MS NOW host Rachel Maddow disclosed Tuesday that she regrets not pushing former Vice President Kamala Harris harder during their September interview about the Democratic nominee’s campaign memoir.
Speaking with former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison on his podcast “At Our Table,” Maddow acknowledged she observed a different version of Harris when cameras stopped rolling.
The television host said Harris demonstrates more directness and sharpness in private conversations than she displays during recorded interviews.
Maddow explained that Harris’s unfiltered personality emerged somewhat in her campaign book titled “107 Days.”
The MS NOW host expressed frustration with how the September interview unfolded on her network, which has since undergone rebranding.
“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 stated.
Maddow suggested Harris could have been more candid during their discussion, arguing the former vice president was overly cautious in her responses.
“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.
The host characterized their exchange as adequate but overly calculated and measured.
Maddow revealed she left the interview feeling she missed an opportunity to break through Harris’s guarded demeanor.
“In my mind, walking away from that interview, I felt like, ‘Oh, I could have punctured it somehow,’” she said.
During the September sit-down, Maddow questioned Harris about her decision to pass over former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as her running mate due to worries about his sexuality.
Harris’s memoir states Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner” if she were a “straight White man.”
The MS NOW host told Harris during the interview that the statement was “hard to hear” and requested additional explanation.
Harris responded by clarifying her position on Buttigieg’s exclusion from the ticket.
“That’s not what I said, that he couldn’t be on the ticket because he is gay,” the former Democratic presidential candidate stated.
“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.
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The memoir also revealed Harris experienced reservations about Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, another potential running mate she evaluated.
Harris wrote that Shapiro faced scrutiny over allegations he asked her staff multiple questions, including “how he might arrange to get Pennsylvania artists’ work on loan from the Smithsonian.”
The book further alleged Shapiro sought involvement in every decision, prompting Harris to remind him about the vice presidential role’s limitations.
She reportedly told him, “A vice president is not a co-president.”
When The Atlantic asked Shapiro about Harris’s written claims, he denied their accuracy emphatically.
“She wrote that in her book? That’s complete and utter bull—-,” he responded, calling the allegations false.
Shapiro suggested financial motivations behind the book’s content.
“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.”
