It was a big question back when it was first rumored that 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden was considering Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate: How would the California lawmaker reconcile today’s anti-police climate with her record as a rigid, and often abusive, prosecutor?
As it turns out, the answer is simple. On the rare occasion that Democratic vice presidential candidate Harris is asked about violence, crime, law, and order, she simply says nothing at all. It is a neat trick, one that I suspect members of the Biden campaign press pool will allow her to get away with until someone from the outside refuses to take a nonanswer for an answer.
On Tuesday, for example, the senator was asked at a virtual fundraiser how she, as a former attorney general, would “more effectively” and “more vigorously” respond to the "continuing violence in major cities.”
Harris responded by saying a lot of nothing.
"There is work to be done in terms of going into all these areas of the country and making clear that, first of all, Donald Trump is spending full time, as he has been during the election, in 2016, and during his presidency, trying to sow hate and division among us," the senator said.
She added, "And he has always operated, trying to tap into people’s fear and create a climate of fear. And that’s why, I think, it’s really important to talk about the fact that this moment is Donald Trump’s America, it is not Joe Biden’s America. And the violence that we’re seeing, the pain we’re seeing, it has not only increased during the term and during the tenure of Donald Trump, but it has, in many ways, certainly in terms of the pain around race, around immigration, around geographic location, has been encouraged by Donald Trump himself.”
“We cannot buy into the fear," Harris concluded. "And it is because he is trying to run from his record that he is doing it.”
OK, but about the violence in major American cities. Any thought on that, senator?
Earlier, in late August, ABC News’s Robin Roberts asked Harris specifically to square her record as a draconian prosecutor with the ascent of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“But there's also been a national conversation about policing. And, you know the name that you have ‘Kamala: Top Cop.’ Top cop,” said Roberts. “And the book that you wrote 10 years ago, Smart on Crime, where you could put it by saying that you wanted to see more police on the street. Do you still feel that way?”
Harris responded by saying a lot of nothing. I am not kidding. The senator’s response was lengthy, long-winded, meandering, and totally devoid of meaning or substance.
“Listen, I think there is no question. First of all, when I wrote that book, we — Black Lives Matter did not exist,” said Harris. “And I give full credit to the brilliance of that movement in terms of what it has done to advance a conversation that needed to happen, a long time ago, but did not capture the ears or the hearts of the American people.”
She added, “What Black Lives Matter has done as a movement has been to be a counterforce against a very entrenched status quo around the criminal justice system in America.”
The senator continued, working very hard to avoid answering the question:
And so, we have seen the kind of change that we need that has been happening over the course of the last five years, for sure. And that's why I'm so excited about what we can do in terms of a new administration in the White House. That is about taking on these issues in a way that makes clear that the American people are ready for it and they want it. And so, it's about a policy that says we're going to ban chokeholds and carotid holes. George Floyd would be alive today if there had been such a ban. We need that ban.
That's part of the policy and the platform, that a Biden-Harris administration is going to fight for. We need pattern and practice investigations of police departments who have a history and a pattern and practice of discrimination. When I was attorney general of California, I conducted pattern and practice investigations of law enforcement agencies that were discriminating or exercising excessive force.
A Department of Justice, unlike what Bill Barr is under Donald Trump, that is actually investigating these cases and enforcing consent decrees. A policy that is going to be about decriminalizing marijuana. Having a policy that is about looking at having a centralized database in our country that tracks police officers that have been found to break the rules or break the law. These are the kinds of things that need to be in place. Finally.
And these are the kinds of issues that we are going to take on as an administration and implement because it is time for that kind of change, and enough is enough. Enough is enough.
The funny thing about these nonanswers is that Harris ran in the 2020 Democratic primary on her record as a career law woman. She claimed repeatedly that only she had the guts and know-how to “prosecute the case” against Trump. And that was not just a turn of phrase. The senator quite literally promised primary voters that she would bring criminal charges against Trump if handed the nomination.
But now that Harris is Biden’s 2020 sidekick, and the Democratic base very much fell out of love with law enforcement, it seems as if the senator is doing whatever she can to avoid talking about her earlier claims to fame. She will not even outline a plan to deal with growing unrest in major U.S. cities where she has promoted bailout funds for rioters.
Then again, if I had Harris’s record as a prosecutor, I would not want to talk about it either.