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This Tuesday’s episode of The Run-Through is a special one, as Chloe Malle and Taylor Antrim welcome former Vice President Kamala Harris to the podcast studio.
Harris, whose new memoir, 107 Days, is out now from Simon Schuster, is characteristically thoughtful as she discusses her relationships with President Trump and former President Biden; the scourge of political violence; and the current administration’s attacks on free speech. Yet the conversation also reaches into lighter territory, from the dress code when Harris started out as a prosecutor to her favorite show to watch with her husband, Doug. In short, as Chloe puts it at the top of the episode, we get to see all sides of the former VP.
Hear Chloe and Taylor’s full interview with Kamala Harris above—and read an edited and condensed version of it here:
Kamala Harris: Congratulations on everything. It’s very exciting.
Chloe Malle: Thank you so much! It is exciting. It’s been a busy couple of weeks.
Taylor Antrim: It’s exciting because it’s more of the same, too. Chloe’s worked at Vogue as long as I have. I feel like she’s been around for so long. So there’s a sense of continuity, which is really nice.
CM: It’s an evolution, not a revolution.
KH: No, I think that’s good. There’s a continuum—but progress, right? Progress anticipates that there will be change, but along the continuum. So, you know, I started as a prosecutor, and I’ve had many mentors in my life. Early in my career, one of them said to me, “Kamala, fighter pilots only take direction from other fighter pilots.”
CM: Oh, interesting. That’s good.
KH: So you coming into this role of leadership, having come up through the ranks, is more important than you may realize.
CM: That is such a great way to think about it.
KH: Because you know it, you’ve done it. And so even if you bring change—you are a new person, you’re your own person, it’s the beginning of the next era, and so people are gonna be braced for that—they know that you came up through the ranks. And so there’s a certain credibility that is earned with that background.
TA: I really look forward to you using the fighter pilots anecdote in a meeting.
KH: You didn’t just kind of helicopter in—to mix metaphors. [Laughs.]
TA: And she’s had a lot of roles, too. I mean, once upon a time you were called a social editor, which is really a time capsule.
CM: Everyone thinks I ran a social media account, which is laughable.
KH: All these things have changed meanings drastically. Do you know, when I started, women could not wear pantsuits when we were trying cases?
CM: When was that?
KH: The ’90s?
TA: What were you supposed to wear? A dress?
CM and KH: Skirt suits.
KH: Because all the suits were basically tailored for men. So—and this is maybe a California thing—but if women were gonna show flair in their femininity, they would wear what used to be called the “Di Fei tie.”
CM: Oh my God, say more.
KH: Dianne Feinstein and Margaret Thatcher would have these [scarves], and that was their expression of femininity.
TA: Did you ever try the Di Fei tie?
KH: No. [Laughs.] In fact, when I was elected DA, a friend of mine who used to work in the office called me, and he said, “How’s it going?” I said, “I think it’s going well. What are you hearing?” And he started laughing. He said, “I hear the women are wearing shorter skirts and higher heels.” Because they realized they didn’t have to worry about expressing their femininity and not be taken seriously.
CM: Interesting.
KH: It’s fascinating when you think about the intersection between social policy, equal rights, fashion, perception of gender, expression of individuality... It’s all interconnected. Anyway, you guys are in a great business.
CM: Taylor devoured your book over the summer.
TA: I got a chance to read it early. It’s such a present-tense kind of book, where you’re really in the moment, and it made me want to ask you a question about our present tense. I just wanted to get a sense from you about where you think we are as a country right now. We’re 12 days out from the assassination of Charlie Kirk. There’s been other political violence: there was a shooting in Minnesota in the summer; there was President Trump’s attempted assassination; January 6th is not far from our memories. Could you tell us what alarms you most about all of this, and how do we stop things from escalating further?
KH: So there’s a lot to unpack in what you presented. Let’s start with the murder of Charlie Kirk. He should not have been murdered. He should not have been killed. He had every right to live, and I will always stand in defense of his right to live. I do not stand in defense of his beliefs, but he should not have been killed. And you are right to then see it in the line of what we have been seeing over quite some time. History goes back quite far in terms of political violence, but let’s think about Gabby Giffords. Fast forward to the senator in Minnesota: I attended her funeral. Two beautiful children, she and her husband are gone—they’re without parents.
