{"id":39845,"date":"2025-08-01T17:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T17:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/39845\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T17:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T17:22:08","slug":"kamala-harris-in-colbert-interview-laments-capitulation-to-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/39845\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamala Harris, In Colbert Interview, Laments “Capitulation” To Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tUPDATED: Kamala Harris<\/a>, in her first post-2024 election interview, said that what has most surprised her about Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s term is the level of capitulation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t predict that; I did not see that coming,\u201d Harris told Stephen Colbert<\/a> on Thursday on CBS\u2019 The Late Show.<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert had asked Harris whether she would like to say \u201cI told you so,\u201d given that she predicted a number of things that Trump is now doing, including alienating allies and giving tax cuts to the rich.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI believed that on some level, there should be many who consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy, who just capitulated,\u201d she responded.<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris was not specific, but suggested that congressional Republicans have failed to stand to Trump as he amasses power. She did not mention Paramount Global\u2019s $16 million settlement<\/a> of Donald Trump\u2019s lawsuit over the way that 60 Minutes edited an October interview with her.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think there are a lot of people who think they are riding out the storm as an excuse to be feckless,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026 We designed our democracy with three, independent co-equal branches of government. I mean, you see that the president of the United States is trying to get rid of the Department of Education, and Congress has the role and responsibility to stand in the way of that, and they\u2019re just sitting on their hands, and then they go on recess because they don\u2019t want to deal with transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris was referring to House Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s decision to go on recess last week, earlier than planned, staving off Democrats\u2019 efforts to bring legislation to the floor to require that Jeffrey Epstein records be made public.<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris was greeted by a sustained ovation from the Late Show audience, while Colbert generally asked a friendly list of questions.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer appearance was tied to the release of her upcoming book, 107 Days<\/a>, which she described as a behind-the-scenes account of her short presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris also explained her announcement Wednesday that she would forgo a run for governor of California<\/a> and, for the time being, elective politics altogether.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI just, for now, I don\u2019t want to go back into the system,\u201d Harris said. \u201cI think it\u2019s broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile she said that there\u2019s \u201cso many good people who are public servants, who do such good work, teachers and firefighters and police officers and nurses and scientists,\u201d Harris said, \u201cI always believed that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think right now that they\u2019re not as strong as they need to be, and I just don\u2019t want to for now. I don\u2019t want to go back in the system. I want to travel the country. I want to listen to people, and I don\u2019t want it to be transactional, where I\u2019m asking for their vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris announced Wednesday she would not run for governor of California, saying that she would not enter elective politics for now. Her statement did not rule out a 2028 presidential run.<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert asked, \u201cTo hear you say that it\u2019s broken, to hear you say that our systems aren\u2019t strong enough, is harrowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris responded, \u201cBut it\u2019s also evident, isn\u2019t it? And it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean we give up. No Absolutely not. I am always going to be part of the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarris gave a glimpse of some passages of the book, including when Biden told her that he was dropping out of the race, and how she navigated staying loyal to him while also trying to distance herself at points during the campaign. Some pundits say that Biden\u2019s unpopularity ultimately dragged her down.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s an instinct of mine to be someone who does not participate in piling on, and I was not going to pile on, and I just wasn\u2019t going to do that,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was a lot of piling on at that time, and I wasn\u2019t going to participate in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert did press Harris on whether, after Biden\u2019s disastrous debate performance in June 2024, she was told that she better start preparing for a presidential run.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have an incredible amount of respect for him, and I think that the way that we should be thinking about where we are right now is to remember that we had a president of the United States who believed in the rule of law, who believed in the importance of aspiring to have integrity and to do the work on the behalf of the people, and that\u2019s where I will leave that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\n\tPressed further, Harris said that \u201cthere were some who did\u201d tell her to prepare, but \u201cit was Joe\u2019s decision and he made that decision.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHarris said that her book would \u201chelp people see from the inside\u201d what it is like to run for president on such a compressed time frame, something she said was an \u201cintense experience.\u201d She said that during the campaign, she would pray that \u201cI hope I have done everything I can do today.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe book also will get into what happened on October 20, her 60th birthday, coming just weeks before the election. Her husband Doug Emhoff also was out on the campaign trail and, in the scramble, \u201ckind of dropped the ball on my big birthday,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATED: Kamala Harris, in her first post-2024 election interview, said that what has most surprised her about Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,1376,28755,75,16944,3668,6713,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-39845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-electionline","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-kamala-harris","14":"tag-stephen-colbert","15":"tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","16":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}