Path to the Presidency: What next for Kamala Harris?
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Hi there, I'm Katrina Perry from the BBC World Service. This is The Global Story. Donald Trump's inner circle has an immense amount of media savvy and influence.

The president-elect has surrounded himself with powerful and friendly media figures. He's picked TV personalities like Pete Hegseth and Dr Oz for his cabinet, put the head of his own social media company, Devin Nunes, in a key intelligence job, and that's not to mention Elon Musk, the owner of X. Where is he? Come on up here, Elon! Plus...

What could the second Trump presidency mean for the Environmental Protection Agency? In his first term, Trump slashed or rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations. And there are fears that the EPA could see massive cuts. And for the Democrats, how did they rebuild their party? And what next for Kamala Harris? As the countdown to Inauguration Day continues, let's map out the path to the presidency. ♪

With me today, my fellow BBC chief presenter, Sumi Somaskanda, who's also here in Washington. Hi, Sumi. Hey, Katrina. And Sumi, it's great we have our fabulous colleague,

Courtney Subramanian with us today as well. Hi, Courtney. Hi, thanks for having me on, guys. Great to see you, Courtney. You told us you're moving, right? Or you didn't? I did move. I've made the grave mistake of moving just before the holidays because I embrace the chaos. So here we are. You are brave. Yeah.

Speaking of chaos, I mean, that kind of brings me to what I wanted to talk about today, which is the future of the Democrats. They have endured a pretty chaotic election cycle in 2024. They've seen a lot of highs and lows, as you mentioned, this summer with the push for Biden to end his reelection, peaking with the Democratic convention and all the energy around Kamala Harris's unexpected campaign.

And then obviously culminating with the loss of the White House and the Senate and narrowly, you know, control of the House. So I don't know about you guys, but I feel like over the holidays, you know, at a lot of these holiday parties, there's been...

a lot of finger pointing and hand wringing about what's next and what happens. And a lot of people saying they're getting out of town. That's what I encountered at some of those parties. You know, definitely from the kind of staffers and the officials up on the hill that they're like, they're done. They burnt out. They need a break. They can't see where the party goes from here. And

They want to do something else. And these internal battles and jostling on the Hill itself for these positions within the House, for example, the top position, the House Oversight Committee, going to a more moderate Democrat congressman from Virginia instead of, you know, the progressive wing AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and hand-winging over that about what it says about what Democrats have learned about the election. It's so interesting to see these battles being played out on a day-to-day basis in kind of these lower level roles as well.

Yeah, I think, you know, there's no real leader of the party at this point. I think some blame Biden for where they are and, you know, others who support him say he would have won if he stayed in the election. There's a lot of debate about that, but...

I think it speaks to, you know, this is a faceless party trying to pick up the pieces while an emboldened Trump is making his grand return to Washington with unified control of Congress and the White House. And I think the big question behind all of this that I've been trying to unpack this week is,

Where is Kamala Harris fall in all of this? You know, does she stay in the game? Does she become the face of this, you know, so-called resistance movement that we saw define the party in 2016? But, you know, where is it now? You know, Sumi, you mentioned some of those races playing out on the Hill. And I think that, you know, speaks to.

a generational conversation within the party, right, about where they should be and who should be calling the shots and leading the party and shaping the messaging coming out. And I remember after 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, there was so much soul searching that the Democrats were supposed to be doing at that

point and focusing on who was going to be the next generation of leaders. And that is what we're seeing on the Hill right now with that wrestling over committee chairs, because right now, if you look at the leadership of the Democratic Party, you know, it's basically,

looking at a collection of grandparents, isn't it? So when you look at the Republican Party and it's not that and Donald Trump every day is announcing a new person who's going to be head of this, ambassador of that, whatever. And because he's, you know, kind of focusing on people who are on TV and stuff, which we can talk about later, like they all look very glossy and shiny, which is in contrast to what we're seeing today.

on the Democrat side of things. And I mean, we haven't really heard from Kamala Harris, have we? I mean, I'm sure she went away to nurse her wounds a bit. But as to where her position is in the party, she's not been very vocal about that. Well, yeah, she had that speech that she delivered in Maryland this week and delivered a kind of similar message to the one that she did after conceding the election. Come back ready, ready to chart our path forward.

to the future. And I'm curious to know, Courtney, because you've seen these rumors swirling that she might be considering a run for governor of California, that she might want to put her hat in the race again in 2028 for the Democrats, throw her hat in the ring, excuse me, for that race. But it feels like

A lot of that decision will come down to what Democrats decide in their postmortem of this election was the reason for losing. And we've talked about the fact that Donald Trump is obviously an incredibly popular president. And that was one of the reasons that we saw the election outcome that we did. But, you know, do Democrats feel like Kamala Harris was their strongest candidate to put forward? And if not, would that obviously impact what she decides to do?

