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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning everyone on this July 20th, an anniversary day that Americans will always remember, right? The day 52 years ago that people first landed on the moon, and so of course Jeff Bezos had to pick today for his little teenage joy ride into space for no apparent reason, self aggrandizement, to do it on July 20th. You decide, but he did it. It was 11 minutes. He's already back. This all happened within the last hour. I think he left one of those brown Amazon boxes up there to perpetually orbit the earth like an eternal time capsule. No, he didn't really do that, but you can imagine it. Yes, he's back apparently safe and sound, one small step for mogul, one giant leap for mogul kind.

Meanwhile, as Eric Adams gets ready to be the next likely mayor of New York, what is a progressive, and why do people of different ages see that definition differently? Here's Adams from yesterday show, talking about why he apparently lost voters under 45 to Maya Wiley, but did so well with voters over 45. One reason he says is that so many younger people get so much of their news from Twitter.

Eric Adams: No one went beyond the surface of a tweet to look into the record of the candidate, and that is why many of my young voters unfortunately, did not know my real record, to make that decision to say this is a progressive candidate. I'm not surrendering my progressive credentials to anyone just because we define what being a progressive candidate is.

Brian: We will start there today with Fordham University political science professor Christina Greer, who also co-hosts the New York politics podcast FAQNYC, is politics editor of The Grio, and is author of the book Black Ethnics. We will also touch on Governor Cuomo being deposed over the weekend and the state Attorney General's investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against him and his office, his workplace culture generally. We'll talk about Christina's New York Times op ed, did you see it? Called Dear Kamala Harris: It's a Trap. Hi, Christina. Welcome back to WNYC.

Christina Greer: Good morning, Brian.

Brian: First on the Eric Adams clip from yesterday show, there were no exit polls in this election, but if the Marist poll just before the election was accurate, and we know they got a lot of things right. There was an age divide that apparently crossed racial lines. Do you think progressive is defined differently by people at different ages these days?

Christina: I do and I think the term progressive was defined differently in this particular race, because in many ways Maya Wiley backed into that progressive title with the dissolution of Dianne Morales' campaign, and also Scott Stringer, who wanted to carry that mantle. Those three were considered the progressives, but I think Maya Wiley was in many ways the third of those progressives for much of the campaign. It wasn't until Morales and Stringer were sort of bumped into that second tier, that she became the progressive stalwart of the race.

When it comes to young people, I think Maya Wiley resonated with some of the issues that she was talking about, obviously very clear on homelessness and a feeling of the city, and how people wanted to interact with other New Yorkers, where I think Eric Adams did a really great job going to outer boroughs and talking a little bit more concretely about certain realities that they'd experienced over the past I would argue 8/20 years, feeling as though they've been ignored by the De Blasio and Bloomberg administrations.

Brian: On that, what's your take on the analysis that's become common since the primary results came out that many white progressives, plus some progressives of color like AOC, claim to speak for working class Black and brown people more purely than more centrist Democrats do, but then those voters mainly choose Joe Biden in the presidential primary and Eric Adams in the mayoral. Who's not getting what in your political science professors opinion?

Christina: I always argue, Brian, that much of, if not all of the ideological diversity of the Black electorate is in many ways trapped within the Democratic Party, so when we talk about Black Democrats, we're really talking about the most progressive of the progressives, all the way through the moderates and the centrists, to conservative Blacks who are all in one particular party. I think Black voters are the most strategic voters because we always have to keep in mind what the white electorate is doing and their capacity to move beyond themselves and think about others.

The Joe Biden example to me is pretty clear cut. Black voters knew that white voters would never go for someone like Bernie Sanders en masse. The priority was defeating Donald Trump. You have 90% of Black people who identify with the Democratic Party on the national level so you go with sometimes your second or third choice because it's better than nothing. Because as Black women warned the country, Donald Trump would be a disaster and here we are.

When it comes to local elections, some of the arguments that, say AOC made or Tiffany [unintelligible 00:05:33] Well, Tiffany [unintelligible 00:05:34] didn't really, I would argue, talk to Black voters in ways that she could or should have in her first race. But progressive candidates in many ways speak in ideal policy positions that, yes, in a perfect world we should go for these things, but we also know that many white voters with NIMBY issues or the limitations to think about policy in a distributed way and think about giving policy positions real credence when it would help other groups other than themselves.

