The Kamala Question with Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:23

He stepped away from running from president, but he is still president. You find out who somebody is when they put their two weeks in. I knew Josh was coming with a quick take.

Josh loves, let me tell you, Josh, before you say it, there are few human beings whose eyes light up more than yours when somebody has quit their job. Your eyes light up, Josh, like someone has just been handed the keys to the kingdom. You have, there's a joy in you that cannot be surpassed by anything when it comes to quitting your job.

You're listening to What Now? The podcast where I chat to interesting people about the conversations taking over our world. And the conversation that's taking over the world this week, Joe Biden stepping down from the race. And Kamala Harris stepping up. This has never happened in the history of the United States. Yes, another first. And to help us navigate this first and make sense of this moment, I invited writer, sociologist, and journalist

all-around amazing person. Oh, and also, MacArthur genius, Tressie McMillan Cottom, to join us on the podcast. The day the news broke, Tressie published an opinion article in the New York Times called Kamala or Bust, and it has totally reframed the way people are thinking about this election and what happens next.

Now, of course, along with Tressie, I'm joined by two of my closest friends, writer and journalist and professional hater, Christiana Mbakwe-Medina, and comedian and human chill pill, Josh Johnson. Hey, Josh, how are you? I've missed your face. I'm good, man. How are you? I am blessed, my friend. Looks like we're recording. Okay. This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. What Now?

This episode is presented by Lululemon. Everyone has those moments where they say, not today, when it comes to fitness. I mean, I know I do. Well, Lululemon restorative gear is made for those days. Days where you want to max out your rest and not your reps. Lululemon's new campaign features Odell Beckham Jr. and DK Metcalf in their buttery soft, breathable, restorative wear. Designed to keep up or kick back with you.

Visit lululemon.com for everything you need to bring it tomorrow. Rest day is the best day. Happy podcast day, everybody. Happy podcast day, man. Happy podcast day. Just a week ago, we were talking about a former president of the United States essentially being asked to drop out in a very violent way.

terrible way, not good at all. And then we were like, I wonder which way the race is going to go. I wonder what's going to happen in America. No, things have to get even crazier. And so now as I sit before you, my friends and everyone who's listening as well, Joe Biden, the president of the United States has announced that

that he is 100% not running to be president of the United States again, which, by the way, is what he promised. I don't know if everybody remembers this, but when Joe Biden originally ran against Donald Trump, he was like, President, that's not for me. I'm just sleepy old Joe. I'm just trying to help the republic, and I'm just here, you know, one white man against the other. I'm going to fight this guy for you, and then I'm gone. I'm gone. And then he got into the White House, and he got a little bit of that White House chef and a little bit of that White House masseuse.

And he was like, and in a way that was reminiscent for most Africans, he was like, I know I said I was going to leave. But what if I stay a little bit longer? When he was running again, I was like, uh-uh, wait, you said, and you said to me, did he lie? Did Joe lie to me? He didn't lie. He was telling the truth. He told the truth eventually. Yeah.

He got there in the end. Yes. Yes. It was a very delayed telling of the truth. He got there. Yeah. But you know how they say that if a mother is in distress and her baby is in distress, she can summon the strength to lift a car to get the car off her baby, right? Yeah. I've heard this. They never say that about Fobby. And so...

I think that that's exactly what happened. I think that Joe saw the country in distress. He saw this like imminent threat, you know, to overall democracy in our institutions. And then he ran up to the car and was like, and then he was like, we gonna need the jaws of life. We gonna need some firefighters, please. I mean, it's once again, America is in just uncharted territory. Like once again,

everything around Donald Trump is not boring. Whatever it is, it is not boring. Let's just say that. Like if Donald Trump is in your life, like if Donald Trump came from an African family, they would pray for him because they'd say there are demons in his life. - Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah. Seems pretty reasonable. - You actually believe that there are demons in his life?

We're not going to go down that road. No, really. People would be praying for him. They'd be like, you have to pray for Donald Trump. You have to pray. Please, every time something in his life, if you know him, if you are next to him, something bad can happen. Something crazy can happen. Oh, Lord Jesus, we must pray for Donald Trump. That's what they would say about you because this is crazy. And today, I want us to try to get to a bunch of things. One, I want us to talk about the Joe Biden of it all, like a president who was convinced

literally like a week or so ago that he was definitely going to run for re-election and then told us, no, he's not, tweeted that he's not. And then I guess, you know, the Kamala Harris of it all. And we're going to be speaking about it with one of my favorite human beings in the entire world, in the entire world. I mean, she's truly one of the smartest people I know. Half of everything she's written has informed how I see the world. Her name is Tressie Macmillan Cotton.