Yeah. And I think, you know, she's going to do her own postmortem. That's what her aides have told me over the holidays. She kind of flicked at this in her in her remarks in Maryland, and they echoed something she said to at a holiday party I was at last week at the vice president's residence, which is she wants to take some time over the holidays, figure out.

what went wrong, you know, kind of audit the campaign that she ran, which was just over 100 days, and decide where she belongs in the conversation. And...

I think, you know, as one aide put it to me, you know, does she want to be the face of this resistance movement? What resistance movement, right? Precisely. Is there one? Is there one, right? And I think the governor's race is a real possibility. People are encouraging her. She's been on calls with donors and supporters that have gone on as they express their, you know,

ideas about what she should be doing. But I think we also have to remember that if she ran for governor, she would be sworn in

as she would need to be announcing her run for 2028. So I think there needs to be some soul searching. You know, look, being governor of the fifth biggest economy is no small job, right? But I think for Kamala Harris, the White House is the ultimate goal. So she's going to think long and hard about whether that makes sense. It's also taking over for somebody who has long been considered her political peer, Gavin Newsom,

who she jumped ahead of when she ran for the Senate. They came up together in California. So she'd be, you know, elected to a job he'd be finishing as he's eyeing the White House. And I think that would be a hard pill for her to swallow. And one other route that I've heard that I haven't seen reported anywhere is, you know, some senior advisors are talking about her taking a more global role, taking on a couple issues where she can go out and speak

and, you know, sort of stay in the game but stay out of the fray a little bit and then make that decision about 2028. What would that look like, Courtney? I mean, what would that be? Well, I think there is consideration of her launching her own political organization, right? I think...

One of the things coming out of the campaign that they are being extremely protective of is this email list, this groundswell of support that she was able to put together and harness, you know, over that very condensed campaign. And they're not going to just give that away. They're not going to give that to the DNC. They're trying to weigh what what's the smartest thing for her to do. Should she launch her own campaign?

and take on, you know, a couple issues she can speak to. Should she continue down this path of trying to really focus on the next generation, right? She's really big on Gen Z, which, you know, she's been giving these speeches to students and telling everyone to keep staying in the fight. And that's a theme that we've seen for the last couple years that I think she wants to continue doing. It's just a mastermind.

of what that looks like. Doesn't that tell you, though, all you need to know about the trouble that the Democratic Party is in? Like if she has this enthusiasm and this email list,

and doesn't want to share it with the rest of the party when they are absent a leader, absent sort of a path or a direction. That's something as kind of basic as that. There isn't agreement on or cooperation on. There's real divisions about which direction the party should head in. And that is both on a generational front,

front, but also on an ideological front, right? And you have people who are saying they lost touch with the kitchen table issues. They lost touch with the middle class, right? You have people like AOC who are like, we need to dig deeper. We need to be anti-Trump, right? And I think that, you know, there's no unity at this point. But I also think

There are a lot of people, as you said, who are getting out of town, they're resetting, they're keeping their powder dry for after January 20th because they want to see how this Republican control plays out. That's precisely what I've been looking into as well. If you look at this quote unquote resistance, we see a number of Democrats talking about ways that they feel like they can work together with the incoming administration looking for that bipartisan common ground, which is not unusual. You do see that in under any administration.

But it is a very different tune, isn't it, from what we saw in 2016 and then going into 2017. So we've talked about what may lie ahead for the Democrats in their period of self-reflection. But what about President-elect Donald Trump and what he and his team plan for the environment and for the media?

I'm Katrina Perry, and this is The Global Story, where we bring you one big international story in detail. And every Saturday until the inauguration of Donald Trump on the 20th of January, we'll be bringing you an update on his path to the presidency. If you don't want to miss an episode, do follow or subscribe to The Global Story wherever you get your podcasts. Today, I'm chatting with my colleagues Sumi Somaskanda and Courtney Subramanian.

You know, I was looking a bit at environmental regulations. I'd seen some reporting this week about how climate change activists are preparing now for this incoming Trump administration. We know that one of the picks that Donald Trump has made is Lee Zeldin to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Lee Zeldin, a congressman, former Republican congressman from New York. And he is someone who started this.

very much as a moderate Republican. Obviously, New York is a blue state, so the type of Republican members of Congress you get in that state do tend to be of a more moderate line, but always a strong, staunch supporter of Donald Trump and very much now has become one of Donald Trump's MAGA warriors, if you will. We have the opportunity to roll back regulations that are forcing businesses to be able to struggle. They're forced to cut costs internally

They are moving overseas altogether. He accepted this post, according to reporting that I saw. It's not a post that he asked for and doesn't necessarily have experience with. But back when he was a congressman, he had fought a bit more for environmental protections. And if you look at some of the

interviews that he's done now, he has said, well, the most important thing is to be able to implement Donald Trump's economic agenda, essentially that regulations that might be in place to protect the environment should not get in the way and should be then deregulated to ensure that American businesses can profit and prosper. We all cover this campaign and the various issues.

