Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson on Tuesday that she is not concerned that sexism could affect next month’s election and that she thinks the country is ready for a woman of color in the White House.
“Come to my events and you will see there are men and women,” Harris said at her official residence in the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. “The experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone’s gender, they want to know that their president has a plan to lower costs, that their president has a plan to secure America in the context of our position around the world.
"Every walk of life of our country," she continued, "I think part of what is important in this election is really not only turning the page but closing the page and the chapter on an era that suggests that Americans are divided."
Harris covered several topics, including saying abortion rights are “nonnegotiable,” even as she campaigns with anti-abortion-rights Republicans like former Rep. Liz Cheney and saying she would work with Republicans to find compromises if she is elected.
Harris would be the first female president in American history and only the second nonwhite one. But 16 years after Barack Obama was elected to be the first Black president and eight years after Hillary Clinton lost her shot to break the “highest, hardest glass ceiling,” Harris said she is not concerned about sexism stopping her.
“I don’t think of it that way,” she said of sexism. “My challenge is the challenge of making sure I can talk with and listen to as many voters as possible and earn their vote. And I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race, instead that that leader needs to earn the vote based on substance and what they will do to address challenges and to inspire people.”
Harris has not been dwelling much on the history-making potential of her candidacy. She dismissed a question about why.
“Well, I’m clearly a woman,” she said. “The point that most people really care about is can you do the job and do you have a plan to actually focus on them.”
With just two weeks to go before the November election, Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump are locked in a dead heat, with polls showing a neck-and-neck race both nationally and in the seven key battleground states.
On abortion rights, Harris said she is not interested in finding a potential compromise with Republicans to restore some abortion rights nationwide after the end of Roe v. Wade.
"I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body," she said.
Campaigning with Harris in Michigan on Monday, Cheney, a former House member from Wyoming, said that she is "pro-life" but that she is nonetheless concerned about restrictions on medical treatments like in vitro fertilization in the post-Roe environment.
"There are many of us around the country who have been pro-life but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need,” Cheney said.
Harris said the support from Cheney and other Republicans should not be taken as a sign of her softening her commitment to abortion rights.
"She is pro-life, but she also understands the pain and the tragedy that has happened since Donald Trump allowed Roe v. Wade to be overturned," she said. "So that's my point about what is nonnegotiable."
Asked whether she suggested there might be at least some bipartisan support in Congress for abortion-rights legislation, Harris declined to get into specifics, dismissing the idea as “hypothetical.”
"We need to put back in the protections of Roe v. Wade," she said.
Asked about President Joe Biden's performance in the debate against Trump that resulted in the pressure for him to step aside, Harris said she was honest in what she saw of him behind the scenes.
"Joe Biden is an extremely accomplished, experienced and capable in every way that anyone would want if they’re president," Harris said. "Joe Biden has done the work that has been about being a leader on what we have done to fix so much of what has been broken in terms of the economy because of Donald Trump’s mismanagement. I speak with not only sincerity but with a real firsthand account of watching him do this work."
Asked whether if she wins she could pardon Trump for the charges he still faces, including those in connection with the effort to overturn the 2020 election, Harris said she would not engage in hypotheticals in response to a question about whether doing so might help the nation move one.
"Let me tell you what’s going to help us move on," she said. "I get elected president of the United States."