I think Black voters are aware of that, and oftentimes choose second or third choices. With rank choice voting, I think Black voters were still strategic in [unintelligible 00:06:21] I don't think that you can just turn off how you voted for the past 20 or 30 years with one election, and not think about others when you're going to the polls.

Brian: Adams does talk very passionately about the need for police reform as well as public safety. That's very different from your typical Republican. Even though we say progressive and conservative in the context of this race, as I said during the campaign, we're not talking about like Mitch McConnell here for any of them. So it's very different than your typical Republican who would say there is not systemic racism in law enforcement, it's a liberal smear against the cops.

What do you see is the likely biggest differences between what Maya Wiley might have done regarding public safety and anti racism work in the NYPD right now, both of those things, and what Eric Adams will really do, assuming he's elected. They both talked about the need for both things, but their campaign language emphasis were different, but there's a difference between campaigning and governing.

Christina: Right, and what I think is so genius about Eric Adams in the way he speaks to New York voters is such, Brian. I go back to the speech he made on June 22nd when it looked like he was in the lead that evening and he gave that very long speech, but this to me is a talk about the frequency. It's like the what people hear when they hear Eric Adams speaking and he says, "Unequivocally Black Lives Matter". Well, that's something that progressives believe. That's something that Maya Wiley stated very clearly throughout the campaign and so did Eric Adams.

The difference is Eric Adams follows it up with what I would argue is a white and Black conservative talking point, which is, well, it can't just be about pleasing Black voters and Black citizens, we have to deal with Black on Black crime. Now, there's not a single Black person in this country who doesn't have an aunt and uncle, a grandparent or a cousin, who says the same exact thing at the dinner table. The same exact thing, where we can support Black Lives Matter, but also there's someone in the family who says, "But we really need to talk about Black people shooting Black people."

Eric Adams has this insider/outsider status that I would argue, especially [unintelligible 00:08:33] voters who we actually bothered to talk to when we look at the great maps that Steven [unintelligible 00:08:38] from CUNY grad center puts out, and the city also put out the great maps about where the candidates went and who they spoke to. Eric Adams is speaking in a dual frequency to voters, especially Black voters, especially Black homeowners or Black voters with children, where it can be both/and. You can say Black Lives Matter and have solid progressive [unintelligible 00:09:01] a few days.

You can also have a more moderate to centrist, I would argue conservative viewpoint of, yes, but also let's tackle Black on Black crime. He's talking about structural issues but also daily nitty gritty policy positions that people can feel that are tangible, that he made the argument that he could solve with his experience in the NYPD and obviously so many Black voters are thinking about Bill Deblasio's inability to work with the NYPD and move this conversation forward.

Brian: To the point you're making or part of the point you just made, here's another clip of Adams from yesterday's show on how he sees the city right now. This came in response to a caller who complained about constant drag racing on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst.

Eric Adams: It is really has become a place where lawlessness is the norm and that is just unacceptable. We've lost our ability to understand what it is to be a good neighbor and doesn't mean being heavy handed. It's just having acceptable codes of conduct of how you live in a diverse city like this.

Brian: Now that's a very strong statement about personal responsibility for people's conduct, and I think it's what you were just getting at about the way he talks and what he emphasizes. I covered the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver when Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech, and to my ear his biggest applause line had to do with fathers taking responsibility for their children.

He also got criticized for that and that kind of responsibility politics did not become a constant theme of his presidency, I think, as opposed to structural issues. If you agree, does that kind of language set up a possible backlash that says, 'Don't lecture me, Eric Adams, when the real issues are systemic'?

Christina: Well, that's the complicated conversation that we have within the Black electorate. This Black respectability politics is something that a lot of, especially older Black voters, believe in fundamentally. Barack Obama, let's be clear, has gone around the country, especially post his tenure as president, finger wagging at Black people, telling us what we haven't done and pulling up our pants and all of a sudden that will solve crime. It's like Barack Obama is also working out some of his own issues on young Black men.

He went to Morehouse, the largest graduating Black class of Black men and told them not to have babies out of wedlock. That's my issue with Barack Obama when it comes to Black respectability politics, but so many Black voters who are more moderate conservative but have the label of Democrat, do believe that as well. I do think though, in some of Eric Adams' speeches, he's talking about this Black respectability politics, but he's been a public servant for over two decades so he is also talking about some of the structural issues because he's been on the inside.

