Exclusive: Unveiling Kamala Harris - A Found Conversation

Grace: 00:00:00

Hi, it's Grace, and this is Frogmore Stew.

Grace: 00:00:12

Today I have TJ Phillips, who is our fabulous producer in the light of the events of the last week. And. Kamala Harris basically becoming our new nominee. TJ mentioned to me that he'd interviewed her four years ago and that he still had the recording. Hi TJ.

TJ: 00:00:33

Hi, thanks for having me.

Grace: 00:00:35

You're always on here. I know, but just your voice isn't always on here.

TJ: 00:00:39

Exactly.

Grace: 00:00:39

And this is really incredible because when you sent me an email saying, I think I have still have this old interview of myself with Kamala Harris from 2020.

TJ: 00:00:53

Yeah, four years ago.

Grace: 00:00:54

Yeah. I thought it would be really dated, meaning like of the time, what was going on in 2020, but I've listened to it. And. I think it really tells you who she is. And I think it's something that will translate into now.

TJ: 00:01:11

Because of the work I do, I happen to be available a morning that she was doing some radio rounds. She was calling various stations back when she was still running for president in 2020. She was not scheduled to talk to me, but apparently they had a little extra time and somebody stuck their head in the door and said, We've got Harris on the phone.

TJ: 00:01:34

Do you want to talk to her for five minutes? Sure. I'll give it a shot. I had no preparation, no idea what to do. You know what to talk to her about or who she was for that matter, beyond the basics.

Grace: 00:01:46

And don't you think that makes it even more interesting now? Because as you said, she was running for president, right? So she wasn't in her vice-presidential role. She was still thinking, I'm going to take the number one job. So her answers were coming as if she were going to be the president.

TJ: 00:02:05

Exactly. And I get in my head immediately. I just said, I don't know much about her, maybe nobody else does either. So I'll just ask her who she is and that's where it went. And we ended up talking for eight or nine minutes.

Grace: 00:02:22

And that makes that even more timely because I think one of the main criticisms. Or I shouldn't say criticisms. One of the main things that I have heard many people, particularly independent people say is we don't really know who she is. What does she stand for?

Grace: 00:02:40

What's her background, her family background? How did she grow up? What is she like as a person? And I think even though it's brief, this interview really captures a lot of that. So it's really exciting for us to be able to share this with our listeners.

TJ: 00:02:56

From the very first question, I just said, I want to know who you are. And then I wanted to find out about how honest she could be because she was running for president coming from her job as a Senator for California. And at that time, legalization of marijuana was a big deal out there. And as a former prosecutor and Senator, I wondered if she would honestly tell me what she thought of legalizing marijuana. Because in her job, she put a lot of people in jail. Yeah. She answers that question and you'll make your own judgment about whether she was able to be honest with me or not. That's why I asked that particular question, just to test her honesty.

Grace: 00:03:42

We should let our listeners hear it and So excited to have, even if it's brief, eight minutes of her telling us about her.

Kamala Harris: 00:03:53

There we go. Okay.

TJ: 00:03:54

How are you this morning?

Kamala Harris: 00:03:56

Very well this morning. How are you?

TJ: 00:03:58

Oh, if I was any better, I'd be somewhere else. Say that. I know you're in South Carolina trying to lay the foundation down here for your presidential campaign. I want to who you are. You know what I mean? Where did you grow up? What kind of atmosphere did you grow up in?

Kamala Harris: 00:04:13

I had a very depressed childhood. I grew up, my mother was our primary parent and she raised my sister and me in a community of family that were, that convinced us we could do anything, hardworking family who just were surrounded with love and deep in faith and, tough.

Kamala Harris: 00:04:35

I grew up in a family where we would come home and I'd explain something that happened at school and I'd say, oh, mommy, this happened and that happened. And whereas some other parents might have bugged their children and said, I'll handle it, my mother would look at me and she'd say what did you do?

TJ: 00:04:49

That's great.

Kamala Harris: 00:04:52

But it was a family where, our most of our time was spent in the kitchen when someone was cooking something good. And it was just, I was raised in a family of parents who also met when they were active in the civil rights movement. And my sister and I, Joseph, grew up surrounded by a bunch of adults who spent full time marching and shouting.

TJ: 00:05:11

It's great exercise, right? It is. Obviously, education was something important to the family. I mean, you did very well.

Kamala Harris: 00:05:20

Thank you. I stand on the shoulders of many people, but there were a lot of people who participated in me being who I am today.

TJ: 00:05:27

If we could just get everybody educated.

Kamala Harris: 00:05:31

To your point, let me tell you, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Frances Wilson, God rest her soul, attended my law school graduation. Which is why I always praise and thank and applaud the work of teachers because They along with parents are helping to raise our children. And to raise our next generation of leaders Yep, so yeah, that's a very fortunate that I had a lot of people who are Very invested in me. And I try to do the same.

