Will you be Kamala Harris President of the United States of America Part 1
Will you be Kamala Harris President of the United States of America Part 1
Transcript
00:00Vice President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris
00:05Will you be Kamala Harris President of the United States of America?
00:09Part 1
00:10Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th and current Vice
00:15President of the United States since 2021, under President Joe Biden.
00:19She is the first female Vice President and the highest-ranking female official in US
00:24history as well as the first African-American and first Asian-American Vice President.
00:29A member of the Democratic Party, she was previously a U.S. Senator from California
00:34from 2017 to 2021 and the Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017.
00:41Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University
00:45of California, Hastings College of the Law.
00:49She began her law career in the office of the District Attorney of Alameda County before
00:53being recruited to the San Francisco Dawes Office and later the City Attorney of San
00:57Francisco's Office.
01:00In 2003, she was elected Dahl of San Francisco.
01:03She was elected Attorney General of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.
01:08Harris served as the junior U.S. Senator from California from 2017 to 2021.
01:13She defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 Senate election to become the second African-American
01:18woman and the first South Asian-American to serve in the U.S. Senate.
01:23As a Senator, Harris advocated for gun control laws, the DREAM Act, a path to citizenship
01:28for undocumented immigrants, federal legalization of cannabis, as well as health care and taxation
01:34reform.
01:35She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials
01:39during Senate hearings, including Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
01:44Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination but withdrew from the race prior
01:49to the primaries.
01:50Biden selected her to be his running mate, and their ticket went on to defeat the then-incumbent
01:54president and vice president, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, in the 2020 election.
02:00Harris and Biden were inaugurated on January 20, 2021.
02:04After Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election, Harris launched her own campaign
02:09for president with Biden's endorsement.
02:11Kamala Devi Harris was born in Oakland, California, on October 20, 1964.
02:17Her mother, Shyamala Gopal, was a Tamil-Indian biologist whose work on the progesterone receptor
02:22gene stimulated advances in breast cancer research.
02:26She moved to the United States from India as a 19-year-old graduate student in 1958,
02:31after studying home science at Lady Irwin College in New Delhi.
02:34After studying nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley,
02:39she received her Ph.D. in 1964.
02:42Kamala Harris's father, Donald J. Harris, is Jamaican-American of Afro-Jamaican ancestry.
02:48He is a Stanford University professor of economics who arrived in the United States from British
02:52Jamaica in 1961 for graduate study at UC Berkeley, receiving a Ph.D. in economics in
02:581966.
03:00Donald Harris met his future wife Shyamala Gopalan at a college club for African-American
03:05students.
03:06In 1966, the Harris family moved to Champaign, Illinois when her parents took positions at
03:11the University of Illinois.
03:13The family moved around the Midwest, with both parents working at multiple universities
03:17in succession over a brief period.
03:20Kamala, along with her mother and sister, moved back to California in 1970, while her
03:24father remained in the Midwest.
03:26They stayed briefly on Milvia Street in Central Berkeley, then at a duplex on Bancroft Way
03:31in West Berkeley, an area often called the Flatlands with a significant black population.
03:36When Harris began kindergarten, she was bused as part of Berkeley's comprehensive desegregation
03:41program to Thousand Oaks Elementary School, a public school in a more prosperous neighborhood
03:45in northern Berkeley which previously had been 95% white, and after the desegregation
03:50plan went into effect became 40% black.
03:53Her parents divorced when she was seven.
03:56Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekend,
04:00other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were
04:03black.
04:04A neighbor regularly took the Harris girls to an African-American church in Oakland where
04:08they sang in the children's choir, and the girls and their mother also frequently visited
04:13a nearby African-American cultural center.
04:16Their mother introduced them to Hinduism and took them to a nearby Hindu temple, where
04:20Shyamala occasionally sang.
04:22As children, she and her sister visited their mother's family in Madras several times.
04:26She says she has been strongly influenced by her maternal grandfather PV Gopalan, a
04:31retired Indian civil servant whose progressive views on democracy and women's rights impressed
04:36her.
04:37Harris has remained in touch with her Indian aunts and uncles throughout her adult life.
04:41Harris has also visited her father's family in Jamaica.
04:44When she was 12, Harris and her sister moved with their mother to Montreal, Quebec, where
04:49Shyamala had accepted a research and teaching position at the McGill University-affiliated
04:53Jewish General Hospital.