First of all, welcome to the podcast. Second of all, Tressie, I know you don't live in the news, but when you heard the news, Biden out, what was the first thing you thought?

Well, first of all, hello, my darling, darling Trevor. So happy to always see you. So listen, no, I try not to live in the news. I want to be a real human being. That matters a lot to me. But I also have this job, right? And I have to know. And I feel like I take one for the team. So what I tell my friends is you don't have to watch it. I'll watch it and I'll filter it back to you. I'm like, just watch the Housewives episode.

And I'll tell you if we have a country tomorrow. So same, I get the text message like everyone else. I mean, I think maybe I get it like 60 seconds early, only because of my colleagues at the New York Times. And I think I knew by like the week before it wasn't looking good, not because I thought Biden was necessarily on death's door, but because he had lost donors.

and politics is money. And when you start losing the donors, I thought the message was on the wall. I was stunned how they did it on a Sunday with a tweet and a sort of like generally worded sort of statement. I thought that was kind of strange. It sounded like someone who still wasn't quite at terms with his decision. And then my next thought was, oh my God, just, oh my God, here we go. Mm-hmm.

Right. It's one thing to have to look at Donald Trump for the next election season. It's another thing to listen to Donald Trump run against a woman of color. Oh, damn. I didn't even think of it like that. Yeah. I don't know if I can be drunk enough for what's about to happen.

First of all, before we get into like the nitty gritty, wait, you get news 60 seconds before the rest of us? No, no, that's, I've never said any such thing. I've said. You said, you said I got it like 60 seconds early. You're on a delay over there. You don't know what you heard. I simply said I got a text message in a group chat. Okay. I've never gone on the record about 60 seconds and I'm not changing that now. I am pretty certain. That's what I, can I tell you?

that you are the most responsible, I would be using that to no end. And if I got the news 60 seconds before the general public because I worked at a newspaper, I would just be like, I just got a bad feeling, man. I feel like Trump shouldn't be standing on that podium. I don't know, man. I would just be texting people the entire time just so I become like the savant of the group. But okay, you know...

Can we all admit or do, am I the only one who feels like this was handled in a really weird way? Because I understand a presidential candidate pulling out. I understand somebody saying that they're not going to run again. I don't know about you. I'm not even a conspiracy theorist. But it was weird that the president of the United States, who has been very publicly running on every platform, the guy was now doing like TikToks with people,

turns around and sends a tweet out that's like, yo, peace out. I'm not doing this anymore. And that's it. Not a video. Yo, even like, even athletes will make a video. You know, they'll come up to be like, for 15 years, you've supported me as I've played the beautiful game. And now it is time for me to hang up my boots and spend time with my family. Thank you so much. Guys, we got a tweet. That to me was...

bizarre but also the fact he was announcing his retirement from politics effectively I felt for him because I'm like oh you're actually not getting the retirement party which I think everyone deserves everyone deserves like a nice little farewell retirement party but I was like it was so much to process and it felt like he Tressie to your point that he hadn't quite metabolized the fact that I'm not just dropping out the race I don't have a job yeah

Yeah, I think it's a couple of things. One, they're trying to stay ahead of the gossip, right? And so you just go to like the quickest medium. But I also suspect that no one wanted to see Joe Biden on camera in that moment. And I think his team knew it because you need to not only do the statement, right? He'd have to embody it. He would have to look, you know, confident and presidential in his choice. And I wonder if you couldn't quite

Pull that off. By all accounts, he had only made the decision, you know, shortly before the news was announced. I think maybe seeing it on film, um,

might have jeopardized the message. And, you know, would you want somebody recording you when you get fired? I mean, to your point, and also for Christiana and Trevor, I think that one of the things that made it feel weird to you is culturally you come from a different background. In the U.S., in the America that we live in, what you do is you

when you send somebody off to the nurse at home, don't act like those grandparents didn't have plans that week. They had told people what they were going to do. I'll see you at lunch tomorrow, girl, blah, blah, blah. That is true. And then out of nowhere, they just missing. Oh, you see, now you're getting into conspiracy land. Yeah. You know, going to your analogy, Josh, it is weird for grandpa to send a tweet

to the family saying that grandpa's not coming to the cookout when grandpa was like, "This is my cookout." - Yeah. - "You're all invited to the cookout." - Yeah. - "And we're doing this thing and I'm gonna be there and I'm bringing my world famous potato salad and everybody's gotta come." And it's like, "But grandpa, mom says you're too old to be." He's like, "I'm never too old to run a cookout. I'll always be at the cookout." And then the next message you get from your grandfather is, "Due to unforeseen circumstances."

