Culture

Vice President Kamala Harris joined Stephen Colbert on The Late Show for a beer and a candid chat about the state of global politics, Donald Trump, and her whirlwind presidential campaign.

The interview kicked off with a zinger about Trump’s absence on 60 Minutes, with Colbert stating, “We invited Kamala Harris to be our guest this evening… In the interest of fairness, we also invited Donald Trump to go f— himself.”

Colbert then asked Harris if she would join him in cracking open a Miller High Life, saying, “Elections are won on vibes. They just want somebody they can have a beer with — so would you like to have a beer with me, so I can tell people what that’s like?”

Harris replied “The last time I had a beer was at a baseball game with Doug [Emhoff],” before quipping, “The champagne of beers!”

The Democratic nominee, who has been on a media blitz to reach younger voters, didn’t hold back during her appearance on the show, especially when it came to addressing Donald Trump’s relationship with leaders such as Vladamir Putin.

“Donald Trump — he openly admires dictators and authoritarians,” Harris remarked. “He has said he wants to be a dictator on Day One if he were elected again as president. He gets played by these guys. He admires so-called strongmen, and he gets played because they flatter him or offer him favor.”

Harris also addressed new revelations from Bob Woodward’s book, where it was reported that Trump sent Covid tests to Russia in the early days of the pandemic.

“The commander-in-chief of the United States of America must stand strong and defend the principles that we hold dear. We should stand with our allies,” she declared. “We should strengthen the alliances that we have, such as NATO, which is the strongest military alliance the world has ever seen. We must stand with our friend Ukraine where Russia is attempting to change borders by force.”

“I ask everyone here and everyone who is watching: Do you remember what those days were like? You remember how many people did not have tests and were trying to scramble to get them?” Harris said.

“And this man is giving Covid test kits to Vladimir Putin? Think about what this means on top of him sending love letters to Kim Jong Un… He thinks that’s his friend. What about the American people? They should be your first friend.”

In the episode, Colbert also highlighted a recent surge of misinformation related to Hurricane Milton, a catastrophic storm threatening the West Coast of Florida, and the use of AI-generated images in political manipulation.

“One AI-generated image making the rounds shows Trump wading into floodwaters with first responders—it’s completely fake, but people are falling for it,” Colbert said, critiquing how such tactics are used to sway voters.

Meanwhile, Harris urged those affected to listen to local officials, while criticizing at politicians who “tell lies” for their gain.

“It’s crude,” she said. “Have you no empathy, man, for the suffering of other people? Have you have no sense of purpose if you purport to be a leader?”

Later in the interview, when asked about Trump’s 2020 election loss, Harris reiterated sentiments she’d heard at her rallies. “You lost manufacturing, you lost automotive plants, you lost the election. What does that make you? A loser. This is what somebody at my rallies said. I thought it was funny.”

“It’s accurate. It’s accurate,” Colbert said. Harris added, “This is what happens when I drink beer.”

In a lighter moment during the discussion, the conversation shifted to music when Colbert asked Harris about her favorite Bob Seger songs in an effort to appeal to Michigan voters. Harris responded, “I’ll go Aretha or Eminem.”

Earlier in the day, Harris also appeared on ABC’s The View, where she unveiled a plan to expand Medicare to cover at-home care for seniors. This media tour has included stops on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM Show and the Call Her Daddy podcast, where she discussed the pressing issue of reproductive rights.

Watch Kamala Harris crack a beer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert below.