04:55Harris attended a French-speaking primary school, Notre-Dame-des-Niges, then Fays, School,
05:00and finally Westmount High School in Westmount, Quebec, graduating in 1981.
05:05Wanda Kagan, a high school friend of Harris, later told CBC News in 2020 that Harris was
05:12and described how she confided in Harris that she had been molested by her stepfather.
05:16She said that Harris told her mother, who then insisted Kagan come to live with them
05:20for the remainder of her final year of high school.
05:22Kagan said Harris had recently told her that their friendship, and playing a role in countering
05:27Kagan's exploitation, helped form the commitment Harris felt in protecting women and children
05:32as a prosecutor.
05:33Harris then attended Vanier College in Montreal in 1981-1982.
05:38Harris then attended Howard University, a historically black university in Washington,
05:43D.C., while at Howard.
05:44She interned as a mailroom clerk for California Senator Alan Cranston, chaired the Economics
05:49Society, led the debate team, and joined Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
05:54Harris graduated in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics.
05:59She then returned to California to attend the University of California, Hastings College
06:03of the Law through its Legal Education Opportunity Program.
06:07While at UC Hastings, she served as president of its chapter of the Black Law Students Association.
06:12He graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1989 and was admitted to the California Bar in June
06:181990.
06:19In 1990, Harris was hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, where
06:24she was described as an able prosecutor on the way up.
06:27In 1994, Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown, who was then dating Harris,
06:32appointed her to the State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California
06:37Medical Assistance Commission.
06:39Harris took a six-month leave of absence in 1994 from her duty, then afterward resumed
06:44working as prosecutor during the years she sat on the boards.
06:47Harris's connection to Brown was noted in media reportage as part of a pattern of California
06:52political leaders appointing friends and loyal political soldiers to lucrative positions
06:56on the commissions.
06:58Harris has defended her work.
06:59In February 1998, San Francisco District Attorney Terrence Hallinan recruited Harris as an assistant
07:05district attorney.
07:06There, she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division, supervising five other
07:10attorneys where she prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault cases, particularly
07:16three strikes cases.
07:18In 2000, Harris reportedly clashed with Hallinan's assistant, Daryl Salomon, over Proposition
07:2421, which granted prosecutors the option of trying juvenile defendants in superior court
07:29rather than juvenile courts.
07:31Harris campaigned against the measure, which passed.
07:33Salomon opposed directing media inquiries about Prop 21 to Harris and reassigned her
07:38a de facto demotion.
07:40Harris filed a complaint against Salomon and quit.
07:43In August 2000, Harris took a job at San Francisco City Hall, working for city attorney Louise
07:48Wren.
07:49Harris ran the Family and Children's Services Division representing child abuse and neglect
07:54cases.
07:55Wren endorsed Harris during her DAW campaign.
07:57In 2002, Harris prepared to run for district attorney of San Francisco against Hallinan
08:03and Bill Fazio.
08:04Harris was the least known of the three candidates but persuaded the Central Committee to withhold
08:08its endorsement from Hallinan.
08:10Harris and Hallinan advanced to the general election runoff with 33 and 37 percent of
08:15the vote, respectively.
08:17In the runoff, Harris pledged never to seek the death penalty and to prosecute three strike
08:21offenders only in cases of violent felonies.
08:25Harris ran a forceful campaign, assisted by former Mayor Willie Brown, Senator Dianne
08:29Feinstein, writer and cartoonist Aaron Magruder, and comedians Eddie Griffin and Chris Rock.
08:35Harris differentiated herself from Hallinan by attacking his performance.
08:38She argued that she left his office because it was technologically inept, emphasizing
08:43his 52 percent conviction rate for serious crimes despite an 83 percent average conviction
08:48rate statewide.
08:50Harris charged that his office was not doing enough to stem the city's gun violence, particularly
08:54in poor neighborhoods like Bayview and the Tenderloin, and attacked his willingness to
08:59accept plea bargains in cases of domestic violence.
09:02Harris won with 56 percent of the vote, becoming the first person of color elected as District
09:07Attorney of San Francisco.
09:09Harris ran unopposed for a second term in November 2007.
09:13In the summer of 2005, Harris created an Environmental Crimes Unit.
09:17In 2007, Harris and City Attorney Dennis Herrera investigated San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew
09:23for violating residency requirements necessary to hold his supervisor position.
09:28Harris charged Jew with nine felonies, alleging that he had lied under oath and falsified
09:33documents to make it appear he resided in a Sunset District home, necessary so he could
09:37run for supervisor in the 4th District.
