The Michael Knowles Show - July 08, 2024


Scamala： Kamala Harris Unmasked ｜ Episode 1 - Introducing Scamala


Episode Stats

Length

28 minutes

Words per Minute

197.51471

Word Count

5,685

Sentence Count

397

Misogynist Sentences

42

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

Kamala Harris has been in public life for four decades. In that time, she has conned her way from obscurity to the San Francisco district attorney s office, from there to the California attorney general s office and finally to the U.S. Senate. And yet, she is largely perceived as a figure straight from Veep.


Transcript

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00:00:26.120 31st, 2025. TD. Ready for you. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Knowles here welcoming you to
00:00:33.020 Skamala. Skamala. Kamala Harris Unmasked. This series reveals exactly why The Daily Wire Plus
00:00:39.780 exists and reminds us of the importance of your membership. We are unveiling the brutal truth
00:00:44.140 about Kamala Harris that the mainstream media dare not touch. Your support enables us to craft content
00:00:49.820 of substance content that presents you with the facts. Skamala isn't merely an expose of one
00:00:56.280 politician. It's a challenge to the entire corrupt edifice promoting radical ideology. If you've
00:01:01.380 grown weary of the lies from the mainstream media and wish to be part of the solution, come join our
00:01:05.880 ranks. Dailywire.com slash subscribe. Become a member today. Together, we will continue to fight
00:01:10.220 the left and build the future. Now enjoy Skamala. Kamala Harris Unmasked. Absolutely free. Thanks to
00:01:17.300 Tax Network USA. Hey folks, Ben Shapiro here. Welcome to Skamala. Kamala Harris Unmasked. This
00:01:23.740 series is exactly why Daily Wire Plus exists and why your membership is so crucial. We're bringing
00:01:28.160 you the unvarnished truth about Kamala Harris that the mainstream media are too cowardly to touch.
00:01:32.320 This is the kind of hard-hitting, fact-based content that's missing in today's media landscape.
00:01:36.400 While the left-wing outlets spin their narratives, we're committed to giving you the real story,
00:01:39.960 no matter whom it offends. Your support allows us to create content that matters,
00:01:43.840 content that gives you the facts and the truth no one else will because of their own
00:01:47.160 agendas. We're not beholden to corporate interests or political parties. We answer to you,
00:01:51.200 our members. This fight for truth is more important now than ever before. With Skamala,
00:01:55.440 we're not just exposing one politician. We're challenging the entire corrupt system that props
00:01:59.320 up incompetent leaders and radical ideologies. If you believe in honest journalism, if you're tired
00:02:03.660 of the mainstream media's lies, and if you want to be part of the solution, then join us. Go to
00:02:07.560 dailywire.com slash subscribe and become a member today. Let's continue this fight together.
00:02:12.240 The truth matters, and with your help, we'll make sure it's heard.
00:02:14.740 Now, let's dive into Skamala, Kamala Harris unmasked, and see what the left doesn't want
00:02:19.760 you to know. Meet Kamala Harris. You know her, of course. She's the vice president of the United
00:02:26.300 States, the historic first black female vice president. Since Joe Biden chose Kamala as
00:02:31.520 his vice presidential candidate in 2020, he has touted her as a co-partner in this administration.
00:02:36.020 I will be a full partner to the president-elect and the president, and whatever our priorities
00:02:43.480 are, I will be there to support him and support the American people.
00:02:48.080 She was put in charge of the border crisis. She has substituted for Joe Biden at international
00:02:52.420 conferences on Ukraine. She has sat in on phone calls with foreign leaders. She has globetrotted
00:02:57.260 to push the administration's agenda on everything from climate change to the economy to race in
00:03:02.200 America. And yet, Kamala Harris is largely perceived as a joke by the American public,
00:03:06.840 a figure straight from Veep.
00:03:08.020 My fellow Americans, words have many meanings, and sometimes instead of conveying our meaning,
00:03:13.900 they can suggest other meanings.
00:03:15.520 We are the United States of America because we are united.
00:03:19.400 Whatever we have in store cannot be known.
00:03:25.820 There is a reason for that. Harris's awkward laughter has become the unofficial accompaniment
00:03:29.780 the administration's myriad foibles.
