• Almost as soon as Vice President Kamala Harris jumped into the 2024 presidential race, she found a message to set her apart from former President Donald Trump: her record as a prosecutor. It’s a compelling narrative, especially given Trump’s status as a convicted felon. But when she ran for president in 2020, then-candidate Harris aligned herself with the recent wave of “progressive prosecutors” moving away from the tough-on-crime policies that helped create mass incarceration. And it’s a label Republicans are trying to use against her and other Democrats in this election. Jamiles Lartey, staff writer for the Marshall Project, talks about the backlash to the progressive prosecutor movement and how it’s shaping the 2024 election.
• And in headlines: Former President Donald Trump told a group of supporters that if they elect him in November they “won’t have to vote anymore,” Israel launched counterstrikes deep into Lebanon, and millions of West Coast residents are under air quality warnings as firefighters battle California’s biggest wildfire of the year.

Show Notes:

• Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8
• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/

TRANSCRIPT

Tre’vell Anderson: It’s Monday, July 29th. I’m Tre’vell Anderson. 

Josie Duffy Rice: And I’m Josie Duffy Rice and this is What a Day. The podcast that doesn’t want another Avengers movie. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Listen, with less than 100 days to go before the election, ain’t nobody got time for Robert Downey Junior. Okay.

Josie Duffy Rice: Tony Stark, rest in peace. Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen that movie, he does die. [laughter] [music break]

Tre’vell Anderson: On today’s show, former President Trump urges conservative Christians to get out and vote and promises if he wins, they won’t have to do it again. Plus, Canada’s women’s soccer coach gets suspended at the Paris Olympics for an alleged cheating scandal. 

Josie Duffy Rice: But first, almost as soon as Vice President Kamala Harris jumped into the 2024 presidential race, she found a message to set her apart from former President Donald Trump, her record as a prosecutor. Here she is at a campaign rally last Tuesday talking about serving as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney. 

[clip of Vice President Kamala Harris] In those roles. I took on perpetrators of all kinds. [audience banter] Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. 

Josie Duffy Rice: The audience in that clip is just incredible. 

Tre’vell Anderson: You know, it’s a whole bunch of Black aunties. Okay?

Josie Duffy Rice: [laughing] It’s easy to see this rhetoric connecting with voters, obviously, but it’s also interesting to see this in this moment, because prosecutors are generally getting a lot more scrutiny than they did ten years ago or even five years ago. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Right. Which is why her past as a prosecutor has sometimes been viewed as a potential liability. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah, exactly. And in 2020, then candidate Harris aligned herself with the more recent wave of progressive prosecutors. And that means, like elected DA’s who are moving away from the tough on crime prosecution that helped create mass incarceration. But flash forward to today, and many conservatives have blamed those reform minded prosecutors for the rising crime rates that took place in some places during the pandemic, despite the fact that as we’ve talked about before, crime went up pretty much everywhere, regardless of whether the local prosecutor was progressive or not. And as you know, I spend a lot of time thinking about how we talk about prosecutors, how we think about them. And so I was really interested in how this is impacting the 2024 election. So I spoke with Jamiles Lartey, staff writer for the Marshall Project. And he began by explaining some of the recent backlash to progressive prosecutors. 

Jamiles Lartey: The pushback, you know, in some cases has come from, you know, the center left, but has mostly come from the right wing looking at that approach as something that is detrimental to public safety. Of trying to tie that approach to the increases in violent crime that we saw in some cities around the pandemic. Um. Rates that have sort of since regressed to the mean, regressed to the trajectory they were on before the pandemic. I think it has been a kind of useful political football in some sense, for folks on the right for the Republican Party generally to go after these prosecutors, because there’s just kind of like a a time sync thing happening here where, you know, it’s very hard to pull apart whatever changes happened in our country because of the pandemic and whatever changes in our country happened, because things just changed and all kinds of rates of things go up and down. And what had anything in particular to do with the decisions of these, you know, new prosecutors coming into office. 

Josie Duffy Rice: But now in the Harris campaign. Right. We’re seeing a lot of messaging about the prosecutor versus the felon. This frame of, you know, the good versus the bad, the law versus the lawbreaker. And that’s also really resonating. I’m interested in what you think about that messaging being used in kind of this moment. 