I will no longer be at the cookout. I wish you well. And your mother will be creating. It doesn't help create stability in a country where people already feel like everything they hear and understand about politics is a lie. That's what I feel. It doesn't help. I mean, it kind of lended credence to that kind of Trumpy message of the deep state.

And there's talk of like donations and the billionaire class and the, you know, we had the George Cloonies and the entertainment class saying, saying, saying, hey. Oh, that was unfortunate. So calls are being made. And all the way, by the way, Obama's medium post was so long, you could tell he had that in the draft for at least a week, right? Because it, it,

It's like, this is not something that you, you're incredibly loquacious and intelligent. You didn't write this. I'm with Christiana on this. You know, you didn't write this in an hour. It was like so thoughtful. I'm like, oh, this was in your drafts and you had done multiple edits. So it kind of lent credence to this idea that there are these forces that operate within American politics on a subterranean level. And in the right, they're very explicit about it. We think about the Heritage Foundation. We think about the Koch brothers, et cetera. But you're

like, oh, the progressives have that thing too. They just look a bit different. And that was a thing that I think has made people feel like going to conspiracy land because it feels strange. I agree. There's this sense that somebody took Biden's keys away, you know, said, no, this is it. It's your last day driving. And he didn't know until the keys were gone. And that absolutely does give this sense that someone's in control, but it wasn't necessarily Biden.

And then the inevitable questions are within who, who gets to make that call, right? Who is the person who gets to push it? And I agree that there is a, you know, there is a billionaire political class on both sides. On the right, we are able to name it a little more easily. I suspect on the left is because there's like an inter-party battle between multiple people trying to be in charge. Whereas on the right, they tend to agree who's in charge. To your point then,

If the keys could be taken away from the commander-in-chief,

doesn't it sort of mean then the keys shouldn't be with the commander in chief? Do you know what I mean? I know it's, it's, it's circular logic, but in a way I go, do you want somebody to run for president for another four years? If somebody can take the keys away from them and send that message. I think it's a really good point. And I think it's a point that had really already settled with a lot of voters, right? So you see the, you know, the polling really saw the polling in 2020, people were already concerned about his age. Um,

You know, Napoleon was already still there ahead of this election. But then, you know, there's the debate performance. And I just don't think we can overlook that. The debate felt like the last time that Biden made a call because he chose to have that debate. He pushed for it. And that decision, I think, called into question his ability to make precisely those types of

of decisions? Did you want someone who hadn't quite accurately parsed where the electorate was? And everybody goes into panic mode, which again suggests that there were people prepared to do exactly that, which I do think lends some credibility to the idea that there were already concerns within the inner circle. Yeah. And I also think as painful as it is,

I feel like that debate for Biden was when your mom looks at you and she's like, grandpa got one more time to put that remote in the fridge. If you put the remote in the fridge again, he can't be on his own. Yeah. I don't know if I can trust grandpa with you if I can't trust him with the remote. Essentially, that's how America felt in that moment. But

But before we move on to Kamala and the new direction, conversation, and everything that's happening now in the country, I just want to spend a second talking about what you brought up, Tressie, the donor class. It is pretty wild that arguably the most powerful nation in the world

A nation that proudly, proudly touts its democracy and its democratic values as liberal and progressive as you want to say the Democratic Party is, the money spoke. The people didn't speak in this instance, or the people that spoke as a collective weren't heard as much as the people who spoke with their wallets. Yeah. Yeah.

What does that say about America's democracy and where it stands? Even if this outcome may be what people wanted, what does this say about America and the way the system actually works? The American political process, especially running for president, is one of the most...

you know, circumscribed, contrived, maybe things that we do that gives you the sense that every individual voter, you know, is casting a ballot for freedom. But in fact, you know, very few people go into the ballot box really deciding who they want to vote for. You go into the ballot boxes, either a Democrat or a Republican.

But really where voters have the most sort of leverage is in the moment when the donor class hasn't consolidated around a candidate, right? They're sort of looking at the tea leaves, trying to see who people will support.

After that point, money weighs in on that. Kind of the, you know, the individual voters' power really is significantly diminished. We have got this scenario which Donald Trump has been able to blow through. It's why his takeover of the Republican Party has been both stunning and almost absolute. He bucked money and won. And in politics, the idea has been for at least 40, 50 years, you don't win without the money. Right?

Right. Yeah. And so that's how he was able to bring, quote unquote, moderate Republicans to heel. He was able to show that he could control the donor class on our side. I think and I say our let's be you know, my politics are probably clear here. I don't want to live under Donald Trump. So I don't think I'm giving anything away. I think we're clear there. But, you know, on our side, I think, one, we're always so self-conscious that we don't have enough billionaires.