I think that's where he was able to gain the trust of not just Black voters, but immigrant voters, white voters and others, by saying, "I have seen some of the structural deficiencies, say, within the NYPD. I tried to change them in a very dangerous paramilitary organization, and as mayor, I'm going to keep working on that." I think that was his attraction to many voters.

Brian: Yes. Assuming he's elected, we'll see how he walks that line. One more thing on Eric Adams and law enforcement, then we're going to go on to speaking of personal behavior and personal responsibility. Governor Cuomo being deposed over the weekend for alleged sexual harassment in his office culture in general, and we'll go on to your New York Times op ed on Kamala Harris.

I wonder though, first, if you see any likely conflict between Eric Adams as mayor and Alvin Bragg as Manhattan DA, assuming they're both elected, on the issue of how to enforce against gun crime. Here is Bragg on the show earlier this month, using a personal example to explain why he does not plan on prosecuting illegal gun possession crimes without an actual shooting or a concrete plan to commit a shooting.

Alvin Bragg: My brother-in-law was a college student, was engaged in a schoolyard fistfight, the kind of fist fight that at Harvard would have gotten you into some trouble, but I can assure you no one would have been arrested. He was at a historically Black college. All of the boys involved in the fist fight were arrested. One of the boys had a gun on him. They charged all of the boys with constructive possession and my brother-in-law did more than a year in jail for a gun that he had not touched and didn't know was there. I think that's a bad case.

Brian: Manhattan DA nominee, Alvin Bragg here a few weeks ago. Christina, do you know if Bragg and Adams have a relationship, or are we likely to see the NYPD told to arrest people for things that Bragg is saying he won't prosecute them for?

Christina: I don't know how much their worlds have interacted, Bragg being in Harlem and Eric Adams being in Brooklyn, but I think the language of both Bragd and Adams thus far, the fact that, A, it's not antagonistic, B, I think both of them want the other to succeed and, C, recognizing the limitations of their relationship when it comes to [unintelligible 00:14:32] Alvin Bragg has a very specific job that he's charged to do, as does Eric Adams.

Obviously there will be times where they are not in congruence, but I agree with Bragg. We know that so many young African-American and Latinx boys have been charged with these types of crimes and that is why Rikers is filled to the brim. That is why our prisons are chock full of Black and Latino men and boys. I think it's a much more complicated question and debate that Al Bragg has started, that I think a lot of people have been wanting to have, which is why he was successful.

I do think that we are in for a really fascinating moment where we're-- because of Eric Adams, pluses and minuses, but we're going to have to have a lot of hard conversations about race and class that Eric Adams has been very comfortable having for many years. Alvin Bragg is bringing a different nuanced level to that discussion. Quite frankly, I don't think a lot of New Yorkers are necessarily prepared or ready. I definitely don't think that our journalist class is ready to have this conversation.

I really am concerned about the framing of Eric Adams and Alvin Bragg by the press, to be quite honest, but these are conversations that are long overdue and I think Eric Adams is going to force us to have them. If there's one good thing that comes out of this administration, is putting things on the table in ways that they never have been, especially not under a DeBlasio or Bloomberg or Dinkins or Giuliani administration.

Brian: Very interesting. We're going to take a break and then we'll continue with Christina Greer. We'll migrate over to the Cuomo deposition and Christina's New York Times op ed called Dear Kamala Harris: It's a Trap. Listeners, we welcome some phone calls for Christina Greer, Fordham University political science professor, politics editor of The Grio, co-host of the politics podcast FAQNYC and author of the book Black Ethnics, on any of the things we're talking about. 646-435-7280 or tweet your question @BrianLehrer, and we'll continue after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Fordham University political science professor, Christina Greer. Let's go on to Governor Cuomo being deposed over the weekend as the New York Times describes it, not just for the sexual sexual harassment allegations against him, but also for his workplace culture in general in his office. These things are generally behind closed doors. Has any of it leaked out as far as you know?

Christina: I'm sorry. Is that to me, Brian?

Brian: Yeah, that's to you, Chris.

Christina: Okay. Sorry. Not to my knowledge. I have not seen or heard any behind the scenes scuttle, but I think the governor still has quite a few friends in Albany that are protecting and shielding him from what is obviously a distraction and embarrassing and frustrating for him. I think that he's made it very clear that he wants it to be swift and he wants it to go away as soon as possible. Because pretty soon we will have a primary challenger to the governor and I think Andrew Cuomo will want to focus on that and not these lingering sexual harassment claims, plural.