Jamiles Lartey: Yeah, I think there’s this question out there, like, does Vice President Harris as a prosecutor, have an advantage in particular in this election and an advantage that was actually an anchor on her in the 2019 Democratic primary? And I think that question is often been posed in the context of the Democratic primary. And I think it’s important to, you know, recognize that primaries are different from general elections. Right? So the conventional wisdom is that being a prosecutor in the zeitgeist of 2019 and 2020 was something that pulled Kamala Harris’s campaign down. I think that’s true of the primary, but it’s not actually clear to me that that would have been a particular challenge for her if she had made it to the general election, any more than, you know, Joe Biden, being one of the chief architects of the ’94 crime bill, held him back in the general election. It was a primary problem of building enthusiasm in the base. I want to pull two things apart because there’s been this question like, is she going to run as tough on crime or is she going to run on tough on Donald Trump? And I think those are different. She could run as tough on crime, as I’m a prosecutor, I prosecuted violent people in kind of the public safety space. Right. Like this should be our approach to street crime, to community violence. And that’s a different question from whether or not Vice President Harris is going to run as tough on Trump’s crime. It’s also a different question of like, she can run against Trump by using stigmatizing language like, you know, the felon versus the prosecutor, um and try to tie Trump to the bad people that we know as criminals and felons. But it could just as easily be framed, you know, around just objectively look, that this person has tried to put themselves above the law. Vice President Harris could use the skills of a prosecutor being able to ask incisive questions without necessarily leaning into the label of being a prosecutor. So I think all of that kind of remains to be seen. I’m not, you know, the sense I get is that they had to pull this campaign together very quickly, and they’re throwing things at the wall a little bit and trying to see what messages are resonating, what’s connecting. 

Josie Duffy Rice: That makes total sense. And that’s a really good differentiation that I hadn’t thought about. Vice President Harris has occasionally said that she was a progressive prosecutor during her time as California attorney General and as San Francisco D.A.. How would you respond to that? What does her record actually indicate? Because she’s also been criticized for being the opposite. And the truth, I think, is a little more complicated on both sides. 

Jamiles Lartey: I think that’s exactly right. I think it’s really difficult to look at a prosecutor’s career and point to this or that case and have the measure of things. The complexity of prosecution is just really hard to capture. I will pull out a couple of themes that have jumped out to me. I guess I would say one thing from her career that I notice is a sense of duty to the office, and a sense of pragmatism around the law. Kamala Harris was a ardent opponent of the death penalty throughout her entire career as district attorney. She then appealed a federal court ruling that would have effectively ended the death penalty in California. And anti-death penalty advocates were really a bit taken aback by that at the time. And Vice President Harris’s argument was just that, you know, despite her personally held convictions about that punishment, that the ruling was legally flawed. And by the way, the the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with her. So she’s also basically said that she, as attorney general, is bound to advocate on behalf of her client, which is the state of California. You know, just like lawyers may have to defend people whose conduct they don’t necessarily agree with. That was how she framed some of her decisions. So that was her explanation for arguing to release fewer prisons than the courts had ordered, after the Supreme Court found that overcrowding in California prisons was leading to cruel and unusual punishment. I guess a third thing that has jumped out to me about Kamala Harris’s career is a sense of, I’m almost going to call it like old school progressivism. So not progressivism in the 21st century meaning where it’s come to kind of just mean on the left, but progressive in the sense that I think she’s a big believer that it is the state’s obligation to shape people’s lives for the better. As an economics major, I think she often sees that through the lens of incentives like carrots and sticks. And I believe she thinks the state should have a lot of carrots and a lot of sticks, like a lot of tools for shaping society and shaping people’s behavior. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah. It also just is a reminder, right, that this idea of a progressive prosecutor has really shifted the Overton window and trying to fit the kind of perception of what that means now to a career 20 years ago, it doesn’t work. It was a totally different time and what was progressive then is not the same as what it would be. You know, all of these things just have shifted so drastically in that time. 

Jamiles Lartey: 100%. I mean, I reread her book, Smart on Crime, that was, you know, written in 2009, and I’m sure if it were rewritten today, the language would be different. And I’m sure there’s, you know, things that would be approached differently just because the way we talk about the criminal justice system is so different today. But you just I mean, you have to read that in the context of that was before Ferguson, that was before George Floyd, that was before Michelle Alexander’s New Jim Crow. That was before most people even ostensibly liberal or, you know, left leaning people, like many, just really hadn’t thought about these questions at that time. So I think when you read it in that light, I just think that’s important, that context of is important and the time that it came from. I’ve been recommending that as people dig through this record, like just being cognizant of the fact that like, because this is an executive role, the buck stops with Kamala Harris, right? Like you have to make decisions. You have to either prosecute this case or not prosecute this case. And like the law is going to dictate a certain thing and tradition is going to dictate a certain thing. And that is very different from people who run, say, out of a legislative background. Because if you’ve been like a state legislator, there’s bills you support and there’s bills you don’t support, and we have your voting record. But these bills are long and they’re confusing, and you can always point to something to sort of say, well, here’s why I even though I liked it, I didn’t support it or vice versa. Like there’s always a way to kind of wiggle out of a legislative decision. I think that’s just much less true with a executive function where you you have to make these decisions one way or the other. 