09:40Jew pleaded guilty in October 2008 to unrelated federal corruption charges and pleaded guilty
09:45the following month in state court to a charge of perjury for lying about his address on
09:49nomination forms, as part of a plea agreement in which the other state charges
09:53were dropped and Jew agreed to never again hold elected office in California.
09:58Harris described the case as about protecting the integrity of our political process, which
10:02is part of the core of our democracy.
10:04For his federal offenses, Jew was sentenced to 64 months in federal prison and a $10,000
10:10fine.
10:11For the state perjury conviction, Jew was sentenced to one year in county jail, three
10:15years probation, and about $2,000 in fines.
10:18Under Harris, the DA's office obtained more than 1,900 convictions for marijuana offenses,
10:25including persons simultaneously convicted of marijuana offenses and more serious crimes.
10:30The rate at which Harris's office prosecuted marijuana crimes was higher than the rate
10:35under Hallin, but the number of defendants sentenced to state prison for such offenses
10:39was substantially lower.
10:41Prosecutions for low-level marijuana offenses were rare under Harris, and her office had
10:45a policy of not pursuing jail time for marijuana possession offenses.
10:50Harris's successor as DA, George Gaskin, expunged all San Francisco marijuana offenses
10:55going back to 1975.
10:57Harris has expressed support for San Francisco's Sanctuary City policy of not inquiring about
11:02immigration status in the process of a criminal investigation.
11:06In the early 2000s, the San Francisco murder rate per capita outpaced the national average.
11:12In the first six months of taking office, Harris cleared 27 of 74 backlogged homicide
11:17cases by settling 14 by plea bargain and taking 11 to trial.
11:22Of those trials, nine ended with convictions and two with hung juries.
11:26She took 49 violent crime cases to trial and secured 36 convictions.
11:30From 2004 to 2006, Harris achieved an 87% conviction rate for homicides and a 90% conviction
11:38rate for all felony gun violations.
11:40Harris also pushed for higher bail for criminal defendants involved in gun-related crimes,
11:45arguing that historically low bail encouraged outsiders to commit crimes in San Francisco.
11:50SFPD officers credited Harris with tightening the loopholes defendants had used in the past.
11:55In addition to creating a gun crime unit, Harris opposed releasing defendants on their
12:00own recognizance if they were arrested on gun crimes, sought minimum 90-day sentences
12:04for possession of concealed or loaded weapons, and charged all assault weapons possession
12:09cases as felonies, adding that she would seek prison terms for criminals who possessed
12:13or used assault weapons and would seek maximum penalties on gun-related crimes.
12:18Harris created a hate crimes unit, focusing on hate crimes against LGBT children and teens
12:23in schools.
12:24In early 2006, Gwen Araujo, a 17-year-old American Latina transgender teenager, was
12:30murdered by two men who later used the gay panic defense before being convicted of second-degree
12:35murder.
12:36Harris, alongside Araujo's mother Sylvia Guerrero, convened a two-day conference of
12:40at least 200 prosecutors and law enforcement officials nationwide to discuss strategies
12:45to counter such legal defenses.
12:47Harris subsequently supported AB 1160 – the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act, advocating
12:53that California's penal code include jury instructions to ignore bias, sympathy, prejudice,
12:58or public opinion in making their decision, also making mandatory for district attorney's
13:03offices in California to educate prosecutors about panic strategies.
13:08How to Prevent Bias from Affecting Trial Outcomes
13:11In September 2006, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 1160 into law.
13:17The law put California on record as declaring it contrary to public policy for defendants
13:22to be acquitted or convicted of a lesser-included offense on the basis of appeals to societal
13:27bias.
13:28In August 2007, State Assemblyman Mark Leno introduced legislation to ban gun shows at
13:33the Cow Palace, joined by Harris, Police Chief Heather Fong, and Mayor Gavin Newsom.
13:38City leaders contended the shows were directly contributing to the proliferation of illegal
13:42guns and spiking homicide rates in San Francisco.
13:46Leno alleged that merchants drove through the public housing developments nearby and
13:50illegally sold weapons to residents.
13:52While the bill would stall, local opposition to the shows continued until the Cow Palace
13:56Board of Directors in 2019 voted to approve a statement banning all future gun shows.
14:02I stop at this point today.
14:04Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep exploring the world's incredible
14:08stories.
14:10Soon we will publish part 2.
14:12Thank you, for watching.
14:14I hope I added something to you.