To no one’s surprise, Democrat Senator Kamala Harris announced she was running for president in 2020 on ABC’s Good Morning America Monday, and the network couldn’t have been more thrilled. ABC flooded their Twitter account with memes they made of Harris’s image superimposed with inspirational quotes and links to her 2020 announcement on GMA. During the interview, anchors Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos largely threw softballs and didn’t ask Harris about her party’s problem with anti-Semitism.
Besides asking the typical questions like ,”What qualifies you to be Commander-in-Chief?” there were a few gooey exchanges that really showcased how ABC is going to bat for Harris in the 2020 election, already. After ABC was roundly criticized for their puff piece on Harris January 8, Robin Roberts modeled Stephen Colbert’s “what makes you happy?” question, with this exchange:
ROBERTS: You love this country. You also love your family. For people who don't know, your mother was born in India.
HARRIS: Yes.
ROBERTS: Your father was born in Jamaica.
HARRIS: That's right.
ROBERTS:: They met when they were involved in the Civil Rights Movement at Berkeley. Your mother met Martin Luther king Jr.
HARRIS: Yes she did.
ROBERTS: Can't be lost that you're making the announcement on this day.
HARRIS: That's right.
ROBERTS: Is that important to you?
And asking about her book tour:
Have you been listening, out on the book tour. I'm sure Americans are coming up and they're let you know what is most important to them. What are you hearing from them?
Instead of grilling Harris, Stephanopoulos let her rip on President Trump, asking if he had committed an “impeachable offense:”
President Trump has already said he wants to run again in 2020. You sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee. You have been looking at the Russia investigation. Have you seen any evidence that President Trump has committed an impeachable offense?
The anchors didn’t grill her about her most recent scandal, where one of her top aides was sued for sexual harassment but continued to work for her, even as Harris championed herself as “MeToo” advocate, especially during the Brett Kavanaugh Senate hearings. They also didn't hold her accountable for many of her Democrat colleagues' anti-Semitic statements or associations with known anti-Semites, either.
The entire interview wasn’t softballs, however. Robin Roberts did ask about Harris’s critics who say she doesn’t have “enough experience” to run on the national stage, while George Stephanopoulos pressed from the left, asking if her past comments supporting law enforcement would hurt her with Democrats.
Transcript to follow.
Good Morning America
7:31:27AM-7:40:46AM
1/21/19
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We're here now with Senator Kamala Harris. She’s a Democrat from California. First elected to the Senate in 2016. After 20 years as a prosecutor including stints as the District Attorney for San Francisco and Attorney General of California.
ROBIN ROBERTS: Senator Harris has also been laying the groundwork for a run for the White House. It’s great to have you with us on this special holiday. Do you have an announcement you would like to make?
KAMALA HARRIS: I am running for president of the United States. And I'm very excited about it. Very excited about it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We mentioned 20 year as a prosecutor. If you win, you'll be commander in chief. What qualifies you to be Commander in Chief?
HARRIS: First of all, let me say, I love my country. I love my country. This is a moment in time, I feel a sense of responsibility to stand up and fight for the best of who we are. And that fight will always include as one of the highest priorities, our national security and, thinking about it in a way that we understand that we must be smart. We must understand the power that we have, the strength that we have. That is about military power. It is about diplomatic power. It is about the power that we have, for what has been, until recently, our moral authority in the world and our ability to work with our allies. I'm a career prosecutor, as you said. My entire career has been focussed on keeping people safe. It's probably one of the things that motivates me more than anything else. When I look at this moment in time, I know that the American people deserve to have somebody to who is going the fight for them who is going the see them who will hear them who will care about them. Who will be concerned about their experience and put them in front of self-interests.
ROBERTS: You love this country. You also love your family. For people who don't know, your mother was born in India.
HARRIS: Yes.
ROBERTS: Your father was born in Jamaica.
HARRIS: That's right.
ROBERTS:: They met when they were involved in the Civil Rights Movement at Berkeley. Your mother met Martin Luther King Jr.
HARRIS: Yes she did.
ROBERTS: Can't be lost that you're making the announcement on this day.
HARRIS: That's right.
ROBERTS: Is that important to you?
HARRIS: It is very important to you. Dr. King--My parents were very active in the civil rights movement. That was the language I grew up hearing. It was about a belief that we are a country that was founded on noble ideals. We're the best of who we are when we fight to achieve those ideals. The thing about Dr. King that always inspires me is that he was aspirational. He was aspirational Like our country is aspirational. We know that we have not yet reached those ideals. But our strength is that we fight to reach those ideals. That inspires me. It is true that we're a country, yes, we are flawed. We are not perfect. But we are a great country when we think about the principles upon which we were founded. So today, the day we celebrate Dr. King, is a very special day for all of us as Americans and I'm honored to be able to make my announcement on the day that we commemorate him.