Brian: As The Times put it going into the deposition the other day, the Attorney General is also examining whether Cuomo and his aides followed state protocol in responding to complaints of sexual harassment and whether they might have broken any laws, destroyed potential evidence, interfered with the investigation or retaliated against the women who have accused Cuomo.

People familiar with the interview said that from The Times. I noticed in that report, some previous witnesses in this investigation have testified under oath. Some have not. I know you're not a lawyer but do you know if the governor was under oath or how that decision would be made?

Christina: I don't know and I don't know the processing of that conversation he had this weekend. I do know, Brian, as you know very well, that Andrew Cuomo, I would argue, knows Albany and this world better than most. I think we can pretty much rest assured that Andrew Cuomo, if he hasn't already, is dotting all of his I's and crossing his T's when it comes to this investigation.

I do think it's interesting though, Brian, that if we remember back in the day when Eric Schneiderman stepped down and obviously there was lots of fervor for Tish James to become the next attorney general, the governor was quite enthusiastic about that. I am curious as to how he feels now that Tish James is doing her job and due diligence and it doesn't seem as though she's giving him any special treatment, even though he opened up. I remember he opened up many of his donor scrolls and he was definitely a supporter of hers. I think we can look forward to that relationship being strained because Andrew Cuomo does not take people working against him lightly.

Brian: I wonder if there are any lawyers in the audience right now who can help us answer the question of whether Cuomo would have been deposed under oath this weekend, or how an investigator in a state attorney general's office makes that decision? Apparently, some of the witnesses, including if I remember the Times article right, one of the accusers was deposed under oath, another one was not under oath.

Lawyers, how would they make that decision as to whether Cuomo had to testify under oath or not in his deposition to the state attorney general's office this weekend? Anybody who's a lawyer who want to help us out with that? 646-435-7280. In the meantime, let's take another call. Here is Reggie in Bed-Stuy, you're on WNYC. Reggie, thanks for calling in.

Reggie: I think Christina Greer talking about Adams in the beginning is hitting on some really great things, because there's another thing that Adams expresses, is the indigenous New Yorker, particularly the Black. I'm in Bed–Stuy, Brooklyn. I voted for Adams as borough president, hands down. He expresses the frustrations of the indigenous New Yorkers in the last 20 years to the New Yorkers that moved in and did really well after, let's say, 9/11 during the Bloomberg period.

I think even some of your callers. I mean, I've listened to your show for 20 or 30 years on a regular basis. You're doing a great job really, but sometimes, I've even heard it from one or two of your callers in the last, let's say four months, where they got that vibe. I remember one of your callers, it was a white caller that sounded like a upper-income caller that moved in, that said, "Yes, I'd rather vote for McGuire, he's like a Bloomberg." She had the sense that Adams is not really, you know, no matter how much--

Brian: Sophisticated, is that where you're going with that?

Reggie: Not so much. That his interest were not--

Brian: Aligned with hers. I got it. Reggie, thank you for all of that. Well, this recalls one of the controversial things, Christina, that Eric Adams said a few years ago. He does say some controversial things, and so he had that line. I don't remember the exact language, maybe you do, but it was something about New Yorkers for New Yorkers, not for people who moved here from Iowa. There was this whiff of 'go back where you came from', to people who were coming in from the Midwest or from wherever, and gentrifying New York City. I think that happened. Nobody made a big thing of it in the mayoral race, but I don't know. Just any quick reflection on what Reggie is bringing up there?

Christina: Yes. I never use the term indigenous New Yorker.

Brian: Yes, that would be a little strong.

Christina: Even in Eric Adams's accent and speech pattern, there is a throwback to kind of old-school New York that I think some folks appreciate, whether it's affected or not, but I do think it signals part of that Ohio, Iowa conversation we're having, which is for so many communities that Eric Adams went to throughout, not just the campaign season, but his career. He always said, "I'm not new to these communities. They're not meeting me for the first time." There are real concerns, especially among homeowners and even renters, about being pushed out of not just their neighborhoods but New York City proper. That does dovetail into a larger conversation for Eric Adams about New York is for New Yorkers.

Now, we can obviously have a much longer debate as to how we define what a real New Yorker is, but for people who are here and have been here for generations, there is a real concern about the affordability of this city, obviously, because of the Bloomberg and de Blasio gears and the changing compositions of neighborhoods, not just racially but obviously economically, that Eric Adams definitely tapped into. I think it's evidenced by looking at the communities where he campaigned.

