New from Crooked Media: Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams

Stacey Abrams (0:12)

Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. I'm your host, Stacey Abrams. And today, I am delighted and honored to welcome a guest to the show for a very special bonus episode, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Vice President Harris, it is such a treat to be with you today.

Kamala Harris (0:34)

And you, Madam Stacey Abrams, it's a treat to be with you.

Stacey Abrams (0:38)

So before we jump into the harder stuff, I want to start talking about people. As you know, I launched this project called The 10 Steps Campaign, which is really focused on how do we think about authoritarianism and democracy.

But one of the joys of this project has been talking to young people. And I know you have kids and nieces. I've got six nieces and nephews. And a week ago, we had 68 young people from across the country, a very healthy representation from California, that just covered the spectrum. And what was so extraordinary was hearing them talk about their hopes for, not just America, but for themselves. Like they're young enough to still think anything they imagine is possible. And I'd love for you to start us off by talking about the young people that you've been engaging with and seeing, whether they're the ones who live with you or live near you, or the ones you're seeing out on the road.

Kamala Harris (1:36)

Well, so it could be our kids, it could be my godchildren.

And so that category ranges from Millennials to Gen Z. And then my baby nieces who are Gen Alpha, who also have things to say.

Stacey Abrams (1:55)

Yes.

Kamala Harris (1:57)

And you're right. I mean, the thing that I love about that whole cohort is they are not sitting around waiting for somebody to give them permission, to have an opinion, or to lead. And the other thing that I'm finding as a general matter is they are so beautifully inpatient. You know? I mean, they're not gonna, they're not sitting around waiting for us to figure it out. And I think part of it is because they know that there's so much at stake for them. And therein, I think lies the optimism for them because they do feel their power. And, you know, when I think, I feel strongly that when you feel powerless, you will be powerless. And when you feel powerful, you will be powerful. And that's what I'm seeing from them. And then in my travels, I mean, one group that I met with students at North Carolina A&T who are organizing around voting rights, because, of course, those officials in North Carolina took the, Stacey took the polling place off their campus. North Carolina A&T is the largest HBCU in the country, and these people took the polling place from these young leaders at a stage of the student's life when you want that they're going to have habits that are good for the rest of their adult life, including voting. And I met with these young leaders, these students who are organizing around this, and I'm going to tell you, they are about the business. They went up to the Capitol, and interestingly enough, they told me about how when they were at the Capitol, the leader in the chamber said to them, you have five minutes to leave.

And so this is how they're being treated, and they are not deterred. So they're organizing, they're raising money for buses to take the students then to the polling places at election time.

And they're reaching out to people like me and others, because they are insisting that they be heard and that everyone understands what is at stake for them. And that gives me so much inspiration and hope.

Stacey Abrams (4:24)

Well, I think it's emblematic of both the challenge and the opportunity. I'm from the South. I grew up in Mississippi, came of age in Georgia.

And I know you've been spending a lot of time in the South recently. You've been to Tennessee and Louisiana and North Carolina.

And what I tell people when they want to understand what authoritarianism can look like in the US., I say, look South, we have lived under soft authoritarianism, I would say, since 1776 And what it has meant is that we have seen the warning signs long before the rest of the country, but we've also been the architects of the solutions long before the rest of the country understands it. And when you talk about what's happening in North Carolina, I liken it to the fact that we are having this debate about voter ID. Every state requires that you identify who you are. But if you're in Texas, you can use your gun license and not your student ID. If you're in North Carolina, yeah. You can vote if you can manage to get to a polling place where you know a lot of students don't actually have cars. They don't have the ability to do so. And North Carolina.