Kamala Harris says she saw almost everything about President Donald Trump’s second term coming, except for one thing.
The former vice president said in a podcast released Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, that her warnings about Trump have come true. What she did not expect, she said, was how far powerful people would go to cave to him.
Harris spoke on Keke Palmer’s podcast, “Baby, This Is Keke Palmer,” and she said the development she “had not anticipated was the capitulation” of those in positions of influence.
“The number of powerful people who have stood quietly by in the face of what they know to be corruption and behavior and approaches that are contrary to the best interest of our country, the powerful people who you know bend the knee at the foot of a tyrant. I hadn’t anticipated that that was going to happen, to the degree it has,” Harris told Palmer.
The Thing That Caught Her Off Guard
Some of the most powerful people in the country, Harris said, are driven by nothing but self-interest. Principle and morality play no part in it, she said she now realizes.
She said those people weigh what they can extract from a relationship, and they are prepared to walk away when it stops delivering.
Harris said she has to admit she did not see it unfolding to the extent it has. What she says she got wrong is the willingness of so many people with power to say nothing.
Her Advice: Make Your Vote Count for Something
Harris urged Americans to approach the ballot box as transactional voters.
She rejected the alternative of opting out of elections because parts of the system have broken down. “And this is not a moment where we can afford to be passive,” she said.
She told Palmer that plenty has worked and plenty has not. Disappointment is no reason to leave the process, she said, and declining to vote amounts to being silenced.
Harris’ framing treats voting as leverage rather than an act of faith. It answers the transactional behavior she described among the powerful. She argued that voters should use ballots to demand something in return, instead of waiting for the system to earn their trust.
Her Bold Plan for the Supreme Court
Harris has called for expanding the Supreme Court, adding new states and reforming the Electoral College. She tied that package to one condition: Democrats winning control of Congress.
Those changes would require majorities her party does not currently hold.
Harris is positioning herself as a critic less focused on Trump himself than on the institutions and individuals she says declined to check him.
Who’s Still Standing by Trump
Her comments arrive as the president’s popularity slides with voters. Voters point to the administration’s handling of the economy and the war in Iran.
The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted an AP-NORC poll Sept. 24-28. In it, about six in 10 Americans say they believe Trump has done something illegal or unethical to profit from the presidency.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who once led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is back in Trump’s corner. He has become the biggest known donor to Republicans this midterm season, giving hundreds of millions of dollars, even as Trump’s numbers with everyday voters have sagged.
Will She Run in 2028?
Harris told Palmer she has not yet decided whether to run for president in 2028.
“I haven’t decided yet. I will, I promise,” she said, adding that “’28 don’t matter if we don’t do ’26 right.”
For now, she is campaigning for Democrats ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, with stops planned in Nevada, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Georgia later this month, the Associated Press reported.