He did not focus on Manhattan below 125th Street, nor did he focus on gentrifying Brooklyn. That's not his base. That's not a conversation that he was going to have with particular New Yorkers and so he focused on other neighborhoods and communities where that messaging of 'go back to where you came from' resonated more clearly.

Brian: Siboney in Mount Vernon, you're on WNYC. Hi, Siboney.

Siboney: Thank you, Brian. I'm a former non-indigenous New Yorker who moved to Mount Vernon. I just want to comment Dr. Greer's point about historic moment, which is what Eric Adams talked about at National Action Network a couple weeks ago. Standing on stage with Alvin, with the DA saying the DA has had his brother-in-law arrested. Eric Adams was harassed by police, remember, before he became a police officer. He said they were historic moment. I think it's a historic moment to have a vegan former police officer as mayor for New York.

New York is not just a city in New York, it's a global city. It's like London or Berlin or Geneva, that when you have a mayor of New York, you have a global perspective. I'm a Black male and my son is a cop. You cannot believe how many times I've been stopped. I'm an Episcopal priest. They say, "Did you tell them you're a priest?" I had a black shirt on, I had a collar on, but he didn't see my collar or my color.

Brian: Couldn't see it.

Siboney: He couldn't, he just saw my skin color. I can't tell you how many times I talked to my son about that. He's a state trooper. It's a historic moment to have a former cop who has personally experienced this moment, as Dr. Greer said, and then have the DA who also can translate for people to say, "Wait a second." My friends at the church would say, "You really got put in handcuffs?" I say, "Yes." "You really did?" I say, "Yes" "You had a black shirt and your collar?" I said, "Yes, sure did." There is a sense in which the historic moment of having conversations that are difficult to have.

I have a friend who is a judge, who was shopping for his wife's anniversary. He was from Newark. He was visiting me, and they arrested him in a store. These are conversations that we need to have that are difficult, to say we have a former police officer captain as mayor of this global city that we cherish indigenous, non-indigenous, and to celebrate that moment to say, "My God, we have Alvin as DA and Eric Adams as the mayor." I just want to celebrate that before we go. Thank you for that, Brian.

Brian: I appreciate that. I guess the test will be to see if Adams and maybe Bragg, can walk the line as, especially in Adams case, a kind of personal responsibility, law enforcement, mayor, and at the same time, create a culture in the NYPD where you can be seen as a fully human being, where your friend the judge can be seen as a fully human being. I guess we'll see how well. Siboney, I hope you'll call us back and let us know how you think he's doing when the time comes.

Siboney: I will call back. I listen to you all the time, Brian. Thank you so much.

Brian: Thank you so much.

Siboney: Thank you, Dr. Greer. Bye-bye.

Brian: Christina Greer, one more comment on that, and then I'm going to bring up your New York Times op-ed on Kamala Harris.

Christina: Well, I think what Siboney brings up is really important, also is that so many Black New Yorkers have cops in their family, so this is a much more nuanced conversation. A lot of times when the conversations about defund the police or changing the NYPD structure come into the fore, we're also talking about Black jobs, and a job that is an entree into the middle class for a lot of families, Black families in particular.

Eric Adams, I know it sounds like I'm his personal cheerleader this morning, but I'm trying to just contextualize how he was able to pull this off. It's because you do also, especially in the outer boroughs, have a lot of Black families who want to have a conversation about the fact that they want their loved ones who are in the NYPD protected and respected in the workplace, but they also don't want to be harassed or stopped and frisked. We can have both of those things and I think that Eric Adams was the first person and probably the only person in the race that was very outwardly saying both of those things can be true at the same time.

I think that Al Bragg with a slightly different background and upbringing is also saying, "These two Harvard degrees didn't protect me or my family from particular institutional and structural racist incidents, but here's a way that we can move forward, using the law to change the outcome and the life chance of particular New Yorkers.

Brian: Alright, you had an op-ed in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago called Dear Kamala Harris: It's a Trap. Who's entrapping her into what?

Christina: I was looking at her portfolio of what the President has given her and, obviously, they don't have a long-standing relationship before becoming president and vice president. It's voting rights and it's vaccine hesitancy and immigration and the border, and so much more. A friend of mine wrote me after I published a piece and said the only thing that's not on her docket is world peace. It seems as though she doesn't have any policy positions that she can get a win. If indeed Joe Biden decides not to run for re-election at the age of 81 in 2024, where I think Kamala Harris is going to have several Achilles heels in trying to make the case that she's done her job.