00:03:33.040 Poor hubby. Poor hubby.
00:03:39.040 Her bizarre word salads have become a late-night comedy fodder.
00:03:42.280 Right, the significance of the passage of time.
00:03:44.920 What can be unburdened by what has been.
00:03:48.780 What can be unburdened by what has been.
00:03:53.520 And as always, Wakanda forever.
00:03:56.400 Kamala is, in the public mind, according to polling data, incompetent, unqualified, and
00:04:01.780 idiot. But all of this sells Kamala Harris short. Kamala Harris has been in public life
00:04:05.980 for four decades. In that time, she has conned her way from obscurity to deputy district attorney,
00:04:11.000 from there to San Francisco district attorney, from there to California attorney general,
00:04:15.160 from there to the United States Senate, and finally to the vice presidency. Kamala Harris's
00:04:19.260 story is one of corruption and a failing up, of lies and betrayals, of dishonesty and incompetence.
00:04:24.620 Kamala Harris is not merely incompetent or unqualified or foolish, though.
00:04:28.480 She is dangerous. That danger is often obscured by her awkward persona.
00:04:31.940 You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?
00:04:35.400 He yells on the bus.
00:04:36.640 Go round and round.
00:04:42.580 But that persona hasn't been an obstacle to her rise. Now, Kamala Harris is a hair's
00:04:47.360 breadth from the Oval Office. But how did she get here? How did someone with such a knack
00:04:51.140 for failure manage to climb the greasy pole to the precipice of the most powerful position
00:04:55.780 in the world? In this documentary podcast, we're peeling back the layers of Kamala Harris's
00:05:00.420 career, exposing the scandals, the missteps, and the awkwardness that have come to define
00:05:04.520 her journey. And exposing her radicalism, too. Because here's the ugly truth. Kamala Harris
00:05:09.460 is utterly and radically inauthentic. A person without any central conviction except the desire
00:05:14.340 for power. And if the story of Kamala Harris tells us anything, it's that in America,
00:05:18.180 unbridled ambition, combined with a complete lack of principle, can take you just about
00:05:22.940 anywhere, even to the White House.
00:05:30.400 My mother used to have a very funny story about I was bussing and she said, Kamala,
00:05:36.300 what do you want? And I said, and this is how she would say it. And she said, Kamala,
00:05:40.960 what do you want? And I said, freedom.
00:05:42.760 Yeah. That's Kamala Harris on Jimmy Fallon's show in 2021. And it's one of her favorite stories.
00:05:48.720 In fact, she told it to Elle magazine in October 2020 as well. Unfortunately, that story doesn't
00:05:54.220 appear to be Kamala's. It appears that Kamala plagiarized it from Martin Luther King Jr.,
00:05:58.460 who wrote in 1965, quote, I will never forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman
00:06:02.980 accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with
00:06:06.920 her mother. What do you want? The policeman asked her gruffly. And the little girl looked at him
00:06:10.920 straight in the eye and answered, feed him. It's a small but telling example of Kamala Harris's
00:06:15.660 constant attempts to reshape and remold her own history. But what lies at the core of the real
00:06:20.440 Kamala Harris? Kamala Harris was born on October 20th, 1964, to Donald Harris, a Marxist economist
00:06:25.940 from Jamaica, and Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer researcher from India. Like Barack Obama,
00:06:31.120 Kamala was not an American descendant of slavery. Both of her parents would earn PhDs from UC Berkeley.
00:06:35.860 They would go on to divorce when she was seven. She was largely raised by her mother.
00:06:39.120 Religiously, she also grew up going to Hindu church. Her mother told the Los Angeles Times
00:06:43.320 in 2004, quote, a culture that worships goddesses produces strong women. She performs all rituals
00:06:48.480 and says all prayers at the temple. My family always wanted the children to learn the traditions
00:06:52.220 irrespective of their place of birth. Kamala grew up in the uber-liberal enclave of Berkeley
00:06:56.400 for a few years, from 1970 to 1976. Later, of course, Kamala would claim to have been victimized
00:07:01.340 by segregation, most famously in her second presidential debate when she targeted Joe Biden.
00:07:05.640 We've also heard, and I'm going to now direct this at Vice President Biden,
00:07:09.980 to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations
00:07:17.660 and career on the segregation of race in this country. You also worked with them to oppose busing.
00:07:25.540 You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class
00:07:30.040 to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl
00:07:36.500 was me. When Kamala was 12, she moved with her mother and sister to Montreal, Canada.
00:07:40.800 There she went to school at the private Catholic school Notre Dame de Nages, then Westmount High
00:07:45.260 School. According to the New York Times, quote, eventually the family settled on the top floor
00:07:49.740 of a spacious Victorian home in an affluent neighborhood bordering Westmount, one of Canada's
00:07:54.340 wealthiest districts. According to one of Kamala's classmates, students at her school were more
00:07:58.400 divided, quote, about who had the latest Jordache genes than about race. In other words, Kamala
00:08:03.220 certainly did not grow up in the face of widespread and sinister American racism. She spent her most
00:08:07.740 formative years in Canada. Nonetheless, after high school, Kamala went to college at Howard
00:08:12.000 University, a historically black university. She chose Howard because, as she later told the Washington
00:08:16.920 Post, when you're at an HBCU, and especially one with the size and with the history of Howard
00:08:21.440 University, and also in the context of also being in D.C., which was known forever as being
00:08:25.640 Chocolate City, it just becomes about you understanding that there is a whole world of
00:08:30.020 people who are like you. It's not just about there are a few of us who may find each other.
00:08:34.320 She was searching for an identity, and she found one, becoming a social justice activist as soon
00:08:39.060 as she got there. According to the Post, quote, she spent many weekends protesting against apartheid
00:08:43.760 in South Africa on the mall in Washington, D.C., and she took part in a 1983 sit-in of an
00:08:48.440 administration building to protest the expulsion of the student newspaper's editor. After attending
00:08:52.640 Howard, Kamala went to the University of California Hastings College of Law. She interned at the
00:08:56.980 Alameda County District Attorney's Office between second and third year at law school, as well as
00:09:01.000 becoming president of the National Black Law Students Association. She failed her first attempt at the
00:09:05.360 California bar, later making the excuse she hadn't properly studied. Nonetheless, she latched on at the
00:09:10.420 district attorney's office as a deputy prosecutor, and Kamala's career might well have ended there
00:09:14.860 as a local prosecutor. But then, in 1994, she met someone very important, speaker of the California
00:09:21.020 Assembly, Willie Brown. Willie Brown had entered the California State Assembly in 1964, the same year
00:09:25.860 Kamala was born. He was 60 years old when they began dating Kamala, a mere 29. Brown was a famous
00:09:31.260 womanizer who led a separate life from his wife and apparently had done so since 1980. Bill Clinton called
00:09:36.300 him the real slick Willie. Brown was a California political kingmaker, looking for a new gig after
00:09:41.360 Speaker of the Assembly. He wanted to run for mayor of San Francisco, and Kamala was, to put it mildly,
00:09:46.560 a woman on the make. Within months, Brown wasn't just squiring around Kamala publicly, introducing her
00:09:51.740 to all the important people in California culture and politics. He was actually appointing her to public
00:09:56.840 positions, taxpayer-funded public positions. First, he appointed her to the California Unemployment
00:10:02.300 Insurance Appeals Board, a position that compensated her $97,000 annually. That would be
00:10:07.220 about $205,000 today. She left after six months, but he then appointed her to the California Medical
00:10:12.380 Assistance Commission, which paid her over $70,000 per year, about $150,000 today. As the Washington
00:10:18.280 Examiner reports, the commission met just twice per month. Kamala still missed one-fifth of all the
00:10:22.740 meetings. Kamala herself was the youngest member of the board by 30 years. Brown sent her a letter
00:10:27.540 stating, quote, I am confident that your knowledge and experience will contribute significantly
00:10:31.040 to the important work of the commission. At the time, she had zero experience in health
00:10:34.960 or medicine, despite the fact that the committee was supposed to be, quote, selected from persons
00:10:38.780 with experience in management of hospital services, risk management insurance or prepaid
