Keke Palmer: (00:04)
Wow. You guys, I really got lucky. I got the opportunity to sit with the Madam VP. Yes. Love you. I got an opportunity when I did Lightyear, Madam Vice President held a big event at her home where children got to come and watch and play and also meet astronauts from NASA. We got to talk about all the great things that you’re doing with NASA, and I got a chance to sit and talk with her and really get to know her in a really casual way, which I feel really lucky to have gotten that chance. But there was something I wanted to ask you, we have something in common. I didn’t get to say it then, but I’ve been memed a couple of times, but you are a part of my favorite meme with, “We did it, Joe!” So, I have to ask you, obviously, the excitement of the election hitting you in that moment. What were you thinking when you saw how that just went so viral?
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (01:03)Well, first of all, it is so good to be with you, Keke-
Keke Palmer: (01:05)Oh, my gosh-
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (01:06)… it is so good, and hello, ESSENCE Fest. We’re back. We are back. That day, well, so you’ll remember the election happened, but it took a while for it to be declared.
Keke Palmer: (01:24)Right.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (01:25)
So my husband and I were staying in Delaware so we could be near the President-elect at the time. I work out every morning, and so he and I worked out together and we were then going back to the house and he was like, “I’m going to walk a little bit more and cool down,” and so he started to walk. I went up to the house and I went upstairs to go take a shower-
Keke Palmer: (01:53)Yeah.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (01:53)… because I’m going to give you all kinds of information you weren’t expecting. So I turned on the shower because it was cold, remember it was winter. So I turned on the shower, so the water could heat up and I got a text, and it said they declared the race.
Keke Palmer: (02:08)Woo.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (02:09)I ran downstairs. I didn’t even turn off the shower-
Keke Palmer: (02:13)Water bill high.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (02:14)I ran downstairs and I come out the house, “Doug! Doug!” I’m trying to find my husband. He’s down the pathway, and he’s got his earbuds in. So I’m there saying, “They called the race,” and I’m waving at him and he’s just waving back because he’s listening to music.
Keke Palmer: (02:33)He’s like, “Hey.”
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (02:34)He’s just waving back. Then he came up and then the President called, Joe Biden called. So that meme is from my husband standing there, videotaping me having the call with the president.
Keke Palmer: (02:50)Ah, “We did it, Joe!”
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (02:51)That was that was.
Keke Palmer: (02:51)“We did it. You’re the President of America.” That’s just my favorite clip, but I also have to ask you, because I think I have some unrealistic expectations on how it actually is to work in the White House. I think a lot of my peers and I, we often talk about it. In our minds, we think it’s like, okay, something comes in and you’re like, “This is what we’re going to do.” But how is it really on a day-to-day? Are you and the President sitting down and strategizing? Are you emailing? What is the process of actually-
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (03:19)Yeah.
Keke Palmer: (03:20)… trying to get things done and working there?
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (03:23)Well, like I said, I work out every morning. I’ll just give you kind of a day in the life. I work out every morning and I start my day reading the Presidential daily brief, we’d call it the PDB for sure-
Keke Palmer: (03:34)Yeah.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (03:35)… which is classified information generated by our intelligence community about hotspots around the world and threats to our national security. So I read that every morning and my office in the West Wing is, I don’t know how many feet, not very far, a minute to get from my office to the Oval Office. Often, when I arrive at the West Wing, I’ll walk down to the Oval Office and the President and I will have a meeting with the heads of our intelligence community, including often the Secretary of Defense will be there. The Secretary of State will be there. The Director of the CIA will be there and we will talk about the threats to our nation and the priorities that we face. So that is often how the day will start, and then there will be [inaudible 00:04:28]
Keke Palmer: (04:28)Heavy day to start.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (04:29)Well yeah, there’s a lot of decisions to be made, and then the day we’ll proceed. I’ll tell you one of my favorite days recently was the day that I went over to the Capitol. You see, as the Vice President, I’m also the President of the Senate. Right now in the United States Senate, we have a 50/50 split between Democrats and Republicans, so it is often the case that I go to break the tie, so I’ll go up to the Capitol. But this day I went up to the Capitol because there was a vote occurring on who would be the next justice on the United States Supreme Court.
Keke Palmer: (05:12)We know.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (05:14)I was in very, very actively involved in that process of choosing her. So I went to the Senate so I could preside when she was then voted on to be the next Supreme Court Justice.