We have to remember there's a racial context, there's a gender context. I think that she will do what many people did, and we saw Hillary Clinton get bound by this and we've talked about this in the past, where the positive things that the Biden administration has done, she'll say 'we did', using the plural, and where Biden has fallen short or failed, she'll say, "Well, I was limited. I was the vice president. I wasn't calling the shots."

I just thought that her portfolio made it such that, I was like, it's a trap. Either you get a new portfolio or add some wins. Get something where you can actually have something on the board because as it stands right now, I can't see her putting any points on the board anytime soon with that portfolio.

Brian: Are you alleging Biden is trying to sabotage his vice president politically?

Christina: No, I'm alleging that Biden is giving her great responsibility. I'm sure he thinks that she's very intelligent and smart, obviously that's why he chose her but I also think that it deflects from some of his responsibility. He's not charged with solving the border crisis that no Democratic or Republican president has been able to do, and you give it to the woman who's the child of two immigrants [unintelligible 00:32:23] go to Guatemala and say don't come. I just think that the optics and the visuals of her portfolio are a trap.

Brian: Talk more about the race and gender aspects of this. For example, you note in the article that the public can list every major and minor flaw of Hillary Clinton, AOC, Kirsten Gillibrand, Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren, different than with male politicians. You also note that no US state has ever elected a Black woman governor. You see that, of course, reflecting people's perceptions of who's a leader and what is leadership. How do you see that playing out, particularly in Kamala Harris's case?

Christina: Well, we know that if we look at all 50 states, there have been only two black elected governors in the history of our nation. We've had a few appointed because of various circumstances, thinking about David Patterson right now. But we know that it's much harder for Black leftists to run statewide than it is for anyone else, and definitely for women too. It's very difficult not just because of fundraising, but there's a perception of who is a leader and who can get the job done. With Kamala Harris being both female and also a woman of color, I think that it's a challenging proposition if she's going to run for the presidency.

Obviously, I'm still very sore about the election being stolen from Stacey Abrams in Georgia. I had a line in there that was taken out, but I said I will go to my deathbed knowing that that race was stolen. But I think that there are a lot of Democrats, if we are having honest conversations, that cannot, cannot vote for a woman at the top of the ticket, they will make every excuse in the book as to why it's attitude or failing in policy positions, as in Hillary Clinton or soon to be Kamala Harris, but the standards that women are held to, the standards that candidates of color are held to, are not the same standards that white male politicians are held to.

There's also this assumption of leadership when it comes to white men in the political space. Political science data has looked at exponentially, and it just is very different for female candidates, candidates of color, and especially female candidates of color. I didn't put this in the piece, but just thinking about this idea, Brian. I had that line where basically men, white men specifically, wake up, brush their teeth and it's like, "I can do this," with zero qualifications. I'm not trying to call out Pete Buttigieg but Pete Buttigieg is the Transportation Secretary who's in charge 46 buses in South Bend.

Polly Trottenberg, who's in charge of New York city's public transportation system works for a man who was in charge of 46 buses. Make that make sense for me. I think that we have to be really honest about white male leadership and how folks are just-- that has been the norm that in the data, that's the baseline, and to go against what is the baseline is really complicated and difficult for some people, and subconsciously for some, consciously for others, they will make lots of excuses as to why it can't be. But unless Kamala Harris has worked twice as hard to get half as much and actually has some points on the board, I think that she's looking at a very difficult future.

Brian: Yes, and we've certainly had the conversation on this show last year, there could be no female Pete Buttigieg, after running 46 buses to then run for president, and this year we had the same conversation about Andrew Yang. There could not have been a female Andrew Yang, we presume. Last question. Do you see any ways out of this trap for the vice president?

Christina: I am hoping that the vice president can get a few more policy- as if her plate isn't already full, but some policies spaces. I would think that infrastructure, if that were on her docket, where you can actually see some wins across the country, and people can see her as someone who is effective. As of now, solving the Immigration and Border crisis is not, I would say, an easier, doable task in the near future. So something that is important to Americans, but also you can see incremental change and success, is something that's desperately needed for her portfolio.

Brian: Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham, politics editor for The Grio, co-host of The New York politics podcast FAQNYC, and author of the book Black Ethnics in addition to her recent New York Times op-ed called Dear Kamala Harris: It's a trap. Christina, as always, thanks a lot.

Christina: Thank you so much, Brian.

 

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