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00:12:03.880 Assemblyman Brett Grunlin told the Examiner, quote, both boards are reserved for political payback or
00:12:08.380 occasionally for personal rewards, for personal service. Personal service, indeed. As Kamala's
00:12:13.460 mother would later tell the press, quote, why shouldn't she have gone out with Willie Brown? He was a
00:12:17.100 player. Brown didn't just provide a public pension to his lover. He also familiarized her with the top
00:12:21.300 players in the state. As journalist Charlie Spearing writes in his political biography of Kamala,
00:12:25.440 Amateur Hour, quote, Brown and Harris only dated for about a year, but he made a foundational impact on
00:12:29.940 her political and financial future. In his last year as California Speaker of the Assembly, Brown appointed his
00:12:34.860 new girlfriend to two positions in state government that, all told, paid her more than $400,000 over
00:12:39.740 five years. Brown also gave Harris the keys to a BMW. As Brown's girlfriend, Harris was featured in all
00:12:44.740 the gossip and high society columns as Brown worked the city for his campaign for mayor. Brown has
00:12:49.040 publicly acknowledged how much he helped her in her early years. Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years
00:12:53.480 ago, he wrote in 2019. Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions
00:12:58.260 when I was Assembly Speaker, and I certainly helped with her first race for District Attorney in San
00:13:01.940 Francisco. I've also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Governor Gavin Newsom,
00:13:06.340 Senator Dianne Feinstein, and a host of other politicians. He does not note, however, that he
00:13:10.120 never had sex with Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, or Dianne Feinstein, we presume. Kamala was not just
00:13:14.880 another fling for Willie Brown. Some people around him thought it was serious. Herb Cain, a San Francisco
00:13:19.320 Chronicle reporter who also happened to be Willie Brown's best friend, wrote a lot about his
00:13:23.040 relationship with Kamala. In a June 19th, 1995 report, Cain wrote that Brown had, quote, given up girls in favor
00:13:28.940 of a woman, Kamala Harris, who is exactly the steadying influence he needs. In a December 14th,
00:13:33.660 1995, Pete Sun Brown's victory party, Cain referred to Kamala as the, quote, first lady-in-waiting.
00:13:38.520 He reported that the hat-ground war celebrating with DA MAYOR written on it, in all caps, was a gift from
00:13:43.360 Kamala. But then, 11 days later, on the day after Christmas, Cain wrote the newly elected mayor was
00:13:50.240 putting the word out it was over with Kamala. He said the breakup was shocking and flabbergasted aides,
00:13:54.700 who viewed Kamala as the perfect antidote to his playboy tendencies. So, what happened?
00:13:59.840 For that, you need to look in Willie Brown's own autobiography, Basic Brown. Without mentioning
00:14:03.860 Kamala by name, he says his actual wife, Blanche Vitero, put her foot down once she saw the reports
00:14:08.500 about how serious things were with Kamala. In the book, Brown writes that while Blanche, quote,
00:14:12.480 usually maintained her cool about his philandering, every once in a while, she made it clear who was
00:14:16.600 boss. After Blanche read an item in Herb Cain's column that implied a girlfriend of mine and I were
00:14:21.040 going to get married, this is what she said to a friend, quote, listen, she may have him at the
00:14:25.280 moment, but come inauguration day and he's up there on the platform being sworn in. I'll be the
00:14:29.060 building the Bible. That's from Willie Brown himself. Why was he scared of his wife? Well,
00:14:33.160 in the book, he also writes that she was a high priestess in Haitian voodoo religion.
00:14:37.280 So, maybe it was that. But more importantly, any notion this wasn't an affair because Brown and his
00:14:41.700 wife were long estranged seems to be undercut by Brown himself. They broke up because Willie Brown was
00:14:47.100 married. And maybe that explains the animosity Kamala clearly still has. Brown wouldn't leave
00:14:51.960 his voodoo priestess wife to make Kamala San Francisco's first lady. As Fearing points out in
00:14:56.500 his book, Kamala still refuses to acknowledge her debt to her former lover. Later in her career,
00:15:00.720 as she ran for San Francisco district attorney, with his help, she insisted, quote, his career is
00:15:04.680 over. I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. I do not owe him a thing. If there is
