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00:00More about this now with Sean Safford, a professor at the prestigious Sciences Po University here in Paris, who joins me on set.
00:06Hi, Sean. Thanks for coming in.
00:07Kamala Harris broke a donation record, bringing in 81 million dollars in a day,
00:13more than 100 million dollars in about 30 hours.
00:15I mean, what does that say about that record and the excitement surrounding her campaign?
00:19I mean, it's unprecedented.
00:20There was clearly a lot of pent up demand.
00:23I think in part, you know, a lot of the funding had dried up for Joe Biden over the last month.
00:28And people really wanted to get behind somebody.
00:32And it's clear that it's going to be Kamala Harris.
00:34That that amount of money is really remarkable.
00:37Joe Biden goes into or Joe Biden went into, you know, this last month
00:43with about 92 million in his war chest.
00:45So they almost doubled it in 24 hours.
00:48Yeah, it's really incredible.
00:49I mean, it does seem like this is steaming right ahead.
00:52Is there anything that could stop her now at this point?
00:55Well, it's interesting to say that, you know, she hasn't said
00:58she she she had a little bit of a speech last night where she introduced herself
01:01really to the to the campaign, which, of course, knew her.
01:04But this was the first time she had said anything.
01:06She's she's given one speech.
01:08She has been on that trail for one day, and she really hasn't said anything.
01:12Could Kamala Harris stumble in the next week or two?
01:15Of course she could. Right.
01:16She is under a huge amount of pressure.
01:18She will be observed with the same fine tooth comb that people have been observing
01:23Joe Biden with for the last month.
01:25There is that little period of time between now and the convention to make a change.
01:28I can't imagine that she's going to mess up her opportunity.
01:33But but certainly it's possible.
01:35And she has had a lot of really key Democratic endorsements.
01:38I mean, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
01:41but not yet Barack Obama.
01:43What might be holding him back?
01:45A lot of people, I would say myself included, felt that Kamala Harris
01:49would benefit from some kind of a contest, some kind of a challenge,
01:55an obstacle, an obstacle to overcome,
01:59somebody to vanquish.
02:00Right. So I think she would have come out of the the convention
02:04even stronger if she had been able to, you know, use this time
02:08between now and the end of the end of the convention as a show of strength.
02:11Right. Within the party.
02:14And I think Barack Obama was hoping to sort of orchestrate that.
02:17But as it became obvious over the last 24 hours,
02:20there was no incentive for anybody serious to get into the race.
02:23And and as that sort of fell into place and as the mood of the party
02:27became apparent, it's it's turning into a coronation.
02:32Do you think that that could come back to haunt her down the line?
02:35You know, if she loses, we are all going to look back on all of these events.
02:40Right. Joe Biden's decisions, the debate itself
02:44and then everything moving forward about what's happening.
02:47And of course, I think that would be one thing
02:49that we'd look back on with recrimination.
02:51If she succeeds, then it will be seen as exactly the right thing to do.
02:54So one of the key next steps in all of this process
02:57is her going to pick someone for vice president.
03:00Talk us through who the big names in the running are there
03:02or what type of person would be ideal for her at this point.
03:05It seems that there are two.
03:07The options really are coming down to two different kinds of governor
03:10and Mark Kelly, who's a senator from Arizona.
03:14The the two options are really to pick somebody
03:18from a, quote unquote, purple state, right, a swing state.
03:21So that would be Michigan, Pennsylvania,
03:25you know, maybe Ohio, but but really Michigan or Pennsylvania at this point
03:29or else a Democratic governor in an otherwise red state,
03:34somebody who's figured out how to speak to that middle group of voters
03:39who this election is going to come down to.
03:41And so Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania is a name
03:45that is put out there quite a bit.
03:46Pennsylvania is absolutely required if they're going to win.
03:50But he's also, you know, just a very strong candidate.
03:53He balances her out in some ways.
03:55She's not known as an excellent public speaker, and he absolutely is.
04:00Then you have people like the governor of Kentucky, Bashir
04:05and Cooper in North Carolina.
04:07These are states that are more or less Republican.
04:10But they have figured out how to win in those states.
04:13And so they want those kinds of people.
04:15And then you have Mark Kelly, who is a former astronaut,
04:19the husband of Gabby Giffords, who was a victim of,
04:23you know, political violence and seen as an American hero in Arizona,
04:28a state that they could also flip and that would be necessary to to win.
04:33So this Tuesday, she'll be in the battleground state of Wisconsin
04:35for her first campaign rally.
04:37Wisconsin, of course, is where the Republican National Convention was.
04:40What are her biggest challenges going into there and all the swing states?
04:43And I guess the real question is, is can she win them?
04:47She came out last night with her first, you know, her first statement.
04:52And, you know, she had two major things to say.
04:54The first was, I am Kamala Harris.
04:58Here's who I am.
04:59I'm going to contrast myself with with Donald Trump.
05:03And she you know, she had a very strong, very pithy statement.
05:06You know, I've prosecuted people committed crimes.
05:09I've prosecuted universities, you know, who
05:14frauded people for for money for profit.
05:17And I recognize, you know, the challenge.
05:19And so she really made that very personal, you know, against Donald Trump.
05:23And then she had another part of that speech, which was about her vision
05:26for the future and her her policy vision.
05:30It was a little less clear. Right.
05:32And so she's really going to have to hone her message really for
05:35specifically those states, those, you know, post-industrial states
05:40that Donald Trump has really been yanking at
05:43to get them into the Republican column.
05:46And she needs to craft an economic vision,
05:49maybe a foreign policy vision that speaks to those voters.
05:53All right, Sean. Thank you so much for that.
05:54Sean Safford coming in to see us here from Sciences Po University. Thank you.