supposed to tell you whether she can someday do what we all saw her do last night and none of those articles predicted this program has been covering K Harris longer than all of the news organizations whose headlines we just read she first appeared on this program when she was the district attorney of San Francisco and she last appeared on this program in December when a dump Harris movement was brewing at the that time there were some who thought the way to deal with Joe Biden's age in the reelection campaign was to get a different vice presidential candidate who the country was able to see as a strong potential president because obviously according to the pushes of this Theory no one could ever see kamla Harris that way and as I've said repeatedly on this program I saw KLA Harris as a potential presidential candidate and a potential president the day I met her in a small group me meeting in Los Angeles in 2009 it was that obvious then viewers of this program have repeatedly had the opportunity to see kamla Harris that way as a potential president and I would hope that faithful viewers of this program were not at all surprised by what they saw on the debate stage last night vice president Harris being the same person she's always been easily crushing the 78-year-old convicted felon standing across the room from her afraid to ever even look at her both of those candidates on the debate stage last night were exactly who they have always been in December on this program Vice pres the vice president offered us a preview of some of what we heard last night I asked the vice president then what she thought about Donald Trump saying that immigrants like her parents poisoned the blood of our country I was raised as you know a child of parents who were active in the civil rights movement and I was raised knowing that there will be some people who will use their voice in a way that is meant to dehumanize um meant to suggest that the vast majority of us don't have anything in common when in fact the vast majority of us have more in common than what separates us and I would interpret it I think then as I do now which is is it is language that is meant to divide us um it is language that I think people have rightly found similar to the language of Hitler and I think it's just critically important that we remind each other including our children that the true measure of the strength of a leader is based not on who they beat down but who they lift up and um sadly I think that there's something perverse that has happened in our country over the last many years which is to suggest that strength looks like a bully when in fact the the real character of a leader is someone who has empathy who has some level of concern and care for the suffering of other people and then does something to alleviate that suffering one important Democrat told me that that night in that interview on this program was the first time that he could really see kamla Harris as a president here's some of what the vice president said in that interview about reproductive Freedom some of which you heard her say last night this is about real people everyday suffering and many of them suffering silently we just saw the the the young woman K Cox and what happened to her I I've you know you're on at 10:00 at night so I'm going to assume that adults are watching Lawrence and I'm just we have to be real on this in our country right now there are women having miscarriages and toilets there are women who cannot afford to go to a state that will allow them access to the health care they need who are suffering there's only one state in the South and that's Virginia that still has retained a law that allows a woman to make decisions about her own body and so this is an issue that yes I do believe will be resolved in November of next year because I do know that the American people fight for freedom and believe in the woman's right to make decisions about her own body they were writing the what's wrong with cona Harris articles then then when she was delivering interviews like that on this program she was the same person the same person you saw last night that's the same person that I first heard speak in 2009 and the same person on that debate stage last night no changed but what we all saw on the debate stage last night was a big surprise to all those reporters and editors who been churning out all of those articles about kamla Harris for the last 3 years a big surprise to most of the Washington press Corps who could not clearly see the person who was right in front of them for those three years here's another part and I'm showing you this only because of how important it is the the way the vice president's been covered the last three years why it feels like a surprise to so many people that she was so strong last night and here's another part of of Vice President Harris's role in the world that was completely ignored by most of those articles that turned out to be so wrong about kamla [Music] Harris welcome you to Mother Zambia your Excellency the vice president of the United States of America Madame Kamala Harris please feel at home so all young leaders are part of what I dream about make me so confident in the future from the moment that I saw that video I've been waiting to ask you what did that moment feel like it was pure joy you know it's um we all hope in our lives that we can have an impact in a way that hopefully inspires or gives people a sense of confidence in what is possible for themselves and then who