>> Politico recently published this piece, that I think everyone should be incredibly
skeptical of, and I'll explain why in just a minute.
But it has to do with former democratic senator Chris Dodd, making some weird allegations.
Again, Kamala Harris, who is considered one of the frontrunners as a VP-Picker for Biden,
right?
So Biden still hasn't chosen as VP.
Many people think it's gonna be Kamala Harris and then here comes Chris Dodd saying some
pretty negative things about her.
So I'm gonna read you a few excerpts from the piece.
It has to do with the fact that during the very first democratic primary debate, Kamala
Harris turned to Joe Biden and said, I was that little girl when it came to busing.
Remember, Biden worked with republicans in order to prevent busing.
And so, apparently, Dodd asked about that, asked Kamala Harris why she did that.
And here's what her alleged response was.
She laughed and said that's politics.
She had no remorse.
Dodd told a longtime Biden supporter and donor, who relayed the exchange to Politico on condition
of anonymity.
So it's not like Chris Dodd spoke to Politico, Chris Dodd allegedly said this to a home boy,
home girl, I don't know, a donor, and this person then went off and shared the information
with Politico, and then of course Politico went ahead and published this.
Now, I'm gonna show you that moment real quick that features Kamala Harris and Biden and
then I'm gonna fill you in on why I think this story is nonsense.
Take a look.
>> I do not believe you are a racist.
And I agree with you, when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,
but I also believe and it's personal and it was actually very it was hurtful.
To hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their
reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.
And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.
And, there was a little girl in California, who was part of the second class to integrate
her public schools?
And she was bused to school every day.
And that little girl was me.
So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among democrats.
We have to take it seriously.
>> Every time I watch that clip, it's the shocked look on Biden's face when she says
that little girl was me.
I don't know.
It's just hilarious.
But anyway.
>> Did he was shocked that she had t-shirts ready to go after that exchange?
>> I don't know, maybe we should ask.
But Chris Dodd had some feelings about it.
Because Chris Dodd according to Politico, felt it was a gimmick, that it was cheap the
donor said.
The person added the dogs concerns about Harris were so deep.
That he's helped elevate California representative Karen Bass during the vetting process, urging
Biden to pick her because she's a loyal number two and that's what Biden really wants.
Okay, so I'm gonna disclose what I think most of you probably already know, but just for
the sake of disclosing it, I'm not a huge Kamala Harris fan.
I'm not standing for Kamala Harris as a VP pick, but I can certainly smell BS when I
see it.
And so why is this happening?
What's going on with Chris Dodd?
Why is he chiming in and by the way, let me be clear, Chris Dodd is working for the Biden
campaign and helping to pick the right VP.
Okay, so he actually has some power in this scenario.
But the thing about Chris Dodd is that, Chris Dodd kinda sucked when he was a senator, especially
during the financial meltdown, when stories started to emerge about some favoritism when
it came to his mortgages.
Let's take a look at this video from 2009.
>> Humphrey white pursued a shrewd strategy attempt to curry favor among influential people
by offering them sweetheart loans.
Special terms included knocking a full point or 1% off alone on a $2 million VIP mortgage.
That's a perk worth $20,000.
>> And that was the whole idea.
It wasn't just to give them a good deal, it was to make sure they knew or at least they
believed that they were getting a special deal.
>> Anthony Salerno represents former countrywide executive Bob Feinberg, he worked in the VIP
section that offered preferential treatment to so called friends of Angelo.
Customers referred personally by CEO Angelo Mozilo.
That includes senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd who just happens to head the committee
that oversees the mortgage industry.
They each received at least two VIP loans.
Under subject of a senate ethics investigation.
>> Now we've talked about Kamala Harris and I think that we've done a pretty good job
at sharing the nuances of her prosecutorial record.
And it's not like everything she did was bad.
She did some positive things when she was the Attorney General in California.
One of those things was, securing a settlement that countrywide had to pay because of their
actions in the lead up to the financial crisis.
