MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow welcomed former Vice President Kamala Harris to her Monday show to promote her new book and label her the “Patron saint of 'I told you so'” on how President Trump represents a threat to all things good and decent.
Maddow wondered, “You've become the patron saint of 'I told you so' in terms of people understanding the sort of warnings and predictions that you made about what Trump would be like. But you say, ‘I predicted all of that. I warned of it. What I didn't predict was the capitulation. The billionaires lining up to grovel, the big media companies, universities, so many major law firms.’… Why did you not predict the capitulation? And what do you make of the effort to try to put some steel in the spine of those institutions?”
PolitiFact loves to fact-check Republicans for calling Democrats communists, including when Trump called Harris a communist, so it will be interesting to see if they fact-check Harris’s answer that included, “Capitalism thrives in a democracy. And right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on The Ellipse, a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That's what we're dealing with right now in Donald Trump, and these titans of industry are not speaking up.”
Maddow also tried to help Harris tie herself to the Civil Rights Movement, “I know that your parents took you to protests in a stroller when you were a little kid before you were literally able to be there to walk, and that you've talked about the Civil Rights Movement and its moral legacy being part of your moral core.”
She worried that:
I feel like a lot of the defenses that we tried to build up in advance of this type of a sort of would be authoritarian takeover were about warning people about how serious the threat was and warning people about what this could mean and what we were in danger of. Now that we're up against it, though, I'm not sure that we have great skills to actually not warn about it, but fight it. And if the problem is the system collapsing and the guardrails, as you say, collapsing, and people being people who have power, who ought to be titans, not acting in any sort of titanic way.”
Harris began by praising people for protesting Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension before turning to The Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, and Project 2025 before making the illiterate claim they are “trying to get rid of the Department of Education, deregulate industries, weaken the rule of law by, over a period of time, creating a system and through gerrymandering states so that we would now have the Supreme Court that we have.”
Justices are confirmed by senators, who represent states, which are not gerrymandered.
Maddow also wasn’t happy with some ANTIFA news, “We've also now, in an executive order today, having—we've got the president describing ANTIFA, the anti-fascist, it's not even really a movement. The anti-fascist tactics of a portion of the protest movement as a domestic terrorist organization. What is your reaction to those things? What do you think the appropriate response is to things like that?”
Harris dodged the ANTIFA part in order to give a rambling answer about the importance of the separation of powers before falsely saying, “We talked about this during those 107 days, because remember, the Court before the election basically said that the president of the United States would be immune from whatever he did in office. So, he walked into the White House with what he thinks is a blank check.”
Fact-check: That was about prosecution for official acts, but such acts are still subject to judicial review.
Finally, Maddow lamented:
You say in the book really bluntly that your personal first choice for your running mate would have been Pete Buttigieg and you praised him effusively. You say he would have been an ideal partner ‘if I were a straight man.’ And you say effectively that demographically it was. It was too much to ask of the American people to ask them to elect you with him as your running mate… It's hard to hear. With you running, as you know, you're the first woman elected vice president. You're a black woman and a South Asian woman elected to that high office, very nearly elected president, to say that he couldn't be on the ticket effectively because he was gay. It's hard to hear.
Harris insisted:
No, no, no, that's not what I said. That that's—that he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay. My point is, as I write in the book, is that I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States against someone like Donald Trump, who knows no floor. To be a black woman running for president of the United States, and as a vice presidential running mate, a gay man. With the stakes being so high, it made me very sad. But I also realized it would be a real risk. No matter how—you know, I've been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life. So, it wasn't about any prejudice on my part.
Over the course of this interview, Harris got basic facts wrong on multiple occasions, and yet, Maddow thinks she’s the patron saint of "I told you so."
Here is a transcript for the September 22 show:
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show
9/22/2025
9:10 PM ET
RACHEL MADDOW: Let me talk to you about this capitulation thing.
KAMALA HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDOW: This really landed with me. I feel like we're all in the middle of it, but you are articulating it in the way that you do. You've become the patron saint of I told you so in terms of people understanding the sort of warnings and predictions that you made about what Trump would be like. But you say, “I predicted all of that. I warned of it. What I didn't predict was the capitulation. The billionaires lining up to grovel, the big media companies, universities, so many major law firms.” I will note, including your husband's.
HARRIS: Yeah. And he spoke out about it.
MADDOW: He's been very vocal in criticizing it. You said they've all been “bending to blackmail and outrageous demands.”
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDOW: Why did you not predict the capitulation? And what do you make of the effort to try to put some steel in the spine of those institutions?
HARRIS: So, as you know, I am a lifelong public servant, and—but I've worked closely with the private sector over many years, and I always believed that if push came to shove, those titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions.
And one by one by one, they have been silent. They have been, you know, yes, I use the word feckless. They're—it's not like they're going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons. And here's the thing. Democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy. And right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on The Ellipse, a tyrant.
We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That's what we're dealing with right now in Donald Trump, and these titans of industry are not speaking up.