TJ: 00:06:00

My son and I talk about you a lot. Believe it or not. And he's socially active online and I'm not. We share stories. He says, yeah, they're beating her up pretty good about, that marijuana. You believe we should have legalized recreational marijuana in America today?

Kamala Harris: 00:06:17

I do. And I will tell you why. First of all, I'm, I, my career has been as a prosecutor. I personally prosecuted everything, including homicides. And I also started one of the first initiatives focused on young offenders in the system and giving them jobs and counseling, understanding that we have to reenter people in the community and put resources into them to, if we really want to be smart on crime, right?

Kamala Harris: 00:06:42

If we really want to understand that preventing crime is as anything at all. And on the issue of drugs, specifically marijuana, We, for so many years, had this thing called the War on Drugs, which was a failure. It was a failure.

TJ: 00:06:58

Yep.

Kamala Harris: 00:06:58

And we ended up incarcerating whole populations of people. Over an issue that was really a public health issue, right?

Kamala Harris: 00:07:07

On the issue of marijuana I have always supported medical marijuana and I’mma tell you TJ I have personally known people who are very sick who only benefited from a few and as it relates to recreational marijuana? I can look let's legalize it Let's study it in the category of law right now as a controlled substance where we can't even study it look at the self-impact Especially on your son and my son, who's 23, and thinking about the developing brain, 18 through 25.

Kamala Harris: 00:07:39

I want us to research that. I have concerns. I believe in legalizing it and decriminalizing it, more specifically. But I also believe strongly that, and have a concern about how we're going to test impairment when someone is under the influence of marijuana as it relates to driving. Because I started my career when mothers against drunk driving were very active because they understood our children, our teenagers, our young adults were dying because someone was impaired while driving a lethal weapon called a car.

Kamala Harris: 00:08:14

We need to study that also. We need to have an ability to measure that also. So those are my concerns, but I believe we can meet those concerns. But I am in favor of decriminalization and doing a better job. And just being smarter with the resources we have. Let's put, instead of putting resources into incarcerating people, let's put the resources into studying it, and and appreciating the benefits of it as well as the medicinal as well.

TJ: 00:08:37

One more question. What is it that you think you can do differently to help this country get back together as one nation than what has been done over the last ten years?

Kamala Harris: 00:08:51

I'll tell you, it is so painful. I think for so many of us to see that we have had powerful voices that are trying to sow hate and division among us, as Americans, I believe we have so much more in common than what separates us.

Kamala Harris: 00:09:06

And I know it in my heart. I know it in my brain. I know it in my soul. And to heal, we have to all really agree and know that. We're a diverse country. We're diverse in terms of, South Carolina versus Southern California. We are diverse in terms of race and age and ethnicity, but we're diverse in terms of just the history of the various states.

Kamala Harris: 00:09:29

But the thing about it is that we have so much more in common than what separates us, and I'm going to tell you how I know that. When the vast majority of us wake up in the middle of the night with that thought that has been weighing on us, sometimes we wake up in a cold sweat, some people call it the three o'clock in the morning thought, but the vast majority of us, when we wake up thinking that thought, it is never through the lens of the party with which we are registered to vote.

Kamala Harris: 00:09:53

It is never through the lens of some demographic of folks to put us there. And for most of us, when we wake up thinking that thought, it has to do with just a very few things. It's not just our health, it's not just our children or our parents. With so many, can I get a job, keep a job, pay the bills by the end of the month, retire with dignity?

Kamala Harris: 00:10:11

The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us, and it is my intention Believe with that spirit, with that knowledge, and fighting for that truth.

Grace: 00:10:26

Short but sweet, but I do think it gives us all a little bit of insight into who she is. It sounds to me when she particularly is talking about the marijuana issue that she is one, speaking up from experience and two, speaking from the heart. I think that we can debate marijuana all day, but I think her points are very well taken and also very thought out.

Grace: 00:10:52

It's interesting that she answered in such an in-depth way because I think a lot of politicians Oftentimes plant questions about marijuana.

TJ: 00:11:01

Exactly. I, somebody asked me after I did the thing what'd you think of her? And I said, she's probably as human as any politician I've ever talked to. That was my thought.

TJ: 00:11:14

She was just real and you either like her or you don't. So I hope this helped a little bit, as people try to figure out who she is quickly here.

Grace: 00:11:23

Thanks, TJ. This is really exciting.

TJ: 00:11:26

How is, what is it you say? That's all the Frogmore stew for today. See you next week.

Grace: 00:11:31

I think I say, that's all the stew.

TJ: 00:11:32

That's it.

Grace: 00:11:33

Yes. You finish.

TJ: 00:11:35

Okay. And that's all the stew for today. We'll see you next week, .

Grace: 00:11:41

Sounds great. Bye TJ.

TJ: 00:11:53

The Frogmore Stew Podcast is written and hosted by Grace Cowen Editing and IT support by Eric Johnson, produced by TJ Phillips with the Podcast Solutions Network.