Joining us now, Susan Rice, former director of the Domestic
Policy Council in the Biden administration,
obviously also former national security advisor and UN Ambassador Ambassador
Rice,
as we just heard, Donald Trump referring to Harris as
Camilla,
which doesn't seem to be an accident because he deliberately
mispronounces her name.
What do you think he's trying to achieve?
I think it's all part of his
strategy to denigrate and
objectify the vice president as he does women of all
sorts all the time.
Donald Trump is incapable of respecting women
and it is not only in his DNA and how
he has treated women at every stage of his life,
personally and professionally, but it is at the at the
root of his policy approach.
Project 2025 and the the Trump
Vance agenda is to take
American Society and American women back
decades and generations to a time when we didn't control
our bodies,
we didn't have rights. And this is really the the
thrust of of what his agenda is about.
Vice President Harrison and Governor walls are very clear.
This is an election about the future.
Are we going to have a country where everybody counts,
whatever their background, whatever their gender,
whatever their age or, or where they came from,
if they're an American citizen,
they deserve a stake in this country
and the ability not just to get by,
but to get ahead where our freedoms and are protected
and respected.
Donald Trump and and JD Vance really want to take
us back to a time when
those rights and freedoms were denied not just to women,
but to the vast majority of Americans in in this
country.
And so he approaches this by belittling and denigrating and
objectifying
his opponents, and in this case using gender and and
sexualized terminology.
Sometimes he uses racialized terminology,
but it's all to distract from the reality
that he is running a
campaign that is really retro,
dangerous and self-serving. Let me pick up on the racial
component of this because
some Republican leaders, the former speaker and others have criticized
the racial attacks,
the thread of racial attacks,
and said that that's not what he should be doing.
In particular after his attacks at the end
ABJ convention in Chicago. I wanted to play some of
that for you.
So I don't know, is she Indian or is she
black?
She is always identified as a black.
I respect either one. I respect either one.
But she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the
way.
And then all of a sudden she made a turn
and she went,
she became a black person.
So I wanted to ask you as someone who is
dealt with this all your professional life,
all your life,
just how do you react to that someone who became
a black person?
I
mean, in so many ways,
it's it's not worth dignifying that kind of
base and and ignorant attack.
But as a as a tactic,
as a campaign tactic, it's in previous campaigns.
It's a tactic that's meant to divide
and and to
denigrate the fact that 10%
of the American population, 33 million Americans,
Andrea, are mixed race, have more than one racial background.
And the fact that somebody who has been president and
is running for president
can't understand and respect that it is possible
to be a mixed race person and as valued and
intelligent and capable and worthy as anybody else.
And that as an American and an American of African
descent in this country,
given our history, given how this country has
handled matters of race, that people who are mixed race
and are
and one of those races is black,
are, are viewed as and,
and typically identify as black.
And that is what Vice President has Harris has done
all her life.
And frankly, it's not just because she went to Howard
University and was in
a black sorority. She is a black person because that
is her background,
her experience, and that is how she chooses to identify.
And she doesn't have to do that
at the expense of her Indian identity.
It is possible, Andrea, to Bebo,
let me also ask you about NBC reporting that Harris
is going to begin to highlight,
quote, unfinished pieces of Biden's agenda that she would champion
as president.
She has been criticized so far for not laying out
policies
in these couple of weeks where she's,
you know, frankly, had to organize a campaign and she
was a running mate.
But universal childcare, paid family leave,
affordable housing, minimum wage increase,
a lot of the things you worked on in the
White House.
How important is it for her to find a way
to differentiate herself from aspects of the Biden agenda?
Maybe, you know, move the ball,
put an emphasis on other things.
How does she do that and still be loyal to
the fact that she worked with Joe Biden?
Well, Andrea, first of all,
it's been barely over three weeks
since she has been the presumptive Democratic nominee.
She's done an extraordinary job picking up first class running
mate,
barnstorming the country, generating enthusiasm,
making people understand that this is an exciting election about
the future and that one that can be waged on
the basis of optimism and joy rather than fear,
hatred and division. She will,
as she has said, outline
aspects of her economic policy later this week.
But I think it's very important to remember that this
has been the Biden Harris agenda.
Kamala Harris has been an integral architect,
an executor of the policies of the Biden Harris administration.
And when you talk about
the important business that she is committed to continuing and
finishing things like paid family leave,
making permanent the child tax credit,
making childcare more affordable, raising the minimum wage,
respecting workers and and helping to strengthen unions.
These are elements of of a policy
framework that she devised as part of
a key part of the Biden administration and is
keen to see through to the finish line.
So there will be important
as there should be aspects of continuity and in many
policy areas.
But of course, the vice president will outline her vision
and,
and where she sees opportunities to to advance their collective
agenda,
the Biden Harris collective agenda and take it further forward.
I think we all look forward to hearing that.
But this notion that she somehow doesn't deserve credit for
and isn't part of and wasn't an integral
architect of the Harris administration agenda is is not only
false,
it's it's frankly somewhat bizarre and offensive.