The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, right, walks into the studio with Charlamagne Tha God before “We The People: An Audio Townhall With Kamala Harris and Charlamagne Tha God” on Oct. 15, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on a popular radio show Tuesday encouraged Americans to vote this year even if they don’t believe all of the issues they’re concerned about can be fixed in the immediate future.
“The solutions are not going to happen just overnight, and the solutions that we all want are not going to happen in totality because of one election,” Harris said during a live interview in Detroit with Charlamagne Tha God, co-host of the nationally syndicated “The Breakfast Club.”
“But here’s the thing — the things that we want, and are prepared to fight for, won’t happen if we’re not active and if we don’t participate.”
Harris said she didn’t “subscribe” to the idea that just because something takes a long time that it can’t be achieved, pointing to the years of struggle before the 1965 Voting Rights Act became law.
“It took the brutality of what happened when John Lewis and all those (who) were trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge,” Harris said, referring to Bloody Sunday. “It took a lot of work over our history to do what we have accomplished thus far, and we have to remain committed.”
Harris, who’s targeting outreach to Black male voters, encouraged listeners who have been disillusioned or traditionally disenfranchised by politics to vote this year, arguing that if they stayed home they would send a message to “obstructionists, who are standing in the way of change, they’re winning because they’re convincing people that it can’t be done.”
“Look at that circle, look at that vicious circle,” Harris said. “So let’s not fall for it.”
Harris said during the hour-long radio town hall that while the race between her and Republican candidate Donald Trump is extremely close, she expects to win once all the ballots are counted.
She also criticized him for making false statements about her career, actions taken by the Biden administration and policy proposals she’s put forward during her bid for the Oval Office.
“One of the biggest challenges that I face is mis- and disinformation, and it’s purposeful, because it is meant to convince people that they somehow should not believe that the work that I have done has occurred and has meaning,” Harris said.
Trump and his allies, she said, are trying to “scare people away” from voting for her in the presidential race “because they know they otherwise have nothing to run on.”
Police brutality
Harris spoke in detail about her proposals to expand the child tax credit, help first-time home buyers afford a down payment, increase access to capital for startup small business owners and decriminalize cannabis.
She said that if elected she would work with Congress to address police brutality through legislation, and noted that President Joe Biden signed an executive order more than two years ago that made several changes to how federal law enforcement agencies operate.
The executive order required the Justice Department to establish a database of “official records documenting instances of law enforcement officer misconduct as well as commendations and awards.”
Harris said during her interview that, as well as other provisions in the executive order addressing how federal law enforcement can use “no-knock warrants” and language barring chokeholds, marked significant change.
“This is no small issue … because, as we know, we’ve seen plenty of examples of a police officer who committed misconduct in one jurisdiction and then goes to another jurisdiction and gets hired because there’s no place that’s tracking their misconduct,” Harris said, adding if elected she would press Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
That bill, which passed the House in March 2021, would have made substantial changes to how law enforcement officers at the local, state and federal level operate, including to racial profiling.
‘Running to be president for everybody’
Harris was asked during the interview how her policies would affect the Black community and whether she planned to establish ways for people to access new education and career opportunities.
“I am running to be president for everybody. But I am clear eyed about the history and the disparities that exist for specific communities. And I’m not going to shy away from that,” Harris said. “It doesn’t mean that my policies aren’t going to benefit everybody, because they are. Everything I just talked about will benefit everybody.”
“Small business owners — whatever their race, their age, their gender, their geographic location — are going to benefit from the fact that I’m going to extend tax deductions to $50,000,” she added.
“Every first time homeowner — wherever they are, whatever their race — will benefit if they are a first-time home buyer with a $25,000 down payment assistance. Everyone is going to benefit from my plan to extend the child tax credit to $6,000 for the first year of their child’s life. That’s going to benefit everybody.”
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