and I'm sitting here. I said, "Well, mommy,
01:43:14
this is truth." I said, "Well, mommy, they said they're going to kick my ass."
01:43:19
My mother turned over and looked at me and smiled.
01:43:27
Swear to God. She didn't say anything. She smiled like, "Yeah, let them try."
01:43:35
Uh-huh. That was my mother. Yeah.
01:43:41
You miss her? Oh, all the time. Yeah. All the time. But, you know, it's um
01:43:49
here's the thing about life. One of the things that I've learned um
01:43:57
you know it's just like having the things that can be it's the duality.
01:44:05
The things that can be a great blessing and have a huge impact. When it's not there
01:44:13
it feels like a huge loss. It's like you asked earlier would you have done it differently then? Would we
01:44:20
ever say because we've experienced the loss of someone we love that we would not have loved? Never. Right. Never.
01:44:30
Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.
01:44:35
Um I'm not going to We do have a closing tradition, but I think we're out of time. Um I'm going to ask you anyway. [ __ ] it.
01:44:40
Okay. Um the closing tradition is the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question left for you is
01:44:45
if there was a moment in the last 10 years you would do differently, what would it be and why?
01:44:53
Oh, I mean this is quite the whole interview. I wrote read my
01:44:59
book. Okay, we'll leave it at that. Read the book 107 days. um Kla Harris. It's an
01:45:05
incredible book because it's so unbelievably honest and it's so unbelievably human and it lets you see behind a curtain one does not usually
01:45:12
get to see behind which is extremely extremely rare but extremely illuminating and valuable. Um your career is one that has inspired me
01:45:18
tremendously because you've broken down walls, broken through ceilings and continue to do that. And if anyone takes
01:45:23
the time to read your book or look through the story of your life, it is irrefutable that your agenda is to to
01:45:29
serve people. Thank you so much for giving me your time today. Thank you. I'm very very touched by that. Thank you. Thank you.
01:45:35
[Music]
