Kamala Harris Wins Howard Stern’s Vote, Calls Out Donald Trump’s Lack of Empathy in Live Interviews

Howard Stern revealed that he plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election during her appearance on his SiriusXM show Tuesday, one of several stops in a media blitz the presidential hopeful is making this week as she enters the final month of her campaign.

In the sit-down interview for SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, Harris discussed her campaign and some policy but, as is typical with Stern’s interviews, the topics were more personal. Harris discussed her late mother, family and how her conversations with her friends and husband are a stand-in for therapy. Halfway through the interview, Stern revealed that Harris has his vote. 

“I don’t even understand how this election is close,” Stern said to Harris, referencing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. “And yes, I’m voting for you, but I would also vote for that wall over there, rather than a guy who says he doesn’t support Ukraine … why do my fellow Americans want this kind of chaos overseas?”

Stern wields strong influence over his loyal listeners. With a fan base estimated at 20 million, only podcaster Joe Rogan rivals Stern in terms of sheer size and potential influence over an audience. In both cases, the audiences are majority young men.

Harris dug into Trump while speaking with the radio host, telling him that Trump’s thirst for power has drawn him to the world’s autocrats but the relationships he develops are to his own detriment.

“He admires strongmen, and he gets played by them because he thinks that they’re his friends,” Harris said. “And they are manipulating him full time.”

Harris also commented on journalist Bob Woodward’s reporting in a new book that Trump handed COVID-19 tests to Vladimir Putin when they were a scarce commodity worldwide.

“[This is] just the most recent, stark example of who Donald Trump is,” Harris said. “People were dying by the hundreds. Everybody was scrambling to get these kits, the COVID test kits. Couldn’t get them, couldn’t get them anywhere. And this guy who was president of the United States is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator, for his personal use.”

Trump campaign official Stephen Cheung said Woodward’s claims are unfounded. 

In addition to sitting down with the self-proclaimed king of all media, Harris also appeared on The View, which aired two hours prior on Tuesday. The vice president will then tape a guest slot on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which will air on Tuesday night. These appearances cap a week where Harris has already visited 60 Minutes and the Call Her Daddy podcast.

During her stop at ABC’s The View, Harris called Trump’s capacity for empathy into question, laid out plans for her administration’s tacking of health care, and told the full panel of hosts that she can’t think of anything she would have done differently from President Joe Biden during his administration.

Harris fielded questions from the morning show hosts, which on Tuesday included Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, ‎Alyssa Farah Griffin, ‎Ana Navarro, ‎Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines. Navarro asked Harris midway through the interview how she could stomach Trump’s lies, specifically mentioning his falsehood that FEMA funds are being redirected to migrants over hurricane victims. 

“It’s profound, and it is the height of irresponsibility and frankly, callousness,” Harris said, then told the story of a Georgia woman she met in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene whose husband was killed in their home by a fallen tree. “People are losing their homes with no hope of ever being able to reconstruct or return, and the idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself … but this is so consistent about Donald Trump, he puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy, on a very basic level, to care about the suffering of other people and then understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it’s to lift people up.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ refusal to speak with the vice president by phone in the aftermath of the hurricane, something of a protocol for our elected officials, also came up. Harris explained that, obviously, this is not an issue that is about partisanship or politics for certain leaders, “but maybe it is for others.” 

Trump received his share of criticism, first from Behar, who called him a convicted felon and “big-time loser,” then from Harris, who explained how his perceived solipsistic worldview doesn’t work for politics. 

“Donald Trump prefers to run on problems instead of fixing problems,” Harris said. “He’s not solution-oriented. He spends full time engaged in grievance about what has happened to him. He spends full time perpetuating lies and misinformation. He spends full time talking about fictional characters. Calling and demeaning people, belittling people. But what he does not talk about is you. He does not talk about what you need. He does not talk about what your parents need, or what your children need.”

On the hot-button issue of immigration and security at the U.S. border, Harris reiterated that Trump blocked a bipartisan bill while Biden aimed at solving the dilemma so that he would have a contentious issue to run on, rather than allowing it to resolve through hard-won legislation. 

Tuesday’s live taping marked Harris’ eighth appearance on The View, with her previous appearance in studio being Jan. 17. She is the second sitting vice president to appear on the talk show, following then-Vice President Biden’s history-making appearance in April 2010.