of government. one thing we have not talked inut is his fiscal views this regard differs from donald trump. pence off and went against a republican party because he could not understand why they weren't doing something to tackle the deficit. i think if he has the opportunity to go to some of those traditional republican issues tonight, he might do so to firm up what i guess you would call the establishment republican base which trump obviously has struggled with. i think we may have some surprises tonight in some of the things he says. i'm looking forward to a spirited debate. offer --rea neil's author of the book any formal editorial page editor. thank you for joining us this washington journal continues. host: taking some time to focus on the vice presidential candidates ahead of tonight's debate. tal kopan has covered kamala

harris as a correspondent for the san francisco chronicle. how much do you think senator harris is going to be introducing herself still to voters when she steps on the debate stage tonight? guest: certainly a large part. there are viewers who tune into c-span, we feel like we know her. there is still probably a large population out there that may not. there are still folks who go2net into the presidential election until after labor day. preparing for this appearance and looked at the piece she wrote for her first debate in the president shall primary. that was exactly what her campaign was telling me at the time, that was her opportunity to deduce herself to america. the more people get to know her, the more people like her. i imagine that is going to be part of the game plan tonight as well. iscourse, adding into that

drawing a contrast with the trump administration for those it that -- for those that do know her. sendfrancisco -- sa nfranciscochronicle.com -- what part of her biography that she like to highlight? guest: for those of us who have been tuning in, we have probably heard the story of how she was carted around in civil rights rallies. that one might pop up again. those of us who are on the campaign trail with her, there are a lot of stories about her mom, a lot of quotes about her mom. her mother is in a a ported -- figure in hert life.

she came from india, became a renowned scientist. she actively raised kamala harris and her sister mostly on her own. young andnts divorced sheila saw her dad weekends and summers. -- she only saw her weekends and summers -- sheila saw her dad weekends and summers -- she only saw her dad weekends and summers. she was attorney general. she was a progressive prosecutor , as she calls her time, trying to reform the system one -- reform the system from within. that will probably be the general claim we hear from her which talks about her trajectory

to this point. host: what part of her biography to her political pundits -- political opponents try to highlight. whether it was when she was on the debate stage or since she was picked to be joe biden's running mate? to thathe reason i went prosecutor record is because that is where her opponents go. tension interesting within her campaign, within her life story. she is very proud of that record. she wrote a whole book theaining her memoir around mantle of being a progressive prosecutor. she bristles when anyone calls it into question. her opponents really take objection to that record. there are some on the progressive left who say she could never be qualified to represent them in national politics because she was a member of law enforcement. that in and of itself for them

is unacceptable. there are those -- her record can be a mix back depending on what you look at. have gabbard who did not an incredible campaign, was never in the top tier, she landed blows on kamala harris in that debate by going after that record, mentioning how in an laughedw kamala harris about marijuana use and mentioned the jamaican side of and her late husband a opponent of legalization and criminal justice reform -- reform. but as a prosecutor, it is not like she never prosecuted any marijuana related cases. she will say that she focused on more high-level cases, but that is the type of thing you see when her record comes up.

it is a bit of a mixed bag. she focuses on the things she did as a reformer, but her opponents always tend to focus on the things they say were not reformed enough. host: we are poking on -- we are focusing on kamala harris ahead of tonight's debate taking place at the university of utah. there is on your screen, that is what the debate stage looks like. there will be plexiglas screens in front of the vice president and senator kamala harris there this evening. we want to get your questions, your comments this morning with tal kopan. phone lines split up as usual. trump-bidenrt the -- the trump-pentz ticket, it is 202-748-8001. if you support the biden harris ticket, 202-748-8000.

undecided, 202-748-8002 is the number. peter is up on that undecided line. good morning. caller: i would like to ask your guest, if you look at kamala harris's record, it was exposed by tulsi gabbard and her run for president blew up. she didn't even make iowa. she finished last, she had to get out. if you look at her as a progressive or something like that, it is kind of comical. she kept people in jail so she could use their prison labor to fight fires. a top cop. i don't understand what joe biden is going to gain from having kamala harris. guest: you mentioned a specific

incident for folks at home may not be familiar, when she was attorney general of california. there was court litigation over a caliph on your practice of using inmates in the presence system as firefighters. they are still dealing with the fire season in california that is horrific and they are used as firefighters and underpaid. there was litigation. kamala harris's filed a brief in release-- against early because of the necessity of using that labor to fight fires. she says in defense of that incident, she says she is not aware her office files that. even when she -- her office files that. when she found out, she pulled back. that is how she would respond. you mentioned the tulsi gabbard moment, it felt like a turning point in her campaign. she withdrew from the race in

september of last year. by the time voters in iowa were voting, she was off about. her name might have appeared but she was no longer running. that moment, while not everything gabbert said was notrely correct, was -- everything gabbert said was entirely correct, was difficult to come back from. on the line supporting president trump, ahead. -- go ahead. old -- when one ronald reagan was running, he carried all of the states except andopponents -- opponent's that was minnesota. , but the he carried district of columbia was voting against him six to one. that is how out of step the nation's capital was.