Climate and the environment played really no role at all, did it? With the exception of drill, baby, drill. Right. You know, the exception of... We're going to drill, baby, drill right away. Drill, baby, drill. Which we heard at every Donald Trump rally. Anytime he does an interview, it's mentioned. And to your point about how the environmental agenda and the economic agenda are linked.

A lot of it is around that. A lot of it is around loosening regulations to get control of the natural resources in this country. A couple of weeks ago, just shortly after the election, I was at an event with a number of Republican women and they were extremely excited about what this was going to mean for America.

mining for accessing, you know, what is Donald Trump calls it, you know, the golden liquid or whatever when he's referring to oil. But there's also other mines in this country, copper mines and stuff like that, that people are hoping the rules will be relaxed and there'll be a lot of money to be made there and jobs to be created

when you raise the environmental impact of these things, you're told, well, you know, we have good labor protections in this country. So, you know, if people are going to mine for things anyway, aren't they better doing it in America where they'll be looked after?

I'm also really interested in the EV aspect, the electrical vehicle aspect of this, particularly because, as we've seen in the last few days alone, just how much sway Elon Musk has over this administration. And, you know, obviously he is planning to unwind all of the subsidies and

you know, federal benefits for electric vehicles, right? But those are all designed to help car companies that are in direct competition with Tesla, which is Elon Musk's company, obviously. So it'll be interesting to see where the conflicts bubble up. You know, I think particularly with regard to China too, right? Like the Biden administration's whole policy

point around this was building up and bolstering the U.S. supply chain alongside China, whereas it seems like Donald Trump is looking to completely cut off China entirely from this market, which, of course, could drive prices up here. And as you said, this is all tied to his economic agenda, which is effectively what got him elected. So there's a lot of

high stakes in some of this environmental stuff as well for him because it all comes down to what does Donald Trump's economy look like once he takes over. Yeah, there's an NGO here in Washington called the Environmental Integrity Project, one that supports the implementation of environmental laws and the enforcement of those

those laws and they had taken a look at whether environmental protections are enforced across a number of administrations and they showed in their research that there was a dip in the first Trump administration in those years

of enforcement of some of those regulations. So that's possibly something that we could see, you know, rather than rolling back regulations entirely, that you just see the EPA and other agencies simply not implement some of the laws that are on the book. And that's certainly something that has, you know, climate change activists,

environmental activists really concerned. But to your point, Courtney, this could indeed be a boon for Elon Musk himself. I mean, obviously, before he came into the picture, there was not much of a focus in the Trump administration on EVs except to vilify them, especially in a key state like Michigan and in that battleground state. But, you know, with him now there touting Teslas and, you know, his share of the market,

It could be that he is able to influence EV policy in a way that is really beneficial to Tesla. And perhaps, we don't know, at the expense of other EV producers. Elon endorsed me with the strongest endorsement. And we love him. And he's great. And by the way, the Tesla is amazing. But...

Not everybody should have an electric car. It might be 7 or 8% of the market. And then you also want hybrids and you want to have pure gasoline driven powered cars. We're going to have everything. And speaking of Elon Musk and the supposed outsized role that he seems to have in this incoming administration,

It's not just EVs and other policies like that. It's this whole issue of control of the media, which I've been really looking at this week. You know, media now obviously includes social media and online streaming and so on. And you have Elon Musk using posts on X to, in particular, I think, sway what's been going on on Capitol Hill regarding potential shutdown, which may or may not happen in terms of the continuing resolution to keep financing the government policy.

But you also have a lot of the people that Donald Trump has nominated to cabinet level positions and other positions are attached to him in some way or to the media in some way, either through his own Trump Media and Technology Group or Fox News as well. I mean, I had a quick look through the list of some of the people nominated.

just to see, you know, what the connections are. It's a kind of dinner party conversation in certain circles in Washington, D.C. at the moment. Like, how can you connect the dots between all the Trump nominees? What do they have in common? And the media seems to be one of them in terms of, we take just Trump Media and Technology Group first, which is the parent company of Truth Social and

a streaming platform called Troop Plus as well. You've got board members, Linda McMattin, who will be on the cabinet role if subject to confirmation. You've got Kash Patel coming in to head up the FBI, again, subject to confirmation. CEO of Truth Social, Devin Nunes, the former congressman. He's been picked to head the president's intelligence agency. You've got people hosting shows on that network that are very close to Donald Trump as well that we know from days gone by, like Steve Bannon and

Mike Flynn. Then you look at Fox News, of course, probably the most famous of them all at this point is Pete Hegseth, who's been nominated for defense secretary and the difficult process that he's having or had seems to be smoothed over now at this point.

a host on Fox and Friends. His co-host, Rachel Campos Duffy, married to Sean Duffy, also a host on Fox News. He's the pick for Transportation Secretary. Dr. Oz, of course, the celebrity doctor who's been picked to head up the agency in charge of Medicare and Medicaid. And there are a few others as well. And please know and be offended if I've left you out.