I think that on that issue of political violence, an important point that has to be made over and over again is we have a right as Americans to expect our elected leaders to bring down the temperature. The platform, the bully pulpit of the president of the United States, is equal to none in the world. And so not only the opportunity but the duty that comes with that microphone, bestowed upon you by the people of America to be a leader, should not be so easily thrown away for the sake of one’s personal satisfaction and vengeance. That’s part of what concerns me about where we are now: that we have a president of the United States that, in moments where we could rise to unify the country, to calm the fear, instead chooses to inflame it. And that is to no one’s benefit, whatever your political ideology, whoever you voted for. And I think all of us, as Americans, I hope, are unified in expecting and wanting more from the president of the United States.
CM: Part of the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing has been Jimmy Kimmel being suspended from the air. How seriously should we be taking Trump’s threats about coverage? How should this affect the way that we do our jobs—we at Vogue, and as the fourth estate in general? How should we be thinking about this in a rational way?
KH: Perspective is very important. Perspective is hopefully always influenced by fact. And what we have seen is the weight of the federal government, as dictated by the president of the United States and members of his administration, bearing down to silence the voice of a critic—of a citizen who deigned to criticize their government—which is normal in a healthy democracy. You go back through the history of time in democracies, and political satire is a beautiful component of what happens in a free society that values free speech. But the weight of the federal government was used to suspend Jimmy Kimmel and to send a message to all of you who are in media, who dare to express opinion, to offer compliment or criticism, to have you exist in fear where you have to ask, What can we get away with without being punished?
One has to ask, how is this so different from communist dictatorship? For generations, we have prided ourselves on what we stand for: the principles of the Constitution of the United States, starting with the First Amendment. And when people have in any way criticized our allegiance to our principles, often, to make our point, we will also contrast ourselves with communist dictatorship. How are we any different right now? I ask.
TA: I want to ask you about one of the most striking moments in the book. You arranged a call with President Trump after his assassination attempt, and it was after you exchanged some friendly words with him at the 9/11 memorial here.
KH: Which was the day after our debate.
TA: Yes, exactly right. I was so struck by that call. And I think anyone who reads this book will really seize on this chapter, because it’s a quite human exchange. He compliments you, he compliments Doug…
KH: My husband.
TA: Yes, your husband. I guess my question to you is, was that a genuinely empathetic side of President Trump? Or what was going on there? You invoked Jekyll and Hyde at the end of the chapter, and I was left wondering what you made of that conversation.
KH: I did feel he was being sincere in his compliment and his compliment of Doug. I had two conversations with him that I talk about in the book, which I think both demonstrate a certain side of him. But regardless of whether that one conversation that he and I had made me, in that moment, think that he actually has a warm side to him, I don’t know if that really matters, when we are looking at the fact that he is inciting fear, that he is silencing his critics, that he is weaponizing the United States Department of Justice against his political enemies, that he’s forgiving people who have clearly committed crimes, like the January Sixers, while he is going after the people who in some way have damaged his reputation, according to him. So, you know, if you’re talking about a ledger, does one in any way forgive the other? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
TA: The other chapter that I was so gripped by is the recounting of the debate. That debate was so nuts and it didn’t actually change the course of the election. And I just wonder: What role should political debates have in the next presidential election?
KH: You’re asking a wonderful question, and I’ll answer by first saying I hoped it would have an impact, but polling told us that it didn’t necessarily have an impact on how people were perceiving where we stood and what the issues were in the contrast. And even though tens of millions of people—I may be off, but somewhere around 70 million people watched it—
TA: Everybody watched it. It was incredible.
KH: I think the contrast, all objective people would say, was very clear between he and I—on where we stand on issues, how we think. I don’t think we should stop having those debates. I think for people who are genuinely interested in the contrast—the split screen—I think we owe it to them to offer it. Whether it influences large groups of people, maybe that’s not the point. The point is that we need to be transparent and require, again, that we have an independent media who will present a fair debate between opposing sides to air it out.
CM: As Taylor has already bragged, he read this book before I did. I read the book this weekend, when there had already been an excerpt from the book out and it had been in the media a bit. It was interesting to me to see that so much of what emerged after the excerpts were released was [about how] you were critical of President Biden. But from the book, you clearly love President Biden and respect him so deeply. But there are moments where you and he aren’t on the same page, and you are critical of some of his advisors. Were you surprised by that becoming the prevailing narrative, or is that the cost of doing business?
