Kamala Harris, the Democratic junior senator from California, waited nearly two hours for her turn to question Jeff Sessions. The attorney general was appearing before the Senate intelligence committee to defend himself against what he called the “appalling and detestable lie” that he colluded with Moscow to influence the 2016 election.
When her turn came, the former state attorney general wasted no time. Assertively questioning Sessions about his contacts with Russians as a representative of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, she interjected repeatedly, asking for clearer answers.
“Will you let me qualify?” Sessions said, his voice rising with indignation. “If I don’t qualify it, you’ll accuse me of lying. I need to be correct as best I can.”
“I do want you to be honest,” Harris said.
“I’m not able to be rushed this fast,” Sessions said. “It makes me nervous.”
Without a pause, Harris pressed Sessions on his rationale for refusing to discuss his conversations with the president. As he began to explain, Harris jumped in again, to the evident annoyance of committee Republicans.
“Will the witness be allowed to answer the question?” said John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and an ex officio member. Moments later, chairman Richard Burr, from North Carolina, informed Harris her time had expired.
It was the second time in a week that fellow senators had cut off Harris’s line of questioning against a Trump administration witness. Previously, Burr halted her aggressive questioning of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, directing the committee to show more “courtesy” to its witnesses.
On both occasions, male senators also interrupted witness. Harris, one of only three women on the committee, was the only one to be admonished.
Such exchanges have helped launch the California senator as an opposition leader in the era of Trump, giving rise to a swirl of speculation that she might consider a run for president in 2020.
The National Review, a conservative magazine, asked: “Is Kamala Harris the future of politics?” Its answer? “We should all hope not.”
The author argued that Harris’s irreverence to longstanding traditions of Senate decorum were reflective of the loss of civility in politics. Other critics have accused Harris of grandstanding in front of the cameras.
Harris brushed off the criticism. There are times, she said, when “truth has to rise over decorum.”
‘Keep fighting, Kamala!’
Democratic colleagues and supporters rallied. After Harris was cut off for the first time, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who in February was stopped from speaking on the Senate floor by majority leader Mitch McConnell, tweeted: “Silencing @SenKamalaHarris for not being ‘courteous’ enough is just unbelievable. Keep fighting, Kamala! #NeverthelessShePersisted.”
The hashtag was a reference to McConnell’s now-infamous admonishment of Warren – “she was given an explanation; nevertheless, she persisted” – which supporters have turned into a feminist rallying cry.
Harris’s aides have pounced on such moments as an opportunity to raise her profile and build support. The subject line of one fundraising email said: “They told me to be ‘courteous’.”
“For a lot of people watching the hearing, this was a first impression – and it was a very good first impression,” said John Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. “She remained calm and in control. The split-screen, and her facial expressions as she reacted to Sessions, it worked really well for her.”
In California, Pitney said, the most common criticism of Harris is that she is averse to political risk. An LA Times editorial endorsing her for the Senate in 2016 said she had been “unwilling to stake out a position on controversial issues” and had “at times seemed more focused on her political career than on the job she was elected to do.”
But for those just tuning in, she was the breakout star of a spectacular political drama.
“Democrats in California and nationally are thirsty for something new and fresh – they want a different kind of politics,” said Roger Salazar, a California-based Democratic strategist and former Clinton administration official. “Kamala Harris brings that.”
The daughter of an Indian American mother and Jamaican American father, Harris was raised in Berkeley, where she was introduced to civil rights activism from a young age. Her family was initially skeptical of her decision to become a prosecutor, she said in a 2014 interview with Katie Couric. In their view, she said, “you are either in favor of public safety, or in favor of civil rights and civil liberties”.
“You can be both,” she said. “And that’s how I’ve approached my work and public service.”
Harris served two terms as the district attorney of San Francisco, the first woman to hold the position, before being elected the first female attorney general of California. In January, she became the first Indian American woman and only the second black woman to serve in the US Senate.
In her short time on Capitol Hill, Harris has earned support from progressives.
“The way she stood up to Jeff Sessions the other day would have made Coretta Scott King proud,” said James Hayes, an organizer with the progressive millennial group #AllofUs.
Harris was one of 11 Democrats to vote against the nomination of General John Kelly to lead the Department of Homeland Security. During his confirmation hearing, she pressed Kelly on the Trump administration’s plan for Dreamers, immigrants brought illegally to the US as children.
Days later, when chaos broke out at airports after Trump introduced his first travel ban, Harris called the general at home and implored him to act.
“I called him up, because I got the number,” she said with a smile at an event in February. “I was really unsatisfied with the conversation.”
Harris and Kelly squared off again recently, at a hearing on the DHS budget, when she challenged him on immigration enforcement. The exchange escalated, with Kelly snapping: “Can I finish once before you interrupt me?”
‘Is it too soon to start talking?’
Hayes, of #AllofUS, said opposing Trump is only half the battle – the real test for Harris and those seeking to shape the party’s future will be whether they can deliver an economic message that resonates in California and Ohio.
“The big question for Kamala Harris and other rising stars in the party like [New Jersey senator] Cory Booker and [New York senator] Kirsten Gillibrand is whether they can also show that they can stand up to Wall Street and Big Pharma and the oil industry,” Hayes said. “I’m not positive that she will be able to do that but we’ll see.”
While Democrats insist their focus is entirely on the 2018 midterm elections, those who cannot wait for the chance to unseat Trump have started to look ahead.
“Is it too soon to start talking about Kamala Harris for president in 2020?” Lisa Bloom, a prominent California-based attorney, asked on Twitter recently.
Last month Kara Swisher, co-founder of the technology news site Recode, put the question to Harris in a panel discussion at the annual Code conference in Rancho Palos Verdes.
“I’m not giving that any consideration,’’ Harris said. “I’ve got to stay focused.”
“You’ve got to stay focused?” Swisher said. “OK. I’ll take that as a yes.”