Vice President Kamala Harris talked right past the claim that she was “too progressive” in her early career as a prosecutor when she sat down for a friendly interview that aired over the weekend.
During the wide-ranging appearance with activist and MSNBC “Politics Nation” host Rev. Al Sharpton, he suggested that there was an “orchestrated” effort afoot to use the Democratic nominee’s background as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general against her.
When Sharpton pointed out that Harris had been accused of being “too progressive as a district attorney,” the 60-year-old answered “I know” before adding: “There are all sorts of people who are going to throw a bunch of things out that will include misinformation with the intention to dissuade certain people from voting.”
Harris made no response to the criticism of her prosecutorial tenure, which included backing a handgun confiscation ballot initiative and decriminalizing prostitution.
The vice president also hit back at the suggestion that her campaign is hemorrhaging support among black men.
“There’s this narrative about what kind of support we are receiving from black men that is just not panning out in reality, in terms of when I go to, last night, Atlanta and had, I think 10,000 people,” Harris lamented.
The veep is trending toward a 41 percentage-point victory over former President Donald Trump among black men between the ages of 18 and 44, just over half the margin Barack Obama ran up against Mitt Romney in 2012, according to CNN political data analyst Harry Enten.
Earlier this month, Obama, 63, decried what he considered lower levels of enthusiasm for Harris among black voters and lamented that it “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”
Last week, the Harris-Walz campaign rolled out a slate of policy proposals aimed at ginning up support from black men, including legalizing marijuana.
“What can be frustrating sometimes,” Harris vented Sunday, “is to have journalists ask me this question as though one should assume that I would just be able to take for granted the vote of black men.
“I think that’s actually an uninformed perspective, because why would black men be any different than any other demographic of voter? They expect that you earn their vote.”
At one point, Sharpton, 70, pondered whether “some of the resistance of some men, black and white, is misogynist.”
Harris again skipped a direct answer to that question and instead harped on polls suggesting most Americans “have no problem supporting a woman at all.”
Harris would become the first female president if she defeats Trump in the Nov. 5 election.