KH: To be very candid with you, Chloe—do you guys remember the whole parable about the blind man and the elephant?
CM: Yes! But for those who don’t…
KH: I’m gonna probably mess it up, but here’s my version of that parable. There’s a blind man, and you then tell him, “You are being presented with an elephant.” And let’s say you give the blind man the ability to touch the trunk—and the parable is that if that’s all that one sees, they will decide that the whole thing looks like that one thing. It’s about the fact that if you just see one piece—all of us, sighted or unsighted—if you see just one piece of something, you’re gonna make huge and probably even false assumptions about what the whole is.
And that was my reluctance. I actually told my team about the parable when we were trying to decide, do we do excerpts? And the winning argument—and I was persuaded that it was the right one—was, we need to give journalists some idea of what’s in it. And, I mean, frankly, the other concern was that it would just start leaking anyway. So we did. I was very concerned. And it played out to your point, which is: there would be this whole idea that this was a tell-all book, or a book about Joe Biden—which it’s not.
And I do love Joe Biden, and I have a great deal of respect for him. And I think that now that everyone will be able to read the book, they will see that it really is, fundamentally, a book about one of the most interesting and historic elections for president of the United States in our history. I felt a need to write about this for the sake of, one, the historical significance of it, but also, to be very candid, I also wanted to make sure that as history writes this, that my voice is present. Because this is part of America’s history now. I wanted to make sure that the perspective and the experience of at least one of the individuals who was involved helps the narrative.
It was an incredible experience to travel our country and to see these crowds of thousands and thousands of people, who seemingly had nothing in common, coming together, and the optimism—and, dare I say, the joy—that people had about what is possible for our country. You know, going back to your point, Taylor, about where are we today? One of the things I hope to achieve is that people understand that light that people had inside of them during those 107 days—that’s theirs. It can’t be extinguished by virtue of one election or any one person who happens to be right now in office. That light is in all of us, and don’t let it be dimmed. See the light in each other, especially in these moments of darkness.
TA: I wanted to ask about a moment right in the beginning. The book starts with you sort of understanding that President Biden is going to drop out—
KH: The book starts with me making pancakes.
TA: [Laughs.] That’s right. But in our reading, there were 22 minutes where you knew that President Biden was dropping out before the rest of the world did. And what I would like to know is, what was your number-one thought during those 22 minutes?
KH: Well, you hit it on the head: I was acutely aware that I know something the rest of the world doesn’t know, that’s about to change literally the rest of the world. Frankly, that was very unique and specific—but having been vice president of the United States for four years, there are many things that I knew and know that the rest of the world may not. But knowing that it was on my shoulders, I understood so well the gravity of what those 22 minutes—and then what those 107 days—meant. But I also share a pretty funny story about where my husband was…
TA: We love this story.
KH: …and wasn’t during those nerve-wracking minutes. Basically, for anyone listening and watching, I couldn’t find him.
TA: Tell us why.
KH: I’m trying to find Dougie. I’m calling. I’m on the phone talking with the president, talking with my team, talking with his team. And I’m asking my niece and my brother-in-law, can you please find Doug? And then I get our son Cole, who was also in LA—’cause Doug was in LA—nobody can find Doug. The reason is because Doug was on a bike at SoulCycle in West Hollywood.
CM: And we love that for him. It made me laugh because I used to go to SoulCycle, and I remember the teachers would always say at the beginning, “Leave your phones outside of the classroom unless you are a doctor or you have a sick kid.” And they should add, “Or your wife might get an important call.” He’s a rule-follower!
KH: Doug is a big rule-follower.
CM: I also loved the wake-up time contract that you had with your nieces. The idea of waiting till 7:30 in the morning on a Sunday is so luxurious to me—I have two toddlers, so I really respect it.
KH: Talk about rule-followers—they are really big mini rule-followers.
CM: I’ve written some personal things about my family too, and it’s always a moment of, do I share with them ahead of time? What kind of clearance do I have to get? What was that process like for you with different members of your family?
KH: It was a process, right? Many, many of us know this: you can live a public life but really want to hold on to your privacy. I have always tried to have a private life, and I remember my mother would say, “There’s a big difference between a secret and what’s private.” Privacy is just about: it’s yours, and if you choose to share it, you may, but you don’t have to. This is probably the first time, I think, that some people have been actually very surprised to see what I’ve written, because I am normally very private. But there were things I shared with a lot of candor in this book that is not my norm. And it was about talking to family and them being okay with it.
