Kamala Harris refuses to say who's leading Democratic Party when pressed by Colbert

Former Vice President Kamala Harris did not want to name names regarding who is currently leading the Democratic Party when she was pressed about the political void on "The Late Show."

Harris, who was plugging her newly announced book "107 Days" about the 2024 presidential campaign, sat down for a lengthy sit-down with host Stephen Colbert, marking her eighth appearance on his soon-to-be-canceled program. 

Before wrapping up the interview, Colbert noted how Harris is now out of office and currently isn't seeking one, prompting him to ask her, "Who's leading the Democratic Party?"

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"There are lots of leaders," Harris responded.

"There's generally ‘a’ leader of the Democratic Party," Colbert retorted. "Who comes to mind?"

"I think there are a lot of – I'm not going to go through names because then I'm going to leave somebody out and then I'm going to hear about it," Harris told Colbert. "But let me say this. I think it is a mistake for us who want us to figure out how to get out and through this and get out of it to put it on the shoulders of any one person. It's really on all of our shoulders. It really is." 

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Harris teased that her "107 Days," due for release in September, will give a "behind-the-scenes" look at her failed presidential bid. 

She announced this week that she would not enter the 2026 California gubernatorial race, fueling suspicion she may take another shot at the White House in 2028. The field could be crowded, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer among the possible candidates.

During the interview, Harris was asked about the difficulty of differentiating herself from then-President Joe Biden in the 2024 campaign. She told Colbert she did not want to participate in the "piling on" of her boss after he withdrew from the presidential race. 

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She also expressed her shock at the amount of "capitulation" that she said has taken place since President Donald Trump took office. 

"Perhaps it's naive of me, someone who has seen a lot that most people haven't seen, but I believed that on some level, you know, there are many, there should be many who consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy who just capitulated, and I didn't see that coming," Harris said.

The former vice president might have been alluding to Paramount's major settlement to Trump earlier this month ending his "election interference" lawsuit that was brought over CBS' handling of her "60 Minutes" interview in October, which was followed by the cancellation of "The Late Show" and the FCC approving Paramount's merger with Skydance Media. 

Colbert didn't ask about Trump's lawsuit that stemmed from the editing of Harris' appearance on "60 Minutes" last year.

Trump Clashes With Reporter Over Tariffs, Citing Pandemic and ‘Fighting Lunatics’

President Donald Trump clashed with a reporter Thursday over questions about a newly signed tariff, telling him that he had spent his first term "fighting lunatics like you." The intense exchange follows a White House signing ceremony for a series of executive actions aimed at expanding reciprocal tariffs and strengthening U.S. trade policy.

While speaking with reporters at the White House after the signing, a reporter confronted Trump on why he is emphasizing tariffs more in his second term. 

"You’re weighing your decision to do that, your authority to do that based on a 1977 law. It's never been invoked before," said the reporter. "Why didn't you invoke this law in your first term? You could have taken in billions upon billions of dollars in your first term, but you waited until your second term?"

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Without missing a beat, the president shot back: "Yeah, because in my first term, I was fighting lunatics like you who were trying to do things incorrectly and inappropriately to a president that was duly elected." 

"And we did do certain tariffs in the first term," he continued. "If you look at China, China, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China." 

He also said that the COVID-19 pandemic also played a factor in his decision to not emphasize tariffs as much in his first term.

"When Covid came the last thing I was going to do is tell France and Italy and Spain and a couple of other countries that we're going to hit you with tariffs," he explained. "We had to fight the Covid situation when that came." 

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"But if you look at my first term," he went on, "We took in hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs, but you people didn't cover it very well." 

A statement by the White House said that Trump’s executive actions taken on Thursday "reflects the President’s continued efforts to protect the United States against foreign threats to the national security and economy of the United States by securing fair, balanced, and reciprocal trade relationships to benefit American workers, farmers, and manufacturers and to strengthen the United States’ defense industrial base." 

This comes shortly after Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a trade deal between the U.S. and E.U. on Sunday.

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"We are agreeing that the tariff straight across for automobiles and everything else will be a straight-across tariff of 15%," Trump said.

"So, we have a tariff of 15%. We have the opening up of all of the European countries, which I think I could say were essentially closed. I mean, you weren't exactly taking our orders. You weren't exactly taking our agriculture," he added, addressing von der Leyen.

Von der Leyen said Europe will also purchase $150 billion worth of U.S. energy as part of the deal, in addition to making $600 billion in other investments into the U.S.

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