…
9:13 PM ET
MADDOW: I know that your parents took you to protests in a stroller when you were a little kid—
HARRIS: Yes, they did.
MADDOW: — before you were literally able to be there to walk, and that you've talked about the Civil Rights Movement and its moral legacy being part of your moral core.
HARRIS: Yes.
MADDOW: I feel like a lot of the defenses that we tried to build up in advance of this type of a sort of would be authoritarian takeover were about warning people about how serious the threat was and warning people about what this could mean—
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDOW — and what we were in danger of. Now that we're up against it, though, I'm not sure that we have great skills to actually not warn about it, but fight it. And if the problem is the system collapsing and the guardrails, as you say, collapsing, and people being people who have power, who ought to be titans, not acting in any sort of titanic way.
HARRIS: And standing together because there is safety in numbers, as the saying goes.
MADDOW: Yes. I wonder if the American people who are repulsed by what Trump is doing and who are, in public opinion polling very much against what he's doing, as you note in the book. Are going to be turning their ire and their protest movement and their organizational capacity against these institutions that are failing as much as they are against Donald Trump himself and the administration. If that's the way the sort of resistance is headed.
HARRIS: So one, back to how you opened the show. I mean, talk about the power being with the people and the people making that clear with their checkbooks, as it relates to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, and it moved a decision in the right direction. I think that part of where we are now, in terms of thinking about what the fight is, it requires us, yes, to understand that we've got this administration and this president in front of us abusing the power that the people vested him with.
But we also need to understand that this is bigger than Donald Trump. You know, part of what I write about this stuff is decades in the making, Rachel. It didn't just happen overnight. You know, so much of what has indeed overwhelmed people, not to mention just scared the stuff out of people. Is it—what we are witnessing is a high velocity event.
MADDOW: Yeah.
HARRIS: We are witnessing something that has been happening so rapidly and it feels chaotic. But what I would offer you is what we are witnessing is the swift implementation of a plan that was decades in the making, decades in the making. Project 2025 didn't just drop out of thin air. That's a product of decades of work. Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation—understand that that the implementation of a plan that's about trying to get rid of the Department of Education, deregulate industries, weaken the rule of law by, over a period of time, creating a system and through gerrymandering states, so that we would now have the Supreme Court that we have.
This stuff didn't happen overnight, and it did not happen just because of an election in 2024 or even 2016.
…
9:28 PM ET
MADDOW: You say, in part, page 46, “It’s Joe and Jill’s decision. We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized. Was it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should have been left to an individual's ego, an individual's ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.” Whose decision should that have been? How should that decision have been made?
HARRIS: So, when I write this, it's because I realize that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on. Which is—and so when I talk about the recklessness as much as anything, I'm talking about myself. There was so much, as we know, at stake and as I write, you know, the—where my head was at the time is that it would be completely—it would come off as being completely self-serving.
…
9:41 PM ET
MADDOW: We've also now, in an executive order today, having—we've got the president describing ANTIFA, the anti-fascist, it's not even really a movement. The anti-fascist tactics of a portion of the protest movement as a domestic terrorist organization. What is your reaction to those things? What do you think the appropriate response is to things like that?
HARRIS: Well, in normal times, we should and could expect that our courts would step in when asked to declare the legality or illegality of what the president is doing. Because, you know, civics 101, we all know, we designed our democracy through three co-equal branches of government: the executive, legislative, and the courts, the judicial.
And I would like to believe that that is still something that is standing, certainly at the local level. You can see where the various courts have actually provided the guardrails against his abuse of power, against President Trump's abuse of power. The lower courts have been more inclined to step up. But my fear is that as some of those cases reach the United States Supreme Court, that we can't necessarily count on precedent to dictate how they will rule on the president's power. And again, Rachel, we talked about this during those 107 days, because remember, the Court before the election basically said that the president of the United States would be immune from whatever he did in office. So, he walked into the White House with what he thinks is a blank check.
…
MADDOW: Let me ask you a politics question. I mentioned in the intro tonight that you say in the book really bluntly that your personal first choice for your running mate would have been Pete Buttigieg—
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDOW: — and you praised him effusively. You say he would have been an ideal partner “if I were a straight man.” And you say effectively that demographically it was. It was too much to ask of the American people to ask them to elect you with him as your running mate.
I wonder if his reaction to that, since this part of the book has come out. If you've had any reflection on that or, I guess what, I guess I'd ask you to just elaborate on that a little bit. It's hard to hear.
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDOW: With you running, as you know, you're the first woman elected vice president. You're a black woman and a South Asian woman elected to that high office, very nearly elected president, to say that he couldn't be on the ticket effectively because he was gay. It's hard to hear.
HARRIS: No, no, no, that's not what I said. That that's—that he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay. My point is, as I write in the book, is that I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States against someone like Donald Trump, who knows no floor. To be a black woman running for president of the United States, and as a vice presidential running mate, a gay man. With the stakes being so high, it made me very sad. But I also realized it would be a real risk. No matter how—you know, I've been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life.
MADDOW: To say the least.
HARRIS: So, it wasn't about any prejudice on my part.