CM: Did you incorporate their notes, or did this all come from a diary? I’m just always impressed with people’s recall.
KH: As I actually write in the acknowledgments, a lot of it was them helping me recreate certain moments, ’cause a lot of the book is also about just having the time to breathe and reflect on what happened. I’m task-oriented—I don’t sit back and reflect, I just move to the next thing. And so after I came back home to LA after the inauguration, it took me a while to just sit and think. I spent a lot of time literally and figuratively unpacking and trying to recreate those days. And so I talked with my team, I talked with my family, I talked with some friends to help me kind of recreate some of that stuff based on what I would not have seen, given my almost myopic focus on these 107 days. So it was a group effort in many ways.
TA: Doug has some really tremendous moments in this book. I was so struck by your description of him—particularly of his political acuity. He seems to understand things even before members of your team do.
KH: He’s very practical. He’s a real pragmatist. Doug is very intuitive. He just is. He is not burdened by, How will this resonate politically? He’s just a Jersey guy.
TA: Everyone wants to know what you’re going to do next, but I would like to know what Doug thinks you should do next, and what Doug is advising you to do next.
KH: One of the things that made me fall in love with Doug is that he’s self-actualized. He is comfortable in who he is. He loves his family. He loves to work hard. He loves to play golf. He likes to eat good food. And he is clear about all those things. His best friends from kindergarten are still some of his best friends.
CM: I loved hearing about their group chat.
KH: They have their boys’ weekends at least once, maybe sometimes twice, a year. He is that person who will genuinely always look at me and say, “I trust your instincts. Your instincts are always the best. You do what you feel is right. I’m here for you, whatever you choose to do.” And he’s genuinely that person. I think sometimes in partnerships, people are concerned, like, Is it for you or is it for me? He is absolutely comfortable with what he is doing and satisfied with that. If I stayed home every day and cooked, he’d be happy with that, for sure. If I did anything else, he’d be happy with that. He’s very supportive, and I think it’s partly because he’s just really comfortable in his own skin, so there’s no projection.
CM: I like that you said that your friend who introduced you warned you not to google him.
KH: She did.
CM: Are you glad you didn’t?
KH: I did google him.
CM: You did?
KH: I only confessed it a little while after. Come on. Of course I did.
CM: It’s a real peril of dating in the 21st century.
KH: It really is. I did.
CM: I have to say, my favorite passage of the book was your very honest and detailed description of your birthday fight with Doug. As someone who constantly takes her stress out on her husband, we underestimate how much of a toll our stress can take on different parts of our lives. And the drama about the birthday gift… I mean, my husband got me a milk steamer for my last birthday…
KH: I got a Theragun for one of mine!
CM: I wondered, it’s about to be your and Doug’s birthdays again. You’re both Libras. What is different about this birthday? How are you feeling different mentally, physically? How are you celebrating?
KH: So Doug and I, during those four years when we were in DC, we would have scheduling meetings every Sunday. We had to sync up. We haven’t had to have them this year after we came back, after the inauguration—until just last week, because of the book tour. Our family doesn’t even know this yet, but it may be that I’m on the road for his birthday, so we’re gonna try and sync up around my birthday. We’re seven days apart in October, and the book tour goes until mid-November, so we are figuring it out. So I’ll just say something really corny: Every day is our birthday in our marriage. [Laughs.]
CM: I also related to the fact that you said that neither of you can ever decide on what TV show to watch.
KH: It takes us an hour, and then we’re ready to go to bed.
CM: What are you agreed on right now? What are you guys watching?
KH: Well, we love The Pitt. And it got a bunch of awards, which was nice. Not that the others didn’t deserve it, but well-deserved.
CM: Vice President Harris, I have to ask you, since this is the Vogue podcast: What are you planning to wear on your book tour?
KH: I’m gonna mostly wear suits. I’m just gonna stick to who I am. But if you have any recommendations, I’ll take those too.
CM: This feels like a halftime, not the end of a game. What is 2028 bringing for you?
KH: I have no idea. At this moment, I am really focused on right now. And I will also stress that that’s a lifetime from now. I mean, it’s only been nine months, right? So let’s focus on right now and lay the seeds for the future. I’m a big believer that when you’re focused on that thing that’s out there, you trip over the thing that’s in front of you.
