In a highly anticipated appearance on the popular Call Her Daddy podcast, Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris engaged in a candid conversation with host Alex Cooper.
The episode, released on Sunday, covered a wide range of topics, from reproductive rights to personal attacks.
Here are five key takeaways from the interview:
Unwavering Stance on Abortion Rights
Harris discussed the current state of abortion access in America.
“One out of three women in our country are in states with abortion bans,” she stated and described the challenges faced by women in these states, particularly mothers.
Harris added: “Imagine she is in a state with an abortion ban and she’s a mom. So she is going to have to figure out one, God help her if she has affordable childcare, God help her if she has paid leave, and then she is going to have to go to the airport, stand in a TSA line, sit on a plane next to a perfect stranger, to go to a city where she has never been, to receive the care she needs.”
The vice president emphasized that reproductive health clinics provide essential services beyond abortions. “Do you know what those clinics also do? They do paps, they do breast cancer screenings, they do HIV testing, and they are having to close in many places with these bans,” she noted.
Harris also addressed claims about late-term abortions from former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, calling them “a bold face lie” and “outrageously inaccurate.”
“That is not happening anywhere in the United States. It’s so insulting to suggest that that would be happening and that women would be doing that,” the vice president said.
Newsweek has contacted Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung via email on Sunday for comment.
Highlighting her commitment to reproductive rights, Harris stated, “I was the first vice president or president to ever in office go to a reproductive health center, ever.”
On the changing perspectives regarding abortion, Harris noted, “What I’m finding as I travel, people who before two years ago, before Roe V. Wade was overturned, people who felt very strong about that they are anti-abortion, anti-abortion, are now seeing what is happening and saying, ‘hm, I didn’t intend for all of this to happen.'”
She concluded by emphasizing the importance of personal choice in health care decisions: “You don’t have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree, the government shouldn’t be telling her what to do. If she chooses, she’ll talk to her priest, her pastor, her rabbi, her imam, but not the government telling you what to do and that’s what is so outrageous about it.”
“Call Me Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper sits down for a highly anticipated interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris engaged in a candid conversation with Cooper and covered a wide range of topics from reproductive rights to personal attacks.
Spotify/Call Me Daddy
Her Choice of Being Childless and Responding to That “Humble” Comment
Harris responded to Arkansas GOP Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders‘ comments that the vice president “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble” because she doesn’t have children.
Harris responded: “I feel sorry for her and I’m going to tell you why because I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who one, are not aspiring to be humble, two, a whole lot of women out here, who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life, and children in their life and I think it’s very important for women to lift each other up.”
Harris later discussed her own family situation, “I have two beautiful children, Cole and Ella, who call me Mamala. We have a very modern family.”
She also elaborated on her approach to blended families: “My husband’s ex-wife is a friend of mine and also I’m a child of divorced parents and when I started dating Doug, my husband, I was very thoughtful and sensitive to making sure that until I knew that our relationship was something that was going to be real, I didn’t want to form a relationship with the kids and then walk away from that relationship.”
Student Loan Forgiveness and Economic Issues
Harris acknowledged the financial obstacles facing young Americans, particularly in housing and family planning.
“We are fighting and I’m going to continue to fight for student debt relief,” she stated, adding that the administration has already forgiven student loan debt for millions of people “including doubling the amount of student loan forgiveness for public servants like nurses and teachers and firefighters.”
On housing affordability, Harris explained: “Part of my plan is to work with home builders in the private sector to create tax incentives to build by the end of my first term 3 million more housing units.”
The vice president also proposed “$25,000 down payment assistance for first-time home buyers” and tax credits for middle-class families, including “a $6,000 tax cut for the first year of their child’s life.”
On Sexual Abuse and Making America Safer for Women
Harris emphasized the importance of open dialogue about sexual abuse.
“Part of the issue is that people don’t talk about it. I don’t mean the survivors of it; I mean nobody does. And the more that we let anything exist in the shadows, the more likely it is that people are suffering and suffering silently, and we need to talk about it,” she stated.
She added: “Child sexual assault is something that affects far more people than the public discourse about it acknowledges and the more we talk about it, the more we will address it and deal with it, the more we will be equipped to deal with it, in terms of schools, in terms of society at large and to not stigmatize it.”
Harris also addressed economic factors in abusive situations, saying, “When a woman and particularly if she has children, if she is economically reliant on her abuser, she is less likely to leave, because most women will endure whatever personal, physical pain they must in order to make sure their kids have a roof over their head or food.”
The vice president also responded to Trump’s claims about protecting women at a September campaign event. The former president cast himself as a “protector” of women, saying in the battleground state of Pennsylvania that he will save all women from “fear” and “loneliness” so they will no longer have to think about abortion.
Harris responds, “So he, who, when he was president, hand selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe V. Wade and they did just as he intended and there are now 20 states with Trump abortion bans, including bans that make no exceptions for rape or incest, which we just discussed, which means that you’re telling a survivor of a crime with a violation of their body, they don’t have a right to make a decision about what happens to their body next, which is immoral.”
On “Cat Ladies” and Personal Attacks From the Right
When asked about various attacks on her character from political opponents, including Trump’s running mate Ohio Senator JD Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies,” Harris remained resolute. “I think it’s really important not to let other people define you. And usually, those people who will attempt to do it don’t know you,” she stated.
Addressing these comments directly, Harris said, “I just think it’s mean and mean spirited. And I think that most Americans want leaders who understand that the measure of their strength is not based on who you beat down, the real measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”
Newsweek has also contacted Harris’ campaign via email on Sunday for comment.