00:15:09.260 corruption, it will be prosecuted. Kamala doesn't mention Willie Brown once in her autobiography.
00:15:13.260 In 1998, San Francisco district attorney Terrence Hallinan hired the now 33-year-old Kamala.
00:15:18.720 She was to be paid some $100,000 per year, almost $200,000 in today's dollars. Hallinan called her
00:15:24.040 a terrific prosecutor with a great reputation. He also insisted he had not spoken with Willie
00:15:28.640 Brown about her hiring until it was all done. Sure. The next year, despite questions about
00:15:33.400 Hallinan's far-left progressive prosecutorial style, Brown backed Hallinan. Kamala, though,
00:15:37.940 quickly became disillusioned with her lack of power in the prosecutor's office. She tried to get
00:15:42.020 Hallinan's chief deputy fired. When she failed in August 2000, she moved to the city attorney's
00:15:46.620 office and set her sights on defenestrating her former boss. Kamala's next ambitious move would
00:15:51.340 be the betrayal of the man who hired her at the San Francisco district attorney's office.
00:15:55.240 Just three months after she moved offices, in October 2000, Willie Brown began publicly
00:15:59.480 criticizing Hallinan, paving the way for the Kamala Harris for DA campaign.
00:16:03.360 And I made a very conscious and deliberate decision to become a prosecutor,
00:16:06.920 understanding that it is some of the most vulnerable people in our community
00:16:10.140 who are impacted by the criminal justice system.
00:16:12.740 Kamala turned on Hallinan as soft on crime and tried to make the case that she would be far
00:16:16.500 harsher on criminals than Hallinan had. She went out of her way to slam Hallinan's refusal to
00:16:20.680 prosecute thousands who had rioted over the Iraq war. She slammed Hallinan as a man willing to let
00:16:25.320 murderers off the hook. She accused Hallinan of, quote, lying to us about his domestic violence
00:16:29.500 record, adding, women are dying because of it. As we'll see, this was merely rhetoric. In office,
00:16:34.420 Kamala would follow Hallinan's San Francisco prosecutorial model herself. Hallinan struck back by
00:16:39.060 pointing out Kamala's relationship with Brown. In response, Kamala threw Willie Brown under the bus,
00:16:43.640 undoubtedly with his tacit permission. As the Los Angeles Times would later report,
00:16:47.240 quote, Brown, the outgoing mayor, less than universally loved at the end of his second term,
00:16:51.020 kept his public role minimal. But his stamp of approval was crucial in raising money from the
00:16:55.180 San Francisco establishment, said Aaron Peskin, a board of supervisors member who backed Harris.
00:16:59.620 Kamala wasn't above skirting the line either. As the Times reported, quote, the City Ethics Commission
00:17:04.040 fined Harris $34,000 for breaching a spending cap she promised to honor. And her campaign manager
00:17:08.900 was caught impersonating a volunteer for a rival in a bungled attempt to gain inside information.
00:17:13.200 She's already accumulated half a dozen misdemeanors, the highest fine in the history
00:17:18.160 of the San Francisco Ethics Commission, and committed violation after violation of our ethics code.
00:17:24.620 But Kamala Harris did win. For the city and county of San Francisco.
00:17:28.280 Congratulations.
00:17:30.680 After winning, as has been the consistent pattern throughout her career,
00:17:33.840 Kamala immediately embarked on a campaign for higher office.
00:17:36.420 This involved two simultaneous goals. First, catering to her radical left-wing base.
00:17:44.060 Second, acting tough on crime. Now, there's no easy way to square those two goals,
00:17:48.540 unless you're willing to lie. And that's precisely what Kamala did.
00:17:52.080 In her inaugural speech, she promised to be smart on crime.
00:17:55.200 By smart, she meant dishonest. First, she sought to cater to her left-wing base.
00:17:59.360 Kamala had campaigned as an opponent of the death penalty,
00:18:01.660 and she held to that even after the April 2004 murder of police officer Isaac Espinosa by a gang member.
00:18:07.420 Quote,
00:18:07.620 We have thoroughly reviewed the facts and the law in this case, said Kamala.
00:18:11.160 It was a complicated analysis that involved many issues, many facts, and many laws.
00:18:15.240 It wasn't. She just didn't want a death penalty case on her record,
00:18:17.900 despite the protestations of then-Senator Dianne Feinstein.
00:18:21.060 Kamala also avoided seeking the death penalty for an illegal immigrant gang member who committed a triple homicide.
00:18:25.220 It simply wouldn't do to look too right-wing in going after murderers,
