Radio star Howard Stern has a reputation for getting his guests to open up to him, but during his hourlong sit-down with Vice President Kamala Harris, the one-time shock jock fawned over the Democrat, saying, “You’ve got to win.”
Harris interviewed with Stern as part of her campaign’s new aggressive media strategy for her and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), her running mate, amid tightening polls with former President Donald Trump and voters’ concerns that they don’t know enough about the vice president less than a month before Election Day.
But after a more contentious interview this week with CBS’s 60 Minutes, during which she was pressed on matters ranging from her and President Joe Biden‘s immigration policy to how she would approach Russian President Vladimir Putin, Harris’s Stern sit-down was a friendlier conversation.
As she tried to connect with Stern’s male-dominated audience, Harris divulged insight into her exercise regime and TV viewing habits, including her love of Formula 1 racing. However, aside from talking points about some of her policy proposals and criticism of Trump, the interview lacked substance.
Harris’s most interesting response was when she quickly downplayed speculation that former President Barack Obama had helped her choose Walz as her vice president.
“No, I made the decision. I made the decision,” she said.
The Harris campaign has been mindful of its engagements with Obama, one of the party’s most popular Democrats, so the vice president is not overshadowed by him in comparison.
Similar to her appearance earlier Tuesday on ABC’s The View, Harris contended the 2024 election is about strength versus weakness, citing an anecdote from Watergate reporter Bob Woodward’s new book about how Trump gave Putin COVID-19 despite domestic shortages.
“I believe that Donald Trump has this desire to be a dictator. He admires strong men, and he gets played by them because he thinks that they’re his friends,” she said. “Everybody was scrambling to get these kits, the tests, the COVID test kits. Couldn’t get them, couldn’t get them anywhere. And this guy, who was president of the United States, is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator for his personal use.”
As the Secret Service continues to be scrutinized after two assassination attempts against Trump, Harris confided that threats have been made against her own life, though she would not move to another country if the former president is reelected.
“I’ve definitely had death threats. I don’t generally talk about them, but yes,” she said. “I refuse to live in fear of the bad guys. I’m not doing that.”
In a follow-up to a question from The View, during which Harris promised to nominate a Republican to her Cabinet, Stern asked whether that member of the GOP would be former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
“I got to win,” she said. “The thing about Liz Cheney, let me just say, she’s remarkable. She’s smart. She is a dedicated public servant. She has shown extraordinary courage in this moment where there’s such violent, divisive language that she would put herself out so publicly and say I’m country before party.”
Harris warned Trump could further influence the Supreme Court if he is reelected, as it started its new term this week by stopping the Biden administration from enforcing a health policy requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortion care or risk losing federal funding.
“Understand, if Donald Trump were to get another term, most of the legal scholars think that there’s going to be maybe even two more seats that’ll be up,” she said. “That means, think about it, not for the next four years, for the next 40 years, for the next four generations of your family, what might be a Supreme Court that is about restricting your rights versus expanding your rights?”
After distancing herself from her prosecutorial record during her 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Harris embraced putting “a lot of people in jail” with Stern.
“To me, you’re the law and order candidate,” he said.
Harris said she uses an elliptical every morning for 30 to 45 minutes while she watches TV programs, such as MSNBC‘s Morning Joe, before eating a bowl of Raisin Bran.
She and her family also watch Formula 1 races, with her favorite driver being outgoing Mercedes former world champion Lewis Hamilton.
“We love it. Our whole family does,” she said.
Stern was once a personal friend of Trump. The former president, who was even a guest at Stern’s wedding in 2008, has appeared on Stern’s show multiple times throughout the years, including one episode during which he told Stern sexually transmitted diseases were his “personal Vietnam.”
But after Stern declined to introduce Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention because he was voting for then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Stern has said his relationship with Trump has disintegrated. The former president described Stern as a “bad guy” who “no longer had ratings.”
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“When I met you out in the hall, I said, ‘I’m really nervous because I want this to go well for you,’” Stern said of Harris. “I want it to go well for the country, even when I watch them on Saturday Night Live, where they have Maya Rudolph playing you, I hate it. I don’t want you being made fun of.”
“You’ve got to win, you know, you just have to,” he added. “I really believe it’s, we’re in for the darkest skies on the planet, like the sun’s literally going to go out. This is how I feel.”