STEPHANOPOULOS: President Trump has already said he wants to run again in 2020. You sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee. You have been looking at the Russia investigation. Have you seen any evidence that President Trump has committed an impeachable offense?
HARRIS: I can not talk about the evidence I've received in the Senate Intelligence Committee. I will say that there is no question that Bob Mueller is conducting an investigation with the highest level of integrity. He is clearly taking the job very seriously. There are already been 33 indictments. It's incumbent on the United States Congress to do everything in our power to ensure that his investigation is whole and will be complete without any interference.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Sounds like you don't think William Barr, the president’s nominee for Attorney General, can oversee it in a fair manner?
HARRIS: You're right. And during the questioning of him, because I sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I expressed great concern. And I'm very concerned that he was unwilling to agree that in the career people in the department of justice say he has a conflict and he should recuse himself, he wasn't willing to agree that he would do that. We can not -- back to your point on my career. My career has been focused on our system of justice. It's a hallmark of what gives us strength. It becomes weak when people interfere with the system for political purpose. And no one in particular right now, when there are so many Americans that are distrustful of their government and its leaders and institutions, no one should give the American public any reason to question their integrity and our system of justice.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think Donald Trump as done that?
HARRIS: Absolutely.
ROBERTS: You have had a long career. Only 2 years in Washington. The senior senator from your state of California says that while she adores you, she would support, if he would run, former Vice President Joe Biden. What do you say to people to say to you who feel you don't have the necessary experience to be Commander-in-Chief?
HARRIS: First I will say, they have a long-standing relationship. They go back many, many years because their careers started together in Washington, D.C. I'm not concerned about that. It's a friendship and I respect that. But --let’s look at my experience. I have the unique experience of having been a leader in local government, state government, and federal government. What I believe the American people want in their next Commander in Chief is someone who has leadership skills, has experience, and has integrity. And will fight on their behalf. On all of those points, I feel very confident about my ability to lead. I feel very confident about my ability to listen. And to work on behalf of the American public. The American public wants a fighter. They want someone that is going to fight like heck for them. And not fight based on self-interests. I'm prepared to do that.
ROBERTS: Have you been listening, out on the book tour. I'm sure Americans are coming up and letting you know what is most important to them. What are you hearing from them?
HARRIS: What I'm hearing if them is that they want to know that we're going to focus on the fact that right now, this economy is not working for working people. They're going to want to know those 800,000 people who have dedicated themselves to public service, those federal employees, they're going to want to know we're not playing politics with their livelihood and their ability to pay rent at the of the month. You know those folks don't want a wall. They want a paycheck. As leaders, we need to be able to give them some certainty that we understand what their lives are like. They've got to pay their bills. They gotta put food on the table. They have to send their children to soccer practice and go to the tutor. They gotta pay for that. Nobody is giving them a free ride.
Nobody else that they require to help them is going to work for why do we expect them to work for free? People want to know this is what I hear everywhere I go, that their leaders, and in particular, their president, sees them and understands their needs. Right now, there are a lot of working families in America whose needs are not being met. The cost of living is going up. Wages have remained stagnant for the most part. I have met so many folks working two and three jobs to pay the bills. Nobody should have to work more than one job to be able to pay their rent. So there are a lot of issues that I hear when I travel this country. I'm prepared to discuss and listen more. And I'm prepared to lead.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say you're prepared to speak the truth even when it's uncomfortable. For a lot of Democrats you say the left has to get over its bias against law enforcement. What did you mean by that? Do you thing that will be a problem for you in the democratic primaries?
HARRIS: I think it is a false choice to suggest that communities don't want law enforcement. Most communities do. They don't want excessive force. They don't want racial profiling. But then nobody should. We can have a system that understands, and I know this in my career as a prosecutor, when I have fought in those courtrooms, it has been on behalf of sexual assault victims, it has been on behalf of students the victims of predatory, for-profit colleges, it has been on behalf of homeowners who are the victims of predatory lending processes. They should expect rightly that we recognize our system of justice has been horrible flawed. And it needs to be reformed. We have a system of justice that has included systemic racism. We have a system of justice where a mother and father have to sit their child down, their son down, when he becomes a teenager, and tell him that he may be stopped, he may be arrested, he could be shot based on the color of his skin. There is a lot of work to do. But to suggest it's one or the other, no, I don't buy that. People want to know that they are safe in their communities. They want to know there will be consequence when a child is molested, a woman is raped, or somebody is killed. They want to know that their law enforcement is going to conduct itself in a way that is fair and not biased. And certainly without any hint and system of racism.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We have to have you back along the trail. A lot more questions to ask.
HARRIS: I'm ready.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you for coming in today. Thank you for sharing your announcement on GMA.