Keke Palmer: (05:32)Yes.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (05:32)Of course, I am talking about Ketanji Brown Jackson-
Keke Palmer: (05:36)Woo-woo.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (05:36)Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Keke Palmer: (05:40)Oh, my gosh.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (05:41)It was so special, Keke, because I got there and then it was taking a while for the vote to happen. Then, two of my friends and colleagues when I was in the Senate, Raphael Warlock, Senator Warnock from Georgia, let’s get him re-elected please, and Senator Corey Booker from New Jersey. So the two of them walked up when I was in the chair, because there was a pause. I had just finished on my stationary writing a note to my goddaughter, Helena, who’s actually here with me today to talk to her about as a 17-year-old young, Black woman what this day would mean for her-
Keke Palmer: (06:28)Yeah.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (06:28)… and her life. I wrote her a note and I had some extra stationary. So when the two of them came up, I said, “Well, y’all need to write a note to somebody too.” I handed them my stationary and then each of them also wrote a note to someone in their life about the historic meaning of that day.
Keke Palmer: (06:47)I don’t know if everybody experience is like that, but it’s awesome to hear you talk about I, not just in a logistical sense, but also in emotional sense because I think it’s important that we know, that it’s human, to humanize the people that are working in government and to know that at least with you, Madam VP, that there’s heart going into it as well. Speaking about the Senate and things you’ve done, one of the most important jobs you did in the Senate was holding Trump officials and nominees accountable as a member of the Judiciary Committee, excuse me.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (07:17)Yes, yeah.
Keke Palmer: (07:18)But most notably when now Justice Kavanaugh struggled to identify any laws that give the government power to make decisions about the male body, which brings me to what just happened last week, where he and five other justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. I know personally for me, that just seems ridiculous and it really puts me in an apathetic space to feel like, “Well, if you can come back and change things that are already settled, what is going to happen next?” So I have to ask you, where were you when you heard the news, what do we do now? How do you feel?
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (07:56)This is a serious matter.
Keke Palmer: (07:59)Yeah.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (08:06)And, it requires all of us to speak up, to speak out, and to be active. I was on my way to Aurora, Illinois, to meet with Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, who is an outstanding member of Congress, because she and I, over the years, when I was in the Senate, and now, as Vice President, have been working on the issue of maternal mortality, and in particular, black maternal mortality.
Keke Palmer: (08:36)Yes.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (08:37)We’ve been working on this issue for a very important reason, which is, in the United States, black women are three times more likely to die in connection with childbirth. Native women are twice as likely to die. Rural women, one and a half times likely to die. Understand that, among all so-called developed nations, we are the worst on this issue. It has been a longstanding area of focus for me, to focus on women’s health, and safety, and wellbeing. I’ve been able to then, as Vice President, bring this issue to the stage of the White House, to talk about what we need to do to protect, and to ensure that women have the resources they need. For example, we’ve been able to encourage states to extend Medicaid coverage postpartum, from two months to 12 months, because a woman needs-
Keke Palmer: (09:36)Yes.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (09:37)Support beyond two months, when she has just given birth-
Keke Palmer: (09:41)Absolutely.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (09:41)To a human being.
Keke Palmer: (09:43)We deserve these things.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (09:45)We have dealt with the fact that there is racial bias in the healthcare delivery system. What we need to do, when we recognize that a black woman walking into a clinic, or a doctor’s office, or an emergency room, is less likely to be taken seriously.
Keke Palmer: (10:00)Yeah.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (10:00)
This is the work we’ve been doing. We’ve been looking at it in the context of the unique stressors that women face, and in particular, black women face, and what that does to have effects on their health and wellbeing. Lauren Underwood and I have been doing this work. I was flying from DC to Aurora, Illinois, to meet her in her district.
Keke Palmer: (10:21)Yes.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (10:22)To announce more work that we are doing on maternal health. And, wouldn’t you know, on the course of that trip, the Supreme Court, with the Dobbs decision, for the first time in the history of our nation took a constitutional right that had been recognized, and took it from the women of America. Took a constitutional right. What is so outrageous about this on every level is, one, it is the taking of a right that was given and guaranteed, and something that we took for granted to be settled law.
Keke Palmer: (11:02)Yeah.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (11:03)What that means then, in terms of what else might be vulnerable that we otherwise thought was settled law, including issues like contraception, including issues like same sex marriage.
Keke Palmer: (11:14)Oh.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (11:15)Including the intimate decisions that people should be able to make about what I call heart and home, without government interference.
Keke Palmer: (11:24)Yeah.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (11:24)What essentially has happened is, the statement has been made that the government has a right to come in your home and tell you, as a woman, and as a family, what you should do with your body.
Keke Palmer: (11:37)Oh my gosh.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (11:39)The point has to be this. We have to recognize we’re a nation that was founded on certain principles that are grounded in the concept of freedom and liberty. We also know that we’ve had a history in this country of government trying to claim ownership over human bodies.
Keke Palmer: (11:58)Exactly. Yes, that is right.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (12:01)We had supposedly evolved from that time, and that way of thinking. This is very problematic on so many levels. The impact that it is going to have on women without means. Somebody who has financial means, this is really probably not going to have much of an effect on them. The facts are, the majority of women who get an abortion, the majority are mothers. If she has to leave her state to go for the reproductive healthcare she needs, we’re looking at the fact that, if she works, which she probably does, she’s going to lose time from work, potentially without paid leave.