they love in their community and um it was very special Lawrence it was very special and thanks for sharing that clip I I hadn't seen that um it was very special and you know you've heard me say many times you know my mother would say to me c may be the first to do many things make sure you're not the last and to to have and and I have been fortunate and blessed to during the course of being vice president have many situations where it becomes clear to me that there are you know people of every Age and and gender by the way who see something about being the first that lets them know they don't need to be um limited by other people's limited um understanding of who can do what and I think that's important and it relates to all people and um so thank you for sharing that with me thank you that should not have been the first time the vice president was seeing that video it should have been everywhere I had shown that video on this program nine months before that but I didn't see it anywhere else because the political press wasn't really trying to report on what K Harris was really doing as vice president they were simply trying to collect gossip and sell it to you has wisdom and insight about who kamla Harris really is and it was worse with the right-wing media of course on Fox a venomous Republican senator from Louisiana said last year quote the vice president needs to work on being a little more articulate English is not her first second third or even fourth language the movement to replace Joe Biden on the ticket was also always a movement to replace kamla Harris on the ticket one of the early EST and certainly the wisest leaders of the replace Biden movement was Ezra Klein who in February in the New York Times wrote quote everybody I have talked to talked to about this literally everybody has brought up the same fear call it the kamla Harris problem in theory she should be the favorite but she pulls slightly worse than Biden Democrats don't trust that she would be a stronger candidate but they worry that if she wasn't chosen it would rip the party apart as rein suggested a large group of democrats should compete for the nomination if President Biden stepped down and K Harris in Ezra's judgment probably wouldn't win that nomination Ezra Klein was of course smart enough to admit that the contested convention scenario could go very badly my only contribution to the replace Biden scenarios when they were being discussed was that the only possible alternative nominee to Joe Biden as I saw it was kamla Harris and that's the way it turned out when Joe Biden dropped out and 27 minutes later endorsed K Harris and within hours K Harris had enough delegates to secure the nomination so they were wrong about kamla Harris's abilities they were wrong about what would happen if Joe Biden dropped out of the race and they were very very wrong about what would happen with Kel Harris on the presidential debate stage this year Donald Trump was no doubt one of the big Believers of that large pile of journalistic trash that was churned out about vice president Harris and so I think along with most of the Washington press Corps we can count Donald Trump as one of the people who was very surprised by what happened on that debate stage last night for every presidential candidate prior to Donald Trump the debate stage has revealed next to nothing about how they would actually handle the job of the presidency the debates definitely reveal some policy differences but they usually don't reveal much more about the person every debate Donald Trump has ever particip in has revealed that he does not know how to be president of the United States and last night's debate thanks to kamla Harris revealed that he does not know how to be a human being beginning with the entrance of the candidates Donald Trump obviously entered with a plan to Not Shake Hands vice president Harris obviously entered with the opposite plan and she took full charge of that moment very much against Donald Trump's will so let's now welcome the candidates to the stage vice president kamla Harris and president Donald Trump KLA Harris Let's Have a good debate see fun thank you welcome to you both Trump enters you see there timidly and slowly on the left side of your screen thinking that maybe slowing his walk down would somehow give him a later cooler entrance but kamla Harris 20 years young strides in purposefully straight for Donald Trump and instantaneously establishes domination over him we're going to do this my way is the subtext of what she is saying to Donald Trump with that outstretched hand and then for 90 minutes she spoke directly to the American people sometimes directly to Donald Trump to her right and when she wasn't speaking she was always turning and listening to Donald Trump the way a human being would and to in her way emphasized by her listening the absurdity of what Donald Trump was saying with her human reactions to what she was hearing Donald Trump chose two modes at the podium the angry and bitter 78-year-old man while he was speaking and the mugshot face while he was listening he did not once dare to turn turn and look at the vice president of the United States when she was speaking just mugshot face he wasn't looking at the moderators either he wasn't looking at us through the camera he was looking at nothing just lost in the wilderness of his own confusion of what was happening to him and what was happening to him was that he was being beaten much worse than any losing candidate in any presidential