Former Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t hold back in her first TV interview since leaving office in January. Sitting down with Rachel Maddow for a 40-minute conversation on MSNBC, Harris unloaded on President Donald Trump, calling him a “tyrant” and slamming powerful business leaders for staying silent during his second term.
“They have been silent,” Harris said. “They have been… yes, I use the word feckless. It’s not like they’re gonna lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons.”
Harris made it clear she sees Trump as a serious threat to democracy. “Right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the Ellipse, a tyrant,” she said. “We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump. And these titans of industry are not speaking up.”
The former 2024 presidential candidate said she understands why some in business have fallen in line, but insisted they can’t sit on the sidelines forever. “At some point, they’ve gotta stand up for the sake of the people who rely on all of these institutions,” Harris said. “To have integrity and to, at some point, be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy because of a fragile ego.”
Harris also pointed to the recent announcement that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning to late-night television as proof that organized pushback can work. Kimmel had been suspended but is now set to return to the air Tuesday night.
“Talk about the power being with the people — and the people making that clear with their checkbooks — as it relates to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel,” Harris said. “We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, and it moved a decision in the right direction.”
She stressed that while Trump is the immediate problem, the broader fight is about more than just him. “I think that part of where we are now — in terms of thinking about what the fight is — it requires us, yes, to understand that we’ve got this administration and this president in front of us abusing the power that the people vested him with, but we also need to understand that this is bigger than Donald Trump.”
Harris’s remarks mark one of her sharpest public attacks since leaving the vice presidency. Her warning was aimed not only at Trump but at the country’s most powerful figures in business and culture, who she believes have the ability — and the responsibility — to push back against a president she says is undermining democracy.