Right. Like, oh, the rights got, you know, tech. They've got oil. They've got, you know, and we only have George Soros. And so we're so panicked about not having enough billionaires that I think we're also more susceptible to falling in line. But the reality is, yeah, money matters. Yeah.

It definitely feels – this is maybe a bit contrived of an analogy, but it does feel a lot like wrestling now, and it's just more out in the open because wrestling, a very specific type, is fake. And the thing that happens though is that those narratives are written. It's written who's going to be the champ. It's written who's – all that stuff. But what people don't realize is that those narratives are written off of crowd reaction.

So the crowd, the crowd literally does control for a little while. They control everything because then they see where the crowd is cheering and they're like, okay, let's write it for this guy to win his next couple matches. But if the crowd says, oh, this is all pre-written and no one cares what we think, now the writers don't know what to do.

And that feels like where we're at right now, where it's like, I think some people have already have this like foregone conclusion to hopelessness because Kamala is a black woman and because Donald Trump's a white guy. And I think that that is also lending itself a little bit to like the counterintuitive thing with wrestling, where it's like, if you just show up and you don't even clap, you just stare and watch and you're like, this is fake. Now, now the thing isn't a tailspin. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll be right back after this. Christiana, what you and I spoke about the other day was how there was the initial shock that Joe Biden's instantly out. There was an overwhelming feeling of despair. And then Joe Biden endorses Kamala Harris and people go, but what does that even mean? Does it count? Does it not count?

But I don't know who phoned whom. And I don't know... The Black Girl Zoom? Can we talk about... I was about to say it was the Black Girls. Can we talk about the Black Girl Zoom? Tressie, I'm sure you were on there on Sunday. I was on there. The Black Girl Magic. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the call. We can't say too much, can we? Yeah.

It was officially, it was off the record. Yeah. Yeah, but it's everywhere. It's everywhere. Social media is talking about everywhere. Everyone is talking not about the contents of the call, but people are talking about the sentiment and how many people joined in and the fact that a million dollars was raised on a Zoom call. Normally people pay to go off a Zoom call. I do want to say that Zoom has a cap to how many people are allowed on a call. I think it's like 10,000. The COO of Zoom is a South Asian woman.

And she made some calls. So the cap was raised. And that was why 44,000 black women and some allies were able to be on that call. So that tells you there's something happening. There's something in the air. I'll let Tressie talk about the organizing aspect of the call. But what I will say is that Joe Biden backed out and black women said, you're not going to step over Kamala.

That's what happened. Like everyone else was hopeless and confused. And we were like, oh, no, no, no, there's an option. And you're not going to do that thing that happens in offices all the time. When a white man leaves a job, we know who's the most qualified. We know who's been doing the work. We know who's been overlooked. Everyone knows the hyper-competent black woman in the office, right? Yeah.

Who never really gets to be COO, makes a C-suite. And I think there was just something in our consciousness that said, you're not going to step over her. And that's for people that don't, I don't particularly like her that much. You know, honestly. Yeah.

She's not my... I'm with you, Christiana. Yeah, we would never be homegirls. My hair is too natural. I'm too loud. Yeah. Hello. I'm not polishing up her. My hair is too much. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I don't have the silk press. Yeah. However, I said, we are behind her. And I think that's the important thing to realize that like all black women don't see themselves in her, don't necessarily agree with her past, but we're like, you're not about to get him out the way and step over her. That's right. But Tressie, let me let you go ahead.

No, I could not agree with any of that more. What they did was they activated Voltron when they started floating any other name, right? It became impossible for any Black woman I know, again, including myself, I'm like Christiana, I...

am not a silk press girl, right? So I'm not invited to the cotillions and that's okay. I'm not, you know, I don't spend my summers at the vineyard and all that kind of stuff. But every Black woman who has ever worked and every Black woman has worked

has been in a room where she has the answers, the experience, and is expected to train her replacement, to support the people who have less education than her, and to earn less while she's doing it. And so when you saw this calling up of people who have been trying to be in that inner circle for years and haven't made it, a Gavin Newsom, are you kidding me? Big Gretch, love her if you like in Michigan, but she's brand new. And

And everybody going, no, every Black woman felt that moment. And the call that goes out is sort of like, you know, a cross between word of mouth and tapping into Black organizations, sororities and church groups and et cetera. So the infrastructure was there. But what really happened, I think, was this, you know, this collective recognition among Black women that, oh, we know how this story goes.

