Former Vice President Kamala Harris told host Keke Palmer on her podcast Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, that her warnings about President Donald Trump’s second term have come true, with one exception — how quickly powerful people folded.
Harris 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.
Harris described a slice of the country’s most powerful people operating on pure self-interest, not principle and not morality. That same group, she said, is motivated by what it can extract from a relationship and ready to walk away once the relationship stops delivering. She said she has to admit she did not see it unfolding to the extent it has.
Her criticism now lands less on the president himself and more on the institutions and individuals she says have refused to rein him in. Harris maintains her warnings about a second Trump term were accurate. What she says she got wrong is the willingness of so many people with power to say nothing at all.
Harris Urges “Transactional Voters” to Act
Harris urged Americans to approach the ballot box as “transactional voters.” She rejected the alternative of opting out of elections over the broken parts of the system. Plenty has worked and plenty has not, she told Palmer.
Disappointment is no reason to remove oneself from the process, she said, and declining to vote amounts to being silenced.
“And this is not a moment where we can afford to be passive,” she said.
Harris pitched voting as leverage rather than an act of faith, and framed it as a response to the transactional behavior she sees among the powerful. Voters should use ballots to demand something in return, she argued, rather than wait for the system to earn their trust.
Court Expansion and New States
A bigger Supreme Court, new states and a reformed Electoral College all sit on the list of changes Harris has pushed for. She ties them to Democrats winning control of Congress. Such changes would require majorities her party does not currently hold.
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. She added: “’28 doesn’t matter if we don’t do ’26 right.”
Six in 10 Suspect Profiteering
Her comments arrive as the president’s popularity slides with voters, driven by 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 from 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.
A roster of influential figures remains in Trump’s corner despite the slide. Billionaire Elon Musk spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Meta head Mark Zuckerberg and other technology executives have also given the president a continued measure of support as his numbers with everyday voters have sagged.