i presume it is the same or maybe worse. of course the democrats want to make that a state. , they wouldtand why have an extra two senatorial votes all the time. another issue of course is talking about his getting special treatment, that the president is getting special treatment with this coronavirus problem. if eisenhower got wounded back in world war ii, we would expect him to get special attention, wouldn't we? we are in the middle of a war and we need our generals. if we use our top general, we have lost the war. host: the issue of the president's health and how you expect senator kamala harris will approach that tonight? guest: we really got to see kamala harris in her own right

-- as a candidate in her own right. but she is presenting joe biden at the end of the day. even though she had positions counter to joe biden in the primary -- she has adopted joe biden's positions and that is the job of the running mate. as a preamble, joe biden has been clear with his team he does not want to go on attack against the president what he is sick. he wants to show some empathy in that regard. i imagine kamala harris will take her views from that position. at the same time, vice president was carrying the coronavirus task force and we expect her to go after the administration's handling of the pandemic at this point. well over 200,000 americans have debt, millions have been infected with the disease. there could be lifelong consequences of what they have endured. we expect to hear a considerable amount of that from senator

harris and going after pentz -- pence and trump in their handling of that situation. we may not necessarily hear references to the president health other than wishing him well. we will hear about the president and the vice president record in terms of handling the virus that has impacted him as well. host: this is linda on the line for those supporting the biden-harris ticket. that hetrump has said was a wartime leader and has left the battlefield before the war is over. pence was a leader of the task force until trump could handle it and had to have all the attention. i welcome biden and harris and i harris isla refreshing. she's an energetic, she is smart. i think it will define.

host: tal kopan, your thoughts on that? --n joe biden [indiscernible] one of the strong sentiments was that he would pick a woman, a woman of color and he needed someone younger than him which was one of the reasons i heard folks say elizabeth warren wasn't a great idea. as energetic as she was, she is closer to joe biden's age. when you mention harris's energy, i think that is what the ,iden campaign wanted to see and her as the next generation of democratic politics coming up as he they hope, since to the presidency. host: harris was for medicare

for all before she was against it. how does she reconcile these opposing positions? as much as we mentioned the tulsi gabbard moment, you could say that that flip-flopping or continuous clarification on medicare for all was the hardest moment for her in the presidential campaign. she raised it and then put out her own plan that she said was still medicare for all. and then on one hand, bernie sanders was saying she wasn't fully embracing it. on the other hand, her opponents to the right of her on health care, including joe biden, said she was fully embracing it. she never quite found her footing and ability to explain where her health care plan landed. other peoples to as putting her finger into the wind a little too much.

that said, at the end of the day , now she's going to say she represents joe biden's position. believes inhe still the objective of health care for all, she will say sodas joe biden and here is his plan to get there. she will defend that plan. she has been really disciplined on the campaign trail. as someone who -- it is surprising to hear how effectively she is adopting the biden campaign. she has embraced the role of running mate which is a supporting the person at the top of the ticket. host: this debate tonight is in salt lake city, utah. the next presidential debate is in miami, florida. that is where mike is on the undecided line.

caller: [indiscernible] host: mike, are you with us? i think we lost mike. at the texas, on the line for those who support the biden-harris ticket. i am a strong supporter of the biden-harris ticket. kamala harris is ready to be a voice for the american people along with biden. pence is just a henchman for trump. pence can't even give us a truth about president trump's status nor can he give us any type of information on the virus. he is hiding it. he was the task force main leader but he is mia. kamala harris is going to prosecute trump and the pence administration guilty as

charged, guilty of manslaughter of the american people. this is why president trump was impeached. republicans removed him when he needed to be removed, perhaps we wouldn't have this occurring. nowi can say is texas is probably a swing state. the registration of texans has been astronomical. we haven't seen this in ages. -- all wee to see have to say is trump -- using the term that she is going to prosecute the trump administration, that term prosecutor "--- " prosecutor."

tal kopan on the term prosecutor. she was hoping the american people -- guest: she was hoping the american people would vote for her because they wanted to see her on the stage with trump. this is not going to be that debate that many people had hoped for, but this will be her opportunity to go toe to toe with mike pence and by proxy go after trump. keep in mind that pence is a different debater, a different speaker. her campaign has been preparing the press to be impressed with mike pence, that he is difficult to pull down, his unstoppable, he is very smooth. she has her work cut out for her do as she does in the senate in hearings and

questions trump's nominees. she's going to have to work that much harder if she is hoping to score moments against mike pence. host: you talked about her press team setting the bar, what do we know about how she has personally prepared for the debate? guest: throughout her career i have been told by members of the staff who have known her for a long time that she prepares. reads, has material in advance, a throwback to when she was an attorney. you don't go into court, cross examination, without research. on top of that, preparing for senate hearings like the supreme court nomination. you have binders and binders of material. at the end of the day, you have a few minutes to decide what you want to drill down on. she has a framework for preparation for moments like this.