00:18:29.140 even if she had criticized her predecessor for just that sort of conciliatory approach to homicide.
00:18:34.060 Kamala also reversed herself on her critique of Halinin regarding the Iraq War rioters.
00:18:37.960 She ended up letting all of them off the hook.
00:18:39.980 Her office was responsible for the release on probation of a suspect who would murder a prominent Oakland journalist.
00:18:44.920 She refused to prosecute criminals under California's so-called three-strike law unless the final felony was violent.
00:18:50.600 It turns out her campaign as a smart crime fighter was just a facade for the reality.
00:18:54.420 More San Francisco leftism.
00:18:56.420 But somehow Kamala also had to appear tough on crime,
00:18:58.880 at least tough enough to run for Attorney General of California.
00:19:01.460 And so she began falsifying her prosecutorial statistics.
00:19:04.600 Now there are two ways of increasing your conviction rates as a prosecutor.
00:19:07.880 First, you can actually increase the number of convictions out of the number of trials.
00:19:11.680 You know, you can be a better prosecutor.
00:19:13.340 Second, you can decrease the number of trials altogether while holding the number of convictions steady.
00:19:17.800 Give a bunch of cases easy plea bargains.
00:19:20.060 Kamala, of course, went with strategy number two.
00:19:22.080 As Charlie Spearing reports, quote, of the backlog of 73 homicide cases on Hallinan's watch,
00:19:26.900 Harris cut a deal for 32 of them and only convicted 15 of the defendants for murder.
00:19:31.140 Police officers didn't understand why cases were being dropped, but the answer was obvious.
00:19:35.200 Fewer cases you need to prosecute means fewer cases you need to win to keep your conviction rate up.
00:19:39.520 Kamala continued to take both sides of nearly every issue during her time at San Francisco DA.
00:19:43.820 She refused to prosecute prostitution but opposed decriminalization.
00:19:47.000 She supported legalizing medical pot but also supported federal officers arresting distributors.
00:19:50.540 She tried to prosecute a schizophrenic woman who was injured by the police after attacking officers.
00:19:55.540 Most famously, she began arguing she could lock up parents of truant children.
00:19:59.220 I would not be standing here were it not for the education I received.
00:20:03.620 So I decided I was going to start prosecuting parents for truancy.
00:20:08.740 Later, of course, she would argue she never actually imprisoned parents, but that's not what she was bragging about at the time, trying to be top cop.
00:20:15.640 Her incompetence nearly exploded into the open in 2010 when a member of her office emailed a colleague about an increasingly undependable crime lab technician.
00:20:23.400 That crime lab technician, Deborah Madden, wasn't merely undependable, it turned out.
00:20:27.060 She was criminal.
00:20:27.960 She had tampered with cocaine and stolen some of it.
00:20:29.820 A court found that Kamala, quote, failed to produce exculpatory information actually in her possession regarding Madden and the crime lab.
00:20:36.720 The court blasted Kamala for significant errors and misjudgments.
00:20:39.740 Hundreds of cases were affected.
00:20:41.260 Kamala would herself dismiss some 1,000 drug-related cases in order to get the scandal off the books.
00:20:46.020 Once again, she was willing to let hundreds of criminals onto the streets in order to cut short the terrible headlines.
00:20:50.800 All of this time, Kamala's eyes were on the next rung on the political ladder, the state attorney general.
00:20:55.120 To achieve that office, Kamala would have to increase her name brand, and the media were prepared to help her out.
00:21:00.600 Now to a woman named one of America's most powerful women by Newsweek magazine.
00:21:04.800 As San Francisco's first female African-American and Indian-American district attorney, Kamala Harris has received praise for raising conviction rates against violent criminals
00:21:14.920 while creating innovative programs to reduce crime and prevent repeat offenders.
00:21:19.880 Do you have ambitions for national office?
00:21:21.880 And now, you know, it's one step at a time, and I'm a career prosecutor.
00:21:25.920 I really believe that California has the ability, as that old adage says, so goes California, goes the rest of the country.
00:21:32.240 Now, if you were to watch that interview with Matt Lauer, you'd think Kamala Harris had been wildly successful in San Francisco.