Now you have Angelo Mozilo, who's home boys with Chris Dodd, right and you have Kamala
Harris pursuing some justice when it came to country wide.
And I know that right now I mean there's no definitive proof, this is my speculation.
But my feelings are that Chris Dodd dislikes Kamala Harris, for reasons related to that
financial meltdown and how she handled it.
Again, those are just my thoughts, but I am not believing for one second that, this isn't
some shady disgusting political move by either donors, by Chris Dodd, who knows.
But the fact that Politico is just like, a democratic donor, allegedly talked to Chris
Dodd and Chris Dodd allegedly said this.
And so this is a big story.
We're gonna publish it.
This is really, this is journalism.
Really?
And there's no mentioned in that article about the country wide angle.
What some of the motives could be behind Chris Dodd, nothing.
It's just Chris Dodd said this must be true.
>> This is part and parcel for Politico's coverage, though I mean, there are a lot of
good journalists at Politico.
I'm not painting with a broad brush, but every now and then you'll get this kind of piece.
That is clearly fed more than any other major paper, clearly fed from someone to fit a specific
agenda.
And because Politico is such an insider repaper the journalists one isn't incentivized to
pursue those other kinds of angles.
Doesn't want to because it's kind of gossipy and that's what the readership wants.
So I would be shocked, if Chris Dodd wasn't somehow somewhat involved in the publication
of this because he's clearly I think, this is what this says to me and you can You can
disagree, It seems like he's losing in his advisory role.
He doesn't want Kamala Harris.
He does have that grudge and he's taking this fight public so that perhaps, the DC intelligence
yeah, as Mike Bloomberg would say, can influence from the outside it to not be Kamala Harris.
So he has this grudge, but I think another thing can be true, that she might have laughed
and said that's politics because, even though that was such a great moment at the time in
the debate, she had those t shirts printed up.
It was so calculated.
And now she's vying very hard to be his VP.
So I think she does have a lot of disingenuous elements about her personality to be honest
with you.
So I think there's a lot of bad things going on in this story.
It doesn't completely exclude Kamala Harris from criticism, I think the biggest on this,
is on Politico for publishing something like this.
When it's clearly some sort of leak to achieve a specific end from someone related to or
close to the Biden team that does not want Kamala Harris to be the vice presidential
pick.
>> Yeah, you're absolutely right.
I mean really there are no winners in this story.
I totally agree with your assessment.
I guess in a small way, if Kamala Harris did in fact say that's politics.
She's right, that is politics.
That's how politics works.
That's the reason why so many ordinary people who might have an urge, who want to be leaders,
who want to represent people in their town, whatever it is.
That's the reason why a lot of them get turned off by politics and they don't engage in it,
because this is the kind of shady dirty stuff that happens.
That destroys the reputations of all sorts of people unfairly, right?
But what I do find interesting is that, she's being demonized for playing politics when
in reality, every single democrat does it, right?
So why is she being called out as if she's like some unique case here?
It's ridiculous, if we're gonna be critical of her playing politics, why don't we be critical
the kind of dirty games that we see on a daily basis.
And how the media plays a huge role in perpetuating this incredibly toxic culture, because aren't
journalists like what they're doing?
They're stenographers, they're gossip columnist really.
>> Yeah.
>> A friend of a friend said this and that so I'm gonna publish it as if I did some sort
of investigative journalism.
This is trash, it's very simple.
>> Livia knows, he knows her whole career, but yeah, I mean.
Sorry.
I hear what you're saying.
I think that, should have said that, probably not.
I think that.
>> No, I love it.
>> I think that Kamala Harris plays it a little bit more than others.
I know that Biden is so far right and difficult to like in many ways, but he's openly fetishizing
bipartisanship, you kinda know what you're getting with Biden.
I think Kamala Harris tries who appears all things to all people.
And there is a valid criticism.
They're just definitely not from Dodd.