Keke Palmer: (12:44)Unacceptable.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (12:45)She’s going to have to figure out what to do with her kids, and the cost of the childcare, at least for overnight. Not to mention bus fare, or train fare, or airfare, and a hotel room, all to make one of the most intimate decisions that she should have a right to make without government interference, that she should have a right to make with her pastor, or her priest, or her rabbi, and her family, but not getting permission from the government.
Keke Palmer: (13:18)It’s awesome to hear you say these things. In my heart, I knew that you would feel this way. I just wonder then, what we can do. In one end, I’m looking at you, and I know that there has been evolution, that things have changed. We talk about our justice. We talk about eight years, or however so ago, when we had Obama in office, and we see that things are somewhat different. Now, there’s all this delayed response to what we’ve experienced these four years prior. How do we move beyond the apathy that this gives us? What can our moves be?
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (13:56)Right. First, I’ll say this. I did an analysis, trying to look at the states that are attacking a woman’s right to choose, and the states that are attacking voting rights. There is an interesting intersection, at least 11 states are doing both at the same time.
Keke Palmer: (14:15)No surprise there, right guys?
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (14:16)No surprise there. When we look at this issue, I think we have to, one, remember the words of Coretta Scott King, who I’ll paraphrase, but she famously said, “The fight for civil rights, which is the fight for freedom, the fight for Liberty, the fight for justice, the fight for civil rights must be fought and won with each generation.” When she said that, I think we know that, one, she was saying that the very nature of these fights is that, whatever we gain, they will not necessarily be permanent. Therein lies the strength when we achieve the rights, with the fragility of those rights. Meaning, if we are not vigilant to secure and to fight for them, we can’t take it for granted. There is that piece of it. But, I think the second point she was making is, because it is the nature of it, that you have to be vigilant, don’t be overwhelmed.
Keke Palmer: (15:18)Right.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (15:20)Don’t be overwhelmed to the point that we are disheartened, and we think that we can’t do anything about it. It’s the nature of it that these gains will not be permanent.
Keke Palmer: (15:30)That’s great.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (15:30)We must be vigilant, and we must remember, we are always going to have to fight to maintain these rights.
Keke Palmer: (15:37)It’s such a good point, because I think we do get caught up in thinking, when there are great feats that have been accomplished, “Oh, now it’s done,” or we’re surprised when it happens again. When I look at the generations before me, and what they had to deal with, even when we go back to slavery, if they found a way to keep moving, I better find a way to keep moving. You know what I’m saying?
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (15:55)That’s right.
Keke Palmer: (15:57)Because, I don’t know what it’s like to be in a field.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (15:59)That’s right.
Keke Palmer: (15:59)You know what I’m saying? I want to go quickly to, you mentioned some of the things you.
Keke Palmer: (16:03)What I’m saying. I want to go quickly too, you mentioned some of the things you’ve been doing and we were talking about all the things that the administration has accomplished. Back when we were at your home in DC, you mentioned some great things about removing lead pipes also, which is a huge issue. You touched on a lot of things, but I just want to take a moment to speak to you guys about some of the things that specifically have been done. The executive order to promote access to voter registration and voting, where President Biden, directed government resources to provide information about elections, and increase access to voter registration opportunities. Protecting Black Americans’ access to housing by combating housing discrimination, where President Biden directed the administration to address racial discrimination in the housing market. Reducing… Oh, go ahead.
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (16:46)Let me add to that. So on the housing piece, it includes this piece. What we know is that for generations, housing appraisers, the people who come in and tell you the value of your house, we have been tracking the racial bias in those assessments, such that we have examples of a black family getting an appraisal that was far lower than they knew the value of their house was. So then they have friends who were a white family and would have the white family come in and put up their family pictures and then get the house appraised and it appraised for much higher. So we’re dealing with that too, which is a longstanding issue in terms of what needs to be reformed around just the appraisal system, much less what we need to do to make housing affordable and available to more families.
Keke Palmer: (17:37)Yeah. And that’s just some of the things. I mean, from reducing college costs where you guys increase the maximum Pell Grant award $400. I mean, there’s so many things here, you guys, that I could go on about. If you are interested in seeing everything that the administration has done up to date, you can go to whitehouse.gov. But I want to say this to you too, Madam VP, because in your position it’s a hard job. As many things as you get done, there’s so many other things that people are saying you need to do, you need to do. And there’s a quote that I’ve always loved from Mother Teresa where she says there can be no great things done, only small things with great love, because there’s always going to be something.
Keke Palmer: (18:16)So I want to ask you how in your position do you approach, A, that reality and B, knowing what task to start on first with so much to deal with?
Madam VP Kamala Harris: (18:30)Well, one, we got a multitask.
Keke Palmer: (18:35)Women are good at that.
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