And listen, Kamala win or lose has earned her shot to run. If Kamala is good enough to be vice president, she's good enough to be president. And if you have an argument against that, you have to make it explicitly. And you don't just get to slide in the guy with the white guy with the good hair. Yeah. And that would be Gavin. Yeah.

I also think that, yeah, it's like if she's good enough to be vice president, she's good enough to be president. And she was one more COVID away anyway. Wow. Damn. One more COVID away. Okay. I'll say this, though.

I've had conversations with like, every time I would meet a CEO, like a really, you know, a CEO of a huge company, I would always ask them the same question. How did you get here? Why did you get here? What were the things that got you here, et cetera, et cetera. And can I tell you, if I was to distill it down in my little amateur, you know, anecdotal experiments that I've run with CEOs of major, major corporations around the world, the number one thing that has come across from all of them

is that somebody gave them a shot and just said, you know what, kid? Why don't you come work for me? Because I see myself in you. That phrase, I see myself in you,

has made me realize that the real privilege or disadvantage in this world to being a black woman, particularly by the way, versus a white man, is that people think it's worth taking a shot on you and your success or failure doesn't determine the perception of everybody else in that space. We see that with CEOs all the time. You know how many CEOs, Josh and I talk about this all the time, you know how many CEOs take over a company

lose hundreds and millions, if not billions of dollars in value for the company, leave the company with a massive severance, and then go on to another company to become CEO, where they might repeat the same thing. And nobody goes, oh, these white men, you just got hired because you... They're just like, yeah, no, that sucks. And here's their severance. And to what you're saying, Tressie and Christiana,

I go, if anything, Kamala Harris has shown that she's as qualified, if not more qualified, by the way, than many of the people who have been assumed qualified for the job. She has shown that she's definitely, she has a right to at least get in the driver's seat

Because if it was only about being qualified, half of these people wouldn't have even been allowed in the White House. Does that make sense? Yeah. Absolutely. It's interesting how, like, black women in particular have to justify, like, the nitty gritties of their qualifications to be considered for the conversation when most people do not. If you're too old, they're like, no, this person is seasoned. If you're too young, they're like, this person is fresh. But when you're a black woman, those are all black marks. Excuse the pun. Right.

On your resume where they go, ah, but I don't know. Could you be the first black woman? You've never been a black woman president. So I don't know if you could do it. Yeah. I don't know if you could do it. I also think that very few people have a level of emotional intelligence to see themselves in another person. I think what's actually happening is I see myself on you.

And that's why it's so hard to transfer that to anyone who's not like you. Does that make sense? Oh, damn. Explain more, Josh. So like, that's, I think I know what you mean, yeah. Like, let's say I roll with a bunch of comedians all the time and they're all different colors, different backgrounds.

But the ones I gravitate towards the most and the ones that I sort of usher in and try to help the most just happen to be the Black men. Because I don't see myself in them. I see myself on them. I see myself as like, oh, yeah, I know how to fix that struggle because that's the exact struggle I went through.

Meanwhile, even not meaning to, whether it's a white woman or a white guy, I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't know what to do when people are mad at you for showing up because that version of that hasn't happened to me. When really an emotionally intelligent person would be able to transfer the fact that anybody, anybody who has your hustle has your hustle, no matter what they look like or no matter what background they are. But we tend to, that's why people, you know,

oh, I see myself in this young kid caddying at the country club. It's like, yeah, but this kid already has ties to the country club. Do you know what I mean? You somehow see yourself in the caddy. You don't see yourself in this kid that's hustling on a street corner in the inner city who's really doing the same hustle that you did back in the day. For me, I think that's why she's actually, I'm excited about her because for a lot of white people, she's very familiar. Yeah.

You know, she's very palatable. Like, we can't get beyond the beauty politics. She's an attractive, light-skinned woman who wears her hair straight. She is culturally familiar. They all know, every one of them has someone in their family who's biracial. Like, most of these people have just one. And that's what Barack had. He was just like, oh, we, you know, so-and-so's grandson is like him, you know? Yeah.

His dad is black, but she's incredibly palatable that there's enough familiarity that perhaps if it was someone like myself or Tressie, they'd be like alarm bells because they're like, well, that is unambiguous blackness and we can't deal with that. That's natural hair. But Kamala in many ways fits the role and she has a white husband.

well she goes home to us she is the person that you'd invite to your wedding or you would socialize with and for me that's why I'm like we've got to get behind this one

Because it's more likely her to me than anyone else. And yeah, it's not a Stacey Abrams to Christiana's point, right? Where people look at that figure and that unambiguous blackness is terrifying. I think the intersection here of what Josh has said and what Christiana is explicating is like the sweet spot for me, which is we like to think that we can identify talent and grit or whatever in other people. It's almost always a projection of our ego.

