Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down Tuesday with Power 105.1 host Charlamagne Tha God for an audio town hall in Detroit.
“The Breakfast Club” host kicked off the event by asking Harris what she would say to critics who accuse her of repeating her talking points.
“I would say, ‘You’re welcome,’” the vice president replied, adding that most people need to hear something three times for it to stick.
Charlamagne then went into Harris’ record as a prosecutor and how that history may cause Black people some concern, specifically regarding charges for marijuana.
“One of the biggest pieces of misinformation, one of the biggest allegations against you, is that you targeted and locked up thousands of Black men in San Francisco,” he said.
“It’s just simply not true,” Harris replied. “I was the most progressive prosecutor in California on marijuana cases and would not send people to jail for simple possession of weed.”
She pointed to her current work as vice president, saying she has advocated for marijuana to be brought down on the scheduling list of drugs. Cannabis is currently categorized as a Schedule 1 drug alongside heroin, ecstasy and LSD.
Harris said that, if elected, she would work toward decriminalizing possession of weed.
“I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations, and specifically Black men,” she said.
She hammered home it was necessary to clear up misinformation to increase voter turn out, especially among Black men, since she and Trump are neck-and-neck in the polls.
“This is a margin-of-error race. I’m gonna win, but it’s tight,” she predicted.
At another point in the interview, Harris affirmed Charlamagne’s assertion that Trump’s campaign is about “fascism.”
“He is running full time on a campaign that is about instilling fear. Not about hope, not about optimism, not about the future — but about fear,” she insisted, adding that Trump’s tactics were “a sign of weakness.”
“It’s a sign of weakness that you want to please dictators and seek their flattery and favor,” she said. “He is weak and unfit.”
Harris faced multiple questions about her economic agenda, and did not dismiss the idea of slavery reparations for the Black community. However, she hedged that the issue “has to be studied.”
“I do have clear eyes about the [racial] disparities that exist and the context in which they exist,” she said.
She also went into detail about loans for Black small business owners and expansions to what Medicare currently covers.
Despite focusing on issues specifically affecting Black communities, Harris repeatedly reiterated she was “running for President for all Americans” while teeing up her sales pitch.
“You have two choices…It’s two very different visions for our nation,” she said. “Mine is about taking us forward and progress and investing in the American people, investing in their ambitions, dealing with their challenges. And the other, Donald Trump’s, is taking us backward.”
The online broadcast abruptly ended just after it passed the scheduled one-hour mark.