Giving a shout out to your show, Seb Gorka as well, of course, who we interviewed on our show a couple of weeks ago, who is going to be the new director for counterterrorism. So there's a really interesting question there in terms of, you know, the media is supposed to be kind of separate.

in any democracy to the power branches, to the executive and the legislative branches. And now you have this cross-pollination where many of them have shows or have hosted shows or contributors on these things. And, you know, suddenly it's kind of hard to see where the lines are. And,

is the control that Donald Trump and his president has will then reach far beyond the press briefing room at the White House and almost bypass it in a way. I know that's a place you're very familiar with, Courtney, and obviously you're a board member of the White House Correspondents Association as well. Has this come up for discussion at all? Oh, yes, absolutely. I'm...

I'm unfortunately limited in what I can share, but I can say that we've had rigorous discussions about what the role of media looks like in a Trump 2.0 administration, both with the incoming administration itself and within the press corps. I think there's a lot of

about what the expectations are. They obviously have said they want to shake up how they interact and engage with media as they did during the campaign. But there is an essential role there as well, right? And I think, as you mentioned, in the Trump administration, the lines get blurred sometimes because a

A lot of the Trump officials, and you both remember this from the first administration, you know, they're going on air and they're messaging the administration's talking points for an audience of one. And that is Donald Trump. Right. And so there's almost a sort of broadcast mentality to being a part of this administration. So, of course, having a media background is important.

that he views, he values, right? But that also means, yeah, where do the lines of independent media begin and change

just regurgitating talking points that are handed to you by people who, you know, straddle the line between the media world and the Trump administration world, right? And so I think at the end of the day, the hope is, at least at the White House Correspondents Association and within the White House Press Corps, is

is that they will recognize the need, the symbiotic relationship between an independent media and a presidential administration, and that as much as they want to bypass some of these legacy media outlets, these are the people who are going to show up. These are the people who are going to ask the questions that are going to attend the daily briefings, right, that are going to manifest

make sure that there's coverage with him at all times if something happens or if he wants to call a press conference. I think last week, you know, we saw him in his first press conference at Mar-a-Lago was a prime example of having an established, you know, pool of reporters who were there to listen, to ask questions. That was supposed to be a pre-scheduled statement, right? But it turned into a press conference because, you

I think he likes to be in front of reporters as much as reporters like to be in front of him. Yeah, I think that's a really important point to make as well, is that Donald Trump, you know, he sees these platforms as important. But it also made me think about the fact that, you know, in this election campaign, the Trump campaign was very effective in building an entire media narrative about

excluding those legacy media organizations. Yeah, I mean, he proved through the campaign that you can get elected without really having to engage with the legacy media, that you can do those long-form sit-down podcasts for, you know, two, three hours and reach far more people and you're far more in control

of what you're saying. And one name actually that I left out from my list that I should add and we can talk about in a later edition of Path to the Presidency is, of course, Carrie Lake, who Donald Trump wants to see as head of Voice of America. Now, it's not directly in his gift to appoint her to that, we should say. There are kind of a few steps, but again, putting somebody very loyal to him in a role that's very key to America's position abroad.

American soft power, if you like, a broad through voice of America. And there are supposed to be very strict rules

separations there in terms of yes it's funded through the Department of State but the Department of State has no editorial influence on the output of Voice of America so it'll be interesting to see how that all plays out. I feel like it'll be interesting to see is the most overused phrase I've been saying about what's going to happen when Donald Trump gets into office because we sure will be kept in jobs anyway.

It won't be boring. I can promise you that. It won't be boring. And I do think it's important to raise that the Obama administration, you know, said this too. They also wanted to circumvent traditional media, right? They weren't as effective about it, as you said. We'll see. But yeah, we'll certainly be busy. All we can do is put in a plug for everyone to turn to the BBC as always. On all platforms. Because we track the path to the presidency.

So that's a wrap from us. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. As always, if you want to get in touch, please do. You can email us at theglobalstoryatbbc.com. Wherever you're listening in the world, this has been The Global Story. Thanks for having us in your headphones. Bye-bye. Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by.

And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders. ♪

I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.

You just get sucked in so gradually.

And it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that...

Whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice.

And for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemise some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power. World of Secrets, Season 6, The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.