we have to assume she's going in almost over prepared. she wants to go in feeling like she has done network. other than that -- has done that work. she is using a lot of the same team that prepared tim kaine for his debate against pence in the 2016 election cycle. if holdovers from her campaign but also has members of the biden team that were handed to her when she was chosen of the nominee -- chosen as the nominee. she has been in salt lake city preparing for this. prep would debate apply here including standen's stand-insebates -- and mock debates. we will see how well that goes. georgia on the line for those who support the

trump-pence ticket. i am a black american, i'm a black nationalist, i am a female. i am college educated. i will still be voting for trump. regarding kamala harris to me, she is a chameleon. heritageses her indian winches in that surrounding. she stresses her black heritage when she is in that surrounding. is how she used those prisoners to fight fires, unconscionable. that reminds me of the policing program. also her stance as far as criminalizing parents of truant children. that is too much. that affects mostly poor people, not wealthy people. i don't trust her. she is a chameleon.

host: tal kopan. the way she tells the story is that she realized the number one convectors of outcomes for young members of society is how much they were in school. so to try to get them and be school more often, she established a program of truancy where there were consequent is for parents. on the one hand, -- there were consequences for parents. more kids were in school but there is that criticism now you just mentioned. committal orial civil penalties on parents -- but potential criminal or civil penalties on parents. say it was revolutionary to think about fighting crimes by going to the

dropout rate and the truancy rate. then you have this other question of where you over criminalizing something else in the process? it is one of those moments in her record that is there to look at. you mentioned her multiethnic background. i was writing a story on her a few months ago ahead of the police reform discussion and talking to a woman in oakland was also multiracial who grew up in the bay area where kamala harris was born and spent a lot of her years. ,ne of the things that woman an name is amy, she led organization to promote women of color and politics. she said something about oakland for her is it is a place where you can be all of what you are. america, that is not really something everywhere in society has welcomed. it is hard enough to be one race

in this country come in to be many races at once and try to embrace all sides of you -- kamala harris as much as she talks about how her other raised her knowing that society would see them as black women even though they were half indian, she also spent considerable time in india with her extended family, with her grandfather who is a high-ranking diplomatic and worked in the devil medic community. they would have discussions about politics in india. that the different parts of her height -- different parts of her background it highlighted at different times, but some of that might be on us, the press, that we pick and choose what we want to focus on. i think she is all of those things all the time, we just don't always see it all the time. host: time for just one or two calls with tale

kopan. this is larry in tennessee on the line for those who support president trump. the situation with harris and biden, she has called him a racist and a sexist which he is. robert bryd'skk funeral. she has said that she herself is for legalizing prosecution i'm a legalizing marijuana, and she is also for abortions which are all forms of slavery. slaves and some of my family are traced back to being owned by her family. host: larry in tennessee. tal kopan, do you want to unpack some of that? guest: there is a lot there.

i think they reference was to the high point of her presidential campaign which was an attack on joe biden. it was during the time there was a lot of discussion of how joe biden spoke favorably of segregationists he worked with in the senate. spoke favorably with working with those segregationists. kamala harris specifically referenced her own experience as a young elementary schooler being on one of those first waves of buses that he segregated. he spoke about -- she spoke about how painful it was to hear joe biden's words. played is doesn't get that she began her remarks by "joe, i know you aren't racist but this was a painful moment for me and here is why." you can argue the application of that attack was calling his character into question,

certainly. do an extent, that is always the hazard of picking a running mate of -- that you ran against in the primary. primaries get ugly and let's not forget that some of the things that donald trump, ted cruz, and rand paul settings to each other and now they are. best of friends. extent to which that is how politics weirdly works in this country. that doesn't mean that those attack ads aren't going to get cut with your own running mate's words against you. some people may always believe that is your true feelings about each other and that isn't water under the bridge. of endinge weirdness up on the same team as someone who was your opponent only a few months ago. host: for more tal kopan's stories, you can go to sschro mike pence m kamala

harris are preparing for tonight's vice presidential debate in salt lake city, utah. this is a live picture of kingsbury hall at the university of utah's campus, where the debate will take place tonight. the debate will be divided into nine segments, which are 10 minutes each. live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern with a preview program. the debate itself starts at 9:00 p.m. announcer: today, senator, sister, maya's harris, shared had the senator is preparing for tonight's vice presidential debate. she was on a panel previewing the debate and discussing women in politics. this was posted by political. afternoon. tonight, everyone is turning their attention to the one and