I remember someone telling me once that she had to stop going to her gym class because they had switched out the class leader. And the one before used to be a light-skinned Dominican like her, but the new one was darker skin and Puerto Rican, and so she couldn't identify anymore. And I just remember thinking, what in the world? So the moves didn't hit the same? The moves don't hit the same when you go from the DR to the PR. I don't know.

I don't know how it worked, but she was just like so like, oh, this person used to look exactly like me. And so I could project my ego. But, you know, it doesn't take much, I think, for people to see someone as distinctly other than them. Right. What Kamala has is still has in this moment is enough malleability.

where people can project their ego, especially non-Black people, hello, can project their ego onto her without a lot of fear about her difference. And I think to Christiana's point, there are not going to be a lot of Black women politicians at that level of competitiveness that are going to have that. And if part of what we have to do in this country is break

this nation's mental image of what a president looks like, what competence looks like, then you've got to do it with your best shot. I do wonder though, how being a woman will affect her. You know, I feel like a lot of people are talking about black woman. And I think not enough people are talking about woman. Again, this is just my perception of America.

Blackness is tied to so many cool things these days and it's become so ubiquitous in so many areas of American life that subconsciously some people...

Like, they're fine with black, even if they may be racist on certain occasions. Do you get what I'm saying? It's no longer as, excuse the pun, black and white as it used to be. You know, it's no longer just people who are like, I don't like black people. No, it's like someone who goes like, I don't like these N-words, but, you know, and as Lil Wayne, my favorite rapper says, you know, there's nothing I can do about it. So I've had conversations with people

groups of people and I would say to them, I'd be like, "Hey, do you think a woman could do it?" And the amount of times women have said to me, half joking but then sometimes very serious, like, "I'll be honest, I like the idea, but I don't think a woman could be president. I just don't think a woman could be president."

How much do you think that that'll actually play into them in the booth? You know, like Josh, you've said many times, like, I'll never vote for a woman. And I've always gone like, why not, Josh? Why would you do this to me in this moment? I was actually minding my own business. You said wrestling was fake. You said wrestling was fake. I was listening. Come on here and say wrestling is fake. I was being a good listener. I actually have a counter to that, though. I think we should not forget. I hope so. We should not forget Hillary won the popular vote.

In terms of raw numbers, she got more votes than Donald Trump because of the nature of the American electoral system that weights more votes than others. She didn't win the votes that matter. The greatest goddamn system in the world. Yeah, she just didn't win the votes that win elections. But she got more votes purely, right? And to me, like...

My experience as a black woman, it may be different for Kamala, Tressie, I'd love to hear you weigh in. I think people see my blackness more than they see my womanhood. I've always felt like defeminized or desexualized or oversexualized, depending on the context. So when I deal with men in professional spaces, they don't see women because what they associate with women are their wives and their daughters. They see black. And what is great for me is that they're scared of me.

So I think that when Kamala debates Trump, he's going to be scared. Now, what a white man is going to do to me is much more subterranean. It's psychological. It's about my pay. It's about my treatment. It's about can I be, you know, promoted, right?

But I've seen white men treat white women in a way because of the intimacy and familiarity that they do not. Black women, we don't experience that. And I've always said the best thing about me is that people think I'm angry and because people think I'm angry, they're scared of me. And that fear is actually very useful politically. And if you watch Kamala in debates today,

She dog walked Biden. You have to remember that moment when she had the T-shirts ready. And it's just like, she's a prosecutor. She's a lawyer. She's actually used to dealing with the psychology of a certain type of very powerful white man, whereas he just doesn't know what to do. Yeah.

So for me, I think that like actually her blackness neutering her womanhood is going to be the thing that she's able to maneuver this election in a way that actually Hillary never could. Because Hillary, they're like, you remind us of our nagging wife. That was it. That's why those men, whereas Kamala, I kind of find you hot, you

you're attractive but you're also smarmy but then you wear these suits and I think that the mind fuckness of it all is going to be the thing that actually is the beneficial the beneficial element of what intersectionality does to you that makes your life hard in the right occasion can also be positive that's right that's right in some context you

You have intersecting oppressions, right, that limit your life. And then in this other, maybe more narrow context, it can benefit you. We always forget the benefit part. And I'm always pushing people on that precisely for the reasons Christiana says. I have been the Black woman. I'm still that Black woman in the room. I know that the fact that people do not see me as a full woman also conditions them to be, to acquiesce to me in some circumstances of leadership, right?