Josie Duffy Rice: That was my conversation with Jamiles Lartey, a staff writer for the Marshall Project. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Thank you for that, Josie. That’s the latest for now. We’ll get to some headlines in a moment, but if you like our show, make sure to subscribe and share it with your friends. We’ll be back after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Tre’vell Anderson: Now let’s wrap up with some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Fears of a widening war are growing in the Middle East again, after Israel launched airstrikes deep into neighboring Lebanon Sunday. The Israeli strikes were a retaliation for a strike launched from Lebanon on Saturday that killed 12 people at a soccer field in the Israeli controlled Golan Heights. Most of the victims were children and teenagers. Israel and the United States blamed the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah for the attack, though the group denied responsibility. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging regular rocket fire ever since Israel launched its war in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7th attack by Hamas. Hezbollah’s leaders have said the group would stop attacking Israel if it were to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Former President Donald Trump seemed to say the quiet part out loud on Friday, when he told a group of supporters that if they elect him in November, they, quote, “won’t have to vote anymore.” 

[clip of Donald Trump] You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians, I love you Christians. I’m a Christian, I love you. Get out! You got to get out and vote. In four years you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so you’re not going to have to vote. 

Josie Duffy Rice: [laughing] What? 

Tre’vell Anderson: Interesting. 

Josie Duffy Rice: What are you saying? [laughter] What are you saying? Remember this is the same guy who said he’ll only be a dictator on his first day of office. It sounds like he has other plans. Trump was speaking at the Believers Summit, hosted by the conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, and in a later statement, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign tried to clarify Trump’s remarks, writing that the former president, quote, “was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American.” Now, Tre’vell.

Tre’vell Anderson: Is that what he was talking about? 

Josie Duffy Rice: Was he talking about that? [laughter] I didn’t get that at all from what he said. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Yikes. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Didn’t sound like uniting this country at all. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Not at all. 

Josie Duffy Rice: For his part, Trump seems over the whole uniting the country thing that he promised two weeks ago in the wake of an assassination attempt against him. Here’s Trump at a rally in Minnesota on Saturday. 

[clip of Donald Trump] They all say, I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed since two weeks ago. Something affected him. No, I haven’t changed. Maybe I’ve gotten worse, actually. 

Josie Duffy Rice: [laughter] Okay. In a statement, the Harris campaign responded to Trump’s latest anti-democratic comments, saying, quote, “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom, she means it.” 

Tre’vell Anderson: Millions of West Coast residents are under air quality warnings as firefighters battle California’s biggest wildfire of the year. The blaze, named the Park Fire, spanned over 350,000 acres on Sunday as thousands of firefighters worked to contain the flames. According to authorities, the park fire broke out last Wednesday after a man pushed a burning car into a ditch in Butte County, and the hot temperatures and high winds allowed the blaze to spread rapidly throughout northern California. The Park Fire has destroyed at least 134 structures so far. As of Sunday evening, only 12% of the fire was contained. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Canadian women’s soccer coach Bev Priestman promised to cooperate with the investigation into the team’s alleged use of drones to spy on their competitors at the Paris Olympics. In case you missed it, amid all the excitement for this year’s games, Priestman’s assistants were caught using drones to spy on their competitors from New Zealand while they trained on Wednesday. FIFA suspended and removed Priestman from her country’s team on Friday. Canada, the reigning gold medal champions, can still play, but its team faces an uphill battle after the International Olympic Committee penalized them in a way that will make it harder to advance to the next round. In other news, USA women’s soccer dominated over Germany and Team USA gymnastics scored big over the weekend. Simone Biles pulled off an incredible balance beam routine on Sunday, landing her in first place despite her calf injury. And her teammate Suni Lee did not lag far behind. And the two will represent the U.S. in the individual all around final on Thursday. And the USA men’s basketball team also won their highly anticipated game versus Serbia. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Now, how are you cheating at the Olympics, Josie?

Josie Duffy Rice: We all know about drones now, you could have maybe pulled off a drone thing in 2016, but it’s too late. It’s too late to try drones. 

Tre’vell Anderson: [laugh] Yeah, y’all gonna have to uh figure out how to cheat a different way, but you’re the gold medal winners from the last go around. What you need the drone for? 

Josie Duffy Rice: I wonder if they used the drone the last go around. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Uh oh. 

Josie Duffy Rice: I’m not accusing Canada of anything. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Uh oh. 

Josie Duffy Rice: I’m just asking questions. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Well, that investigation going to figure something out, okay? 

Josie Duffy Rice: Figure something out. Mmm. And those are the headlines. [music break]

Tre’vell Anderson: That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, get an air purifier for fire season and tell your friends to listen. 

Josie Duffy Rice: And if you’re into reading and not just about how desperate Canada’s soccer team was to medal at the Olympics like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter, so check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Josie Duffy Rice. 

Tre’vell Anderson: I’m Tre’vell Anderson. 

[spoken together] And don’t cheat at the Olympics. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Well, don’t cheat anywhere.

Josie Duffy Rice: Don’t cheat. But like especially don’t cheat dumb. You know cheat smart. Just kidding. Don’t cheat. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Don’t cheat. [laugh]

Josie Duffy Rice: I meant don’t cheat at all ever. [laughter] [music break]

Tre’vell Anderson: What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. We had production help today from Leo Duran, Michell Eloy, Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our showrunner is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.