Former Vice President Kamala Harris stopped by “The Rachel Maddow Show” for her first primetime interview since the 2024 election on Monday night, and she used the appearance to explain why President Donald Trump’s handling of the Jimmy Kimmel situation makes him a “tyrant.”
“Here’s the thing: democracy sustains capitalism; capitalism thrives in a democracy. And right now we are dealing with — as I called him at my speech on the Ellipse — a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators; that’s what we’re dealing with right now with Donald Trump,” she said on MSNBC. “And these titans of industry are not speaking up. And perhaps it is because his threats and the way he has used the weight of the federal government to take out vengeance on his critics is something that they fear. And I get that, I understand why they do.”
“I always believed that if push came to shove, those titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions. And one by one by one, they have been silent,” Harris continued. “You know, yes, I use the word ‘Feckless.’ It’s not like they’re going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons.”
“At some point, they’ve got to stand up, for the sake of the people who rely on all of these institutions to have integrity and to, at some point, be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy,” she reiterated, further accusing Trump of having a “fragile ego.”
Luckily, according to the “107 Days” author, the American public did use their voice to let Disney and ABC know they were wrong to allow Trump and FCC chairman Brendan Carr to overstep on Kimmel’s Freedom of Speech.
“Talk about the power being with the people and the people making that clear with their checkbooks as it relates to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel,” Harris added. “We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, it moved a decision in the right direction.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the former presidential candidate opened up about ultimately choosing Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate — and, more specifically, why she felt unable to choose Pete Buttigieg instead.
“That’s not what I said, that he couldn’t be on the ticket because he is gay. My point is, as I write in the book, is that I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States, against someone like Trump, who knows no floor,” Harris explained. “To be a Black woman running for president of the United States and as a vice presidential running mate a gay man, with the stakes being so high, it made me very sad, but I also realized it would be a real risk.”
“I’ve been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life, it wasn’t about any prejudice on my part, but we had such a short period of time and the stakes were so high,” she continued. “I think Pete is a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant and I think America is and would be ready for that, but when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go — and maybe I was being too cautious … we should all talk about that, maybe I was, but that’s the decision I made. And as with everything else in the book, I’m being very candid about that, with a great deal of sadness about also the fact that it might have been a risk.”
