You may think Sen. Kamala Harris is one of the most progressive candidates in the 2020 race. Perhaps not if you tuned in to last night's CNN presidential debate in Detroit, where one of her opponents, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, presented her with her troublesome record as a criminal prosecutor.
“She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," Gabbard informed the crowd. "She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so, she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California…”
There were more examples where those come from, many of which are in this New York Times report published earlier this year.
The Hawaii lawmaker was clearly proud of her exchange with Harris because she shared the clip on her Twitter page.
Tulsi exposes Kamala on criminal justice reform --> https://t.co/4wBxwnU6EF #TUSL2020 #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/RIQID8uw7U
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) August 1, 2019
Harris had the chance to react on stage, where she defended her record of "reforming" the criminal justice system in California when she was attorney general. But it was later that evening, in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, that she really told Gabbard what she thought of her attacks, eager to share some of her own opposition research on the congresswoman. For instance, she asked Cooper, why does Gabbard refuse to call Syrian President Bashar al-Assad what he is - a war criminal?
Sen. Kamala Harris responds to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's criticism of her record as a prosecutor during the #DemDebate. https://t.co/iHUZhu7oJl pic.twitter.com/cyyEW9I8zK
— CNN (@CNN) August 1, 2019
Gabbard, Harris said, has been an "apologist" for Assad and has oddly "embraced him."
Harris said she's over it because she knows that Gabbard, like a lot of the candidates onstage last night, are simply "trying to make the next debate." She mentioned subtly, but savagely, that Gabbard is polling at only 1 or zero percent.