MS NOW host Rachel Maddow revealed on Tuesday she wished she had pressed former Vice President Kamala Harris more during a September interview about the 2024 Democratic nominee’s book.
Maddow told former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison during his “At Our Table” podcast that she knew Harris was blunter, sharper and more “cutting” off camera and said it came through somewhat in her campaign memoir, “107 Days.”
“But in the interview, with the camera rolling, she’s being careful. And I wish I would have just kind of pulled the — and said, like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. I read the book. I’ve talked to you off camera. I know what you really think about these things. Like, no, stop being so safe. Like, let’s just, let’s get real,” she said of their exchange on MSNBC, since rebranded as MS NOW.
“You may be running for president again, in which case you can clean this up then. But, like, let’s not, let’s just be messy. Let’s just do it. Let’s just put it all out on the floor. Because I know what she is capable of in terms of just cutting right to it. I wish I would have pushed her more to do that rather than receiving the way she conducted that interview,” Maddow added.
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The MS NOW host said the interview was fine but argued that it was safe.
“In my mind, walking away from that interview, I felt like, ‘Oh, I could have punctured it somehow,’” she said.
Maddow pressed Harris about why she passed over former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg due to concerns about his sexuality.
Harris wrote in her book that Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner” if she were a “straight White man.”
Maddow said during the interview that it was “hard to hear” and asked her to elaborate.
The former Democratic presidential candidate responded, “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 Donald Trump, who knows no floor, 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,” Harris told Maddow.
Harris also wrote in the book that she didn’t have a good feeling about Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Pa., whom she also vetted as a possible running mate.
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Shapiro was confronted over allegations that he had asked Harris’ staff several questions, including “how he might arrange to get Pennsylvania artists’ work on loan from the Smithsonian.” She also accused him of wanting to be involved in every decision and said she reminded him, “A vice president is not a co-president.”
When Shapiro was asked about what she wrote during a recent interview with The Atlantic, he responded, “She wrote that in her book? That’s complete and utter bull—-.”
He said the claims were false.
“I mean, she’s trying to sell books and cover her a–,” he added, before backtracking. “I shouldn’t say ‘cover her a–.’ I think that’s not appropriate.”
