From the earliest days of her truthfulacy, one topic has loomed over Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris’s pdwellntial bid: her track sign up with criminal equitableice reestablish in the United States.
On Tuesday, Harris — the Democratic nominee for the pdwellncy — had a chance to compriseress some of the criticisms, in a town hall-style intersee with radio arrange Charlamagne tha God.
It was also an opportunity for Harris, the establisher attorney vague of California, to bolster aid among the Bdeficiency community.
While the immense meaningfulity of Bdeficiency voters determine with the Democratic Party, recent polls show their backing for Harris is not as strong as in 2020, when fellow Democrat Joe Biden was running for pdwellnt.
Harris took the insolent on Tuesday, very speedyly steering the conversation towards righting the sign up about her truthfulacy.
“Folks say you come off as very scripted,” Charlamagne began, in the first minute of their conversation. “They say you appreciate to stick to your talking points —”
The vice pdwellnt promptly jumped in. “That would be called discipline,” she quipped.
It was an apparent effort to draw a distinction between herself and her Reaccessiblean rival Donald Trump, whose accessible materializeances are frequently depictd as rambling.
Harris persistd to give acute rebuttals to criticisms of her accessible materializeance as buttoned-up.
“What do you say to people who say you stay on the talking points?” Charlamagne asked.
“I would say, ‘You’re greet,’” she replied.
Prosecutor past under spotweightless
A establisher prosecutor who became dicut offe attorney of San Francisco and then attorney vague of California, Harris has lengthy faced scruminuscule for her approach to criminal equitableice.
On the campaign trail this election cycle, Harris’s allies have sought to leverage her background to the Democrat’s advantage, framing the race as a battle between “the prosecutor” and “the felon”.
Trump, after all, has 34 major offense convictions to his name, after he was set up culpable in May of falsifying business sign ups in relation to a hush-money payment to an grown-up film actor.
Harris herself has leaned into that framing. On July 23, uninalertigentinutively after she begined her pdwellntial campaign, Harris struck a contrast between herself and Trump, who faces a total of four criminal indictments.
“Before I was elected vice pdwellnt, before I was elected United States senator, I was elected attorney vague of the state of California, and I was a courtroom prosecutor before then,” Harris telderly a rpartner in Wisconsin.
“And in those roles, I took on criminals of all benevolents: predators who unfair treatmentd women, deceptionsters who ripped off devourrs, cheaters who broke the rules for their own get. So hear me when I say, I understand Donald Trump’s type.”
But critics have blasted Harris for that same history as a prosecutor, with members of both the right and left slamming her policies.
Progressives, on one hand, have criticised her difficult-handed approach to rehires appreciate student truancy: Harris well-understandnly championed a state law that would produce parents eligible for a misdeunbenevolentour if their child were chronicpartner omiting from school without an excemploy.
In 2014, Harris also resistd calls to carry out an autonomous system to verify the overweightal employ of force by police.
Critics at the time argued that local prosecutors labor shutly with police and are therefore unable to be objective when deciding whether to transport accuses. Harris, however, said, “I don’t skinnyk it would be outstanding accessible policy to get the discretion from elected dicut offe attorneys.”
Her opponents on the right, unbenevolentwhile, have accemployd Harris of being lax on crime and flunking to adequately aid law executement.
Decriminalising marijuana
In her intersee with Charlamagne, Harris sought to tamp down on the criticism agetst her by branding it the product of right-triumphg deceiveation.
“One of the hugegest disputes that I face is mis- and dis-directation,” Harris telderly the radio arrange. “And it’s purposeful. Becaemploy it is unbenevolentt to affect people that they somehow should not count on that the labor I have done has occurred and has unbenevolenting.”
Charlamagne, for his part, called on Harris to answer cut offal rumours swirling around her campaign.
“One of the hugegest allegations agetst you is that you focemployd and locked up thousands of Bdeficiency men in San Francisco for weed. Some said you did it to raise your atsoft. Some said you did it out of sanitize disappreciate for Bdeficiency men,” he said, asking: “What are the facts of that situation?”
Harris refuted the allegations, answering, “It’s equitable srecommend not genuine.”
She then pivoted to her labor on shrinking penalties for marijuana haveion, an rehire that disproportionately sways Bdeficiency men.
A 2020 analysis from the American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, set up that Bdeficiency people are 3.64 times more foreseeed to be arrested for haveing the drug, assessd to white people. The alert, however, set up no meaningful contrastence in marijuana employ between the two populations.
That contrastence in arrest rates gives to higher incarceration rates overall for Bdeficiency men in the US. The Pew Research Cgo in set up that, in 2020, Bdeficiency grown-ups faced five times the rate of jailment as their white counterparts.