00:21:37.320 But in reality, her tenure was a failure, with low conviction rates, and according to her opponents, the highest homicide and robbery rates in the state.
00:21:43.920 Nonetheless, celebrity power triumph.
00:21:45.700 Kamala won the primary.
00:21:47.220 She then moved on to the general election against Republican Steve Cooley, DA for Los Angeles.
00:21:51.220 Cooley promptly hit the nail on the head, pointing out she had no intention of remaining attorney general for the state, that she had her eyes on higher office.
00:21:58.220 For Kamala's part, she wasn't exactly hiding the ball.
00:22:00.520 She recruited high-profile supporters, including President Barack Obama.
00:22:03.720 Her relationship with Obama would later become a crucial component in her rise.
00:22:07.360 In the end, Kamala pulled out an incredibly close race, winning by just 0.8%.
00:22:11.780 As California AG, Kamala was quickly hailed as one of the nation's most important women.
00:22:16.040 Her star was rising, and the media were burnishing it.
00:22:18.460 38-year-old Kamala Harris came out of nowhere and was swept into office as San Francisco's district attorney.
00:22:24.540 And as she did, she made history.
00:22:26.620 She was the first woman ever to be the city's top prosecutor.
00:22:29.780 We take a look at a woman that many are calling the female, Barack Obama.
00:22:34.380 With a 90% conviction rate, superstar prosecutor Kamala Harris made history when she was elected California's first African-American female district attorney.
00:22:45.080 Barack Obama in particular gave Kamala high praise, calling her the nation's best-looking attorney general.
00:22:49.800 Mr. Obama praised California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
00:22:53.380 But then Mr. Obama added, she also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.
00:22:59.020 The resulting media melee, which Kamala no doubt enjoyed, forced Obama to issue a half-hearted apology.
00:23:04.240 Certainly, Kamala wasn't offended.
00:23:05.720 She spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Obama's favor, raising her profile, too.
00:23:10.020 The American dream belongs to all of us.
00:23:13.780 And if we can work together and stand together and vote together on November 6th for President Barack Obama,
00:23:23.680 that's a dream we will put within reach of all our people.
00:23:29.020 How worshipful was the press to Kamala, this new rising star?
00:23:32.560 Maxim Magazine named her the 54th hottest woman in the world in 2013, beating out Brooklyn Decker, Emmy Rossum, Amelia Clark, and Jessica Chastain.
00:23:41.440 Obviously, Kamala was on the rise.
00:23:43.680 She was just as obviously dishonest.
00:23:45.360 Kamala knew she'd still have to play both sides of the table to preserve her campaign for higher office.
00:23:49.420 To that end, she pretended to act as a tough-on-crime top cop, cut deals where she had to,
00:23:53.780 and she played to a radical base at the same time.
00:23:56.000 And in California, she got away with it.
00:23:57.500 In 2012, Kamala came under scrutiny from her left for cutting a deal with the banks after the housing meltdown of 2008.
00:24:03.580 She refused to prosecute One West for predatory lending.
00:24:06.580 This led to criticisms of cronyism from the left, given that key investors included Kamala donors, like Steve Mnuchin and George Soros.
00:24:12.740 She also fell under the spotlight after her office made the argument that prisoners slated for release due to prison overcrowding had to be maintained to provide a labor pool for the prisons.
00:24:21.260 Quote, extending two-for-one credits to all minimum custody inmates at this time would severely impact fire camp participation, a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought, her office wrote.
00:24:32.920 When that news broke, Kamala pretended to be shocked.
00:24:35.500 After all, who could expect the attorney general to read the paperwork her own office was filing?
00:24:39.380 Meanwhile, Kamala even took a position against cash bail and defended death penalty cases in court, despite her prior opposition to the death penalty as a DA in San Francisco.
00:24:48.300 Now that her eyes were on the national level, she knew she'd have to distance herself at least a little from the San Francisco radical left.
00:24:54.460 But Kamala also played to that left.
00:24:55.940 She infamously refused to defend the will of California voters in the courts in 2012, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals moved to discard Proposition 8, California's referendum enshrining male-female marriage as the only legal standard for marriage in the state.