Oh, this is interesting. The same way they would to a man, especially if I may be dealing with people who have some professional exposure to Black women, but not intimate exposure to Black women. Let me tell you, one of the things that terrifies me is how TikTok is ruining that for Black women. They have made us so accessible to white men, they are messing with my superpower. I don't need them knowing how I wrap up my hair. I don't need them knowing.

- Oh my God. - Understanding all of this process. So now I'm out there in the world and sometimes white men are like, "Oh, I know about you." And I'm like, "No, no, I did not want..." I get over on the fear. That works for me. Yeah, but there is a latent sort of fear about not being able to anticipate black women that especially a very insular, wealthy white man from the Northeast

would feel is just an unknown quantity, right? And I think that one of the things that Trump is going to have a problem with, which I think his team is already demonstrating, they don't know how to prep for her. He doesn't deal with any Black women in his life. And Kamala is not afraid of him, can confuse him, can manipulate the line between, you know, woman-ness and Blackness in a way that gives her the upper hand. And I think Kamala is very comfortable with that. We'll be right back after this short break.

So, okay, let me ask you this. Just a fun game I like to play. None of this means anything because predictions, in my opinion, are useless. But they are fun. They are fun. I think every time you predict the future, you create like an alternate universe. So, Josh, you looked at me like I'm both crazy and genius at the same time. I have $10 million. Yeah, but you see, you don't. You don't. Now Josh in another universe does.

He also just got a call from the IRS wanting to know how he just got $10 million and his life was turned upside down.

I would love to know this. Who do you think is the perfect running mate? Because I feel like every single combination comes with another combination. It's like if she gets another woman and if it's a white woman, then it's like, what does this mean? Or what does this say? Is this like Andrew Tate's wet dream? And then if it's like her and a white man, what does it say? And if it's a black man, is it an older white man? Is it a younger white man? What do you think?

she looks for as a running mate to go up against Donald Trump and the man with the beard, the beautiful beard, J.D. Vance. Oh, J.D. Vance. What a beard. Oh, what a beard. As they say on the Internet, if you're going to game theory this thing out. Yeah, yeah, fully game. I think that you already have a disruptive ticket if Kamala's at the head.

I would hope, I'm actually kind of hoping, a small part of me, that they will lean into being disruptive. I think that if you get a white man, a more palatable white man as vice president, the constant optics of that will be the black woman being a white man's boss.

You see what I'm saying? And I think that that is a fear that, you know, that can prime some sort of like anger and anxiety that will actually be greater than they have, the fear they have of Kamala being president. I don't think you, I don't, I wouldn't set up those optics. Like if I was in charge, I think you almost, I think you lean into being the most radical ticket that there has ever been. I'm putting the woman on there. I'm actually going to put like Gretchen on there. I'm not kidding. I'm a double. Wow.

I'm going to double down on it and say you've got a future here where it is a Trump and a J.D. Vance who have a vision of America that's absolutely about patriarchy.

Or you can do this thing and you can feel cool. That's so interesting, Tracy. I never thought of it that way, but your conceptualization is brilliant as always. Or I'm crazy and that's fine too. It sounds a lot like, yeah. It's crazy, but America is a crazy, very young country. Yeah.

that sometimes will buy into something that is unexpected. Like they made Schwarzenegger the governor of California. We're not serious. We're not serious people. Christiana, come on. It's a very unserious. So why not? You might as well go for it. And I mean, my instinct, and I said this on Instagram, and maybe this is the part of me that's very British and like a boring political scientist, but

I felt the VP should be like the most precedented thing. White man, 2.5 kids, very attractive and quiet wife, goes to church, drinks once every six months. Like,

as boring as possible. And only drinks the blood of Jesus. And only drinks the blood of Jesus, the blood of the lamb during communion. That's right. That was my instinct. And I guess this is the fear in me as a black woman in this country is that I feel that what Biden was able to do for Obama, because I think Biden was critical to getting Obama elected,

You need those kind of undecided voters who are going to go into the, you know, those couple hundred thousand who decide in the morning what they're going to do. They were like, oh, well, at least my body will be there. So you just may need to just capture, just boost turnout in Georgia.

and people in Georgia are going to be like, okay, black woman, white man, I, you know, I can go for this. No, I think that's the straight political read. And I suspect exactly the conversation that's happening because you are a political scientist. And that is, I think how they think about it. The vice president historically is supposed to deliver votes that the president can't deliver. Um,

the only thing that's questionable here is that we don't know if people will vote for a Black woman at all. So you don't quite know what vote she can bring. And so that complicates choosing, I think, a vice presidential candidate. And I think that yours is the sober path to take. Mine is absolutely drunk, right? And I just think, however, that because we are so deeply unserious, one of the things this country does is that do we progress? Yes, but we don't do it slowly.