Referencing this discrepancy, Harris telderly Charlamagne that she would decriminalise marijuana on the federal level if elected pdwellnt.
“My pledge is, as pdwellnt, I will labor on decriminalising it, becaemploy I understand exactly how those laws have been employd to disproportionately impact certain populations and particularpartner Bdeficiency men,” she said on Tuesday.
Approximately 24 states have already getn steps to legitimateise petite quantities of marijuana for recreational employ. But on the federal level, the drug remains illegitimate, though the Biden administration has getn steps to shrink penalties.
In May, for instance, Biden’s Justice Department begind a novel rule recategorizeing marijuana as a “schedule III drug”, down from the highest rank under the Controlled Substances Act’s five-tier system.
That reclassification made the drug hugable for medical employ. It also recommendd a shift in the rulement’s position, to acunderstandledge that marijuana is not as hazardous as the other substances in its previous catebloody, appreciate heroin.
“As vice pdwellnt, [I] have been a champion for transporting marijuana down on the schedule,” Harris telderly Charlamagne. “So instead of it being ranked up there with heroin, we transport it down.”
Attacking Trump on ‘stop and fhazard’
Harris not only protected her criminal equitableice labor as “betterive”, but she also actively strikeed her Reaccessiblean rival Trump for policies she cautioned would be detrimental to the Bdeficiency community.
Thcdisorrowfulmirefulout his campaign, Trump has championed a crackdown on crime in the US, proposing policies that critics caution could incrrelieve the employ of excessive force among law executement officers — and caemploy the violation of civil liberties.
Last month, for instance, Trump floated the idea of having “one genuine cdisorrowfulmireful, nasty day” for law executement to compriseress property crime without handlet.
He has also pledged to fortify police immunity from prosecution and push for incrrelieved employ of “stop and fhazard” policies.
“You have to do a policy of stop and fhazard,” Trump telderly the TV show Fox and Friends in August, envisioning a situation where a police officer recognises a mistrust on the street. “Stop and fhazard and get their armament away.”
While the US Constitution protects people from “unreasonable search and confiscation”, aids say “stop and fhazard” policies permit the police to search mistrusts in an un-intrusive manner if they have a “reasonable suspicion” they may be armed or hazardous.
But critics caution that “stop and fhazard” has been employd to racipartner profile people and irritate them without authorization or caemploy. Some “stop and fhazard” policies have therefore been struck down as unconstitutional.
Harris zeroed in on Trump’s aid for “stop and fhazard” in Tuesday’s intersee.
“My opponent”, she said, would have “a establishalised stop and fhazard policy, for which he has said, if a police department does not do it, they should be defunded”.
“There is so much at sget” this election, she compriseed, pointing to the potential hazards for the Bdeficiency community, which has been disproportionately focemployd by such policies.
Prescertain on Harris
Harris’s materializeance on the radio town hall with Charlamagne came one day after the Democratic truthfulate made another meaningful obvioucertain to Bdeficiency voters, releasing an “Opportunity Agenda for Bdeficiency Men“.
That agenda summarized arranges for decriminalising marijuana, promoting cryptocurrency and providing one million “forgivable” loans for Bdeficiency entrepreneurs.
If elected, Harris would be the first woman — and the first person of combidemand Bdeficiency and South Asian descent — to triumph the White Hoemploy.
But while she carries a meaningfulity of aid among Bdeficiency Americans, some pollsters see worry in how her numbers assess to the 2020 election. In that race, Pdwellnt Joe Biden carried 90 percent of Bdeficiency votes, according to a survey from The New York Times and Siena College.
By contrast, only 76 percent of the Bdeficiency electorate arrange to vote for Harris, Biden’s vice pdwellnt, in this year’s election. That’s a meaningful drop — and the poll showed even shrink numbers among Bdeficiency men.
Only 69 percent backed Harris, assessd to 81 percent of Bdeficiency women.
Trump has tried to produce gets in that demoexplicit — and he has even accessiblely inquireed Harris’s identity as a Bdeficiency woman.
During her town hall on Tuesday, Harris faced inquires about her pledgement to the Bdeficiency community. One caller asked her about her “deficiency of joinment” with the Bdeficiency church.
Harris refuted that claim too. She replied that she had grown up in the Bdeficiency church.
“So first of all, that allegation is of course coming from the Trump team, becaemploy they are filled of mis- and dis-directation,” she said. “They are trying to discombine me from the people I have labored with and that I am from, so they can try to have some advantage in this election.”