00:25:08.440 The night the proposition was killed by the Ninth Circuit, she herself officiated a same-sex wedding ceremony.
00:25:13.280 I now declare you spouses for life.
00:25:18.040 This amounted to a fundamental betrayal of her office.
00:25:20.820 The attorney general of a state doesn't simply get to overrule the people of that state by refusing to defend the law, but Kamala did, and she was celebrated for it.
00:25:29.320 All was well in Kamala-land, and it was about to get even better.
00:25:33.120 In 2014, at the ripe old age of 49, just in time for her next political step, she married a wealthy lawyer named Doug Emhoff.
00:25:40.080 As stepmom to Emhoff's two children, she began calling herself Mamala.
00:25:44.100 Kamala easily won re-election as attorney general.
00:25:46.240 Then, in January 2015, Senator Barbara Boxer announced she would leave office.
00:25:50.440 That left the door wide open to Kamala, by far the most prominent Democrat in the race.
00:25:55.300 Not only that, California had recently changed its laws so that the top two candidates in an open primary would face each other in the senatorial election.
00:26:03.040 That meant, for the first time, no Republican would appear on the final ballot at all, meaning that Kamala only had to be the most popular Democrat in the state to walk into the Senate.
00:26:12.420 All the stars were aligning.
00:26:14.240 But Kamala would use her final few months as attorney general to polish her left-wing bona fides.
00:26:18.600 In April 2016, she targeted David DeLayden and Sandra Merritt, pro-life activists who had the temerity to report on the selling of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood.
00:26:27.280 Meanwhile, she was touting Planned Parenthood on her own website.
00:26:30.500 As Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony, lists said,
00:26:33.620 The fact that Ms. Harris is seizing private property of a pro-life California activist who has exposed horrific practices conducted by Planned Parenthood, which donated thousands to her last campaign.
00:26:43.820 While her Senate campaign promotes and defends them, the nation's largest abortion provider is a conflict of interest and abuse of government power.
00:26:50.260 DeLayden stated,
00:26:50.920 In May 2020, DeLayden filed suit against Kamala for civil rights violations.
00:27:10.200 No matter.
00:27:10.940 Kamala's 2016 Senate campaign was a romp.
00:27:13.420 It required no serious campaign infrastructure, given that no Republican was running against her.
00:27:17.560 It also required no discipline.
00:27:19.020 As The Atlantic reported in December 2015, Kamala was, quote,
00:27:22.840 The Senate candidate driving Democrats crazy.
00:27:25.180 According to The Atlantic, quote,
00:27:26.480 One stay, one hotel, $1,886.
00:27:29.860 That's how much Kamala Harris' campaign spent this March to put up the California Senate candidate at Washington's luxurious St. Regis Hotel.
00:27:36.620 A review of the Harris campaign's Federal Election Commission reports reveals it was far from a one-time splurge.
00:27:41.660 In June, the campaign spent $1,500 to house Harris for a night at Houston's posh Houstonian Hotel.
00:27:47.260 In July, it was another night at the St. Regis, this time for $1,600.
00:27:51.400 In Chicago, it was the Waldorf Astoria.
00:27:53.540 In Boston, the Four Seasons.
00:27:54.880 And on four occasions this year, Harris' campaign paid for rooms at the Pricey W Hotel in Los Angeles.
00:27:59.820 The total price tag for these first-class accommodations, almost $18,000.
00:28:03.680 Campaigns typically shell out big bucks on media buys, staff salaries, and expensive fundraisers.
00:28:07.540 But spending it on housing, particularly when far cheaper options are available, is atypical, campaign veterans say.
00:28:12.820 And even Harris' fellow Democrats have taken notice.
00:28:15.320 But Kamala Harris was, in her own eyes, a star.
00:28:18.060 And she deserved star treatment.
00:28:19.960 Kamala's for our schools.
00:28:21.800 Kamala's for affordable child care.
00:28:23.920 That's Kamala.
00:28:25.080 Kamala Harris.
00:28:26.040 Kamala Harris for Senate.
00:28:28.220 Kamala's bad campaign habits didn't cost her anything in 2016.
00:28:31.220 But they would come back to bite her down the road.
00:28:33.620 For now, though, Kamala's star was on the rise.
00:28:36.140 Kamala Harris had gone from California bar failure to California senator.
00:28:39.340 From Willie Brown's lover to Barbara Boxer's seat.
00:28:42.100 And Senator Kamala Harris had her eyes on just one target.
00:28:45.220 The 2020 presidential election.