We have these long periods of almost regressive politics. And then we'll make these huge leaps in like two weeks. Everything changes in two weeks. I want them to campaign on, let's capture lightning in a bottle. But the more sober, I think, assessment is to play it with more familiarity. I think that...

I very much wish that Tressie had gone last because I feel like yours was so good that now mine is going to sound. OK, I'm going to try it anyway. I think you could go Mark Kelly because Mark Kelly is like a former astronaut, current, you know, senator. He could call J.D. and Trump dumb to their face and mean it. Right. Then you also have Andy Beshear, who's like.

Kentucky governor who doesn't have enough. He's interesting. He doesn't have enough name recognition, but you can see how what I like about him is that he is the most Southern version. And honestly, like identity politics wise, the most white man version of someone's heart being in the right place. Like he, he represents this sort of like white base. Who's like, who means well and doesn't always get it right, but is like fully on board. I think that's actually a really interesting choice. Andy Beshear.

I'm going to go... Okay, I think Kamala Harris should pick a Latino running mate.

and go balls to the wall. Just basically go like, this is going to be like the ticket of firsts. First, everything is being done here. It's like a fire sale. One time only, America. One time only. November 9th. This is the first of firsts. You get it here. And go, they're like, the Latino caucus has been doing an amazing job. They've been mobilizing people. They've been overlooked for a long time. They're one of the biggest populations in America. I just think this is the time to think out of the box and be like, you know what?

go and get these people who have been like, you know, sort of overlooked and then only spoken about when it comes to the border and all of that. Get a Latino person on the ticket and be like, yeah, let's swing. If you swing and miss with that ticket, I mean, what a miss. That was...

That was monumental. And I think if America shipped it all in on that, if Kamala shipped it all in on that, I think that would be the greatest story, win or lose, that America's ever told. That's my pitch. Final thoughts for everyone. Is Biden just like gone now? Because Biden stepped away from the campaign campaign

But it sort of feels like, you know, to what you said earlier, Christiana, it sort of feels like Biden has stepped away from everything. It's a strange feeling to have. But does this make him the ultimate lame duck? I think, unfortunately, you know, Biden's whole life has been marred by tragedy in some ways, like losing his wife and his daughter, losing his son.

having another son with addiction challenges. And he's been done a great job of like overcoming those things and embracing it and making it part of his political rhetoric. I think there was so much foreshadowing that now we're seeing that his political career has ended in a tragedy. You know, this kind of like an older man battling health issues, battling issues in his family,

kind of just being pushed to the side and, you know, also not having a voice that matters. And I think this is just an end to a very kind of tragic political career in ways. And I think he just kind of goes down in history as this tragic figure. And it's really the final image is a tweet, you know, and there's no there's no overcoming that. But Tressie, I'd be really curious about how you feel about it.

I strongly agree. The one thing that we, the one narrative we tend to share in this country across political divide, across class, across race, is that age equals being feeble. And unfortunately for Biden, he didn't age after the office. He aged while in office. Right.

So we saw him in the White House elderly in a way that I think resonates with everyone, no matter who they are. And unfortunately, we don't have a redemption narrative for a person who ages, right? The only narrative we have for being elderly is that we sort of coddle you into the next stage of your life. And that coddling is antithetical to gravitas.

to Christiana's point, right? He's now seen as an elderly figure. I think we are a media-driven culture, and I think the image of him will supersede, unfortunately, his record for the short-term or near-term.

Here's my thing. I disagree slightly only because of the opportunity that I think he has. He has the opportunity that everyone wishes that they had when they run for office the first time. Because anytime somebody runs for office the first time, they're talking all that good stuff. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. This guy is like, hey, look, I'm never coming back.

I'm almost gone. Free school lunch. And y'all can come get me. Come get me. Free school lunch for everybody, right? I'm telling you, all he has to do is just 18, 20 executive orders. Just like, you know what? Maternal leave for everybody. Come get me in court. I won't be here, but you could argue with yourself. You can argue with my ghost. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, I will say that, Josh, you know what? If that, man...

It might not happen for us, but in the alternate universe you just created, those people are having a really, really good time, my friend. Ooh, I want Biden to be a fool. Those people are having a really, really good... Oh, man, I just... Hold on, hold on. I'm just checking the... I've got an app that shows me. In the executive order world that you created, Biden has just taxed everyone who got $10 million or more. Oh. Huh. So Josh Johnson has the exact same amount of money that he has in this reality. But he gets a free school lunch. He gets a free school lunch.

What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions and Fullwell 73. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Ben Winston, Sanaz Yamin, and Jody Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?

♪♪♪