Call Her a Hypocrite

The cackler joined the #2 podcast in the world to talk about "keeping women safe."

I spent the past week in California enjoying my oldest daughter’s very last collegiate parents’ weekend. [Insert weepy, watery-eye emoji here] We ate, we drank, we cried, we cuddled, we shopped, we walked, and very best of all, we talked politics for days. “OMG, Mom,” Sophie squealed yesterday morning, “did you know Kamala Harris was just on Call Her Daddy?”

Me: “What’s Call Her Daddy?”

Sophie: “Seriously?”

Me: “Never heard of it.”

Sophie: “It’s, like, one of the biggest podcasts in the world.”

I thought she was exaggerating, on account of that part where I literally had never heard of it, but CHD is second only to Joe Rogan in the podcast megaverse. (Who knew?) In 2021, Time magazine called host Alex Cooper “arguably the most successful woman in podcasting” after she signed a $60 million deal with Spotify, a package that was practically peanuts compared to the $125 million contract she recently inked with SiriusXM. As The Atlantic not so gently put it, “If you haven’t heard of Call Her Daddy, please accept my condolences for being old, or male, or otherwise uncool.”

Clearly The Atlantic’s dig was directed at me as somehow, I made it to yesterday-years-old being blissfully unaware of the wildly successful and insanely raunchy podcast. For those similarly not in the know, if you’re curious about Hailey and Justin Bieber’s favorite sexual positions or want to know more about Miley Cyrus’s exploration of her bisexuality or are starving for the intimate details of Tana Mongeau’s threesomes (and foursomes and fivesomes), CHD is your go-to show.

I downloaded the Harris interview to listen to on the plane home last night, but I didn’t get a chance to tune in because I wound up sitting with my new-best-friend Dr. Lindsey Miuccio, an integrative medicine specialist and whip-smart free thinker who spent the flight delighting me with her deep wisdom, side-splitting humor, and a complimentary acupressure session. (For real, if you’re in or around Austin, you need to see this woman.)

I listened to Harris’s CHD interview this morning so you wouldn’t have to, and all I can say is, you owe me one.

Alex opened the show by reminding the “Daddy Gang” [*cringes so hard a blood vessel in my eye bursts*] of the podcast’s fundamental purpose: to cover “mental health, relationships, sex, sexuality, trauma, and the day-to-day issues women face.” Did she mention sex? And lots of it? Just checking. Alex continued to explain her goal for the interview (“not to change your political affiliation”) and how she really struggled with what to cover (“No topic was off limits. Do I talk about the economy? Do I talk about border control? Do I talk about fracking? But then I realized you can hear about all of those issues on whichever news site you prefer. The conversation I’m qualified to have is the one surrounding women’s bodies and how we are treated and valued in this country.”). So basically even though we’re on the brink of nuclear war and cataclysmic, unprecedented, biblical not-so-natural disasters are impacting millions of Americans and Elon Musk is out there dropping Epstein bombshells as I type, it was pretty clear we were in for a 40-minute discussion of abortion.

Alex obviously had diligently done her homework, because she kicked off the Q&A with a hard-hitting question about… Kamala’s mother. Specifically, the host wanted to know what values the oft-referenced presidential hopeful’s own Momala had instilled in her from a young age. (“Blah blah blah something pukey about agency and never hearing the word ‘no.’”) Naturally, this segued beautifully into Alex’s next question: “How have you taken your mom’s advice into your role as VP?”

(Is it just me, or does anyone else find it ironic that Call Her Daddy has a serious mommy complex?)

“A lot of the work I’ve done is about wanting to protect the most vulnerable and restore justice,” Harris boasted. “Could it be more at its core about just the basic right of any individual to make decisions about their own body and not have the government tell them what to do?”

Hahahahaha that’s literally what she said.

Of the prospect that her guest could be the very first female POTUS, Alex had but one pressing question: “What do you think your mother would say?”

“Okay, but let's go back. Let's go backward. [author’s note: But wait! I thought we’re not going back?] When I was first running [for attorney general], it was when my mother was very sick with cancer. She leaned over to me and she said, what's going on with the race? And then she leaned back over and I said, well, mommy, they said they're going to kick my ass. At which point my mother turned her head, looked at me, and had the biggest smile ever. That was my mother.”

So, Kamala’s mom was tickled at the idea of a looming ass-kicking? She just recalled a funny knock-knock joke? She was passing a bit of gas? It’s a mystery!

Alex deftly (?) turned to conversation to sexual assault and abuse, which the pair agreed “nobody talks about!” (I guess they missed #MeToo and the Larry Nassar, Epstein, Penn State, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Catholic Church and Diddy scandals? Weird.) “How do we make this country safer for women?” the interviewer wanted to know. Not shockingly, Harris did not talk about the millions of violent criminals she’s welcomed into America, or the skyrocketing crime rates under her watch, or the gun control laws she supports which would render women unable to protect themselves against violence.

To democrats, “making women safer” only ever means a single, polarizing thing: Fighting “Trump’s abortion bans.”

In the cackler’s words:

“Here's the thing. The thing is that you don't have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn't be telling her what to do. If she chooses, she'll talk to her priest, her pastor, her rabbi, her mom… but not the government. That's what's so outrageous about it, is a bunch of these guys up in these state capitals are writing these decisions because they somehow have decided that they're in a better position to tell you what's in your best interest than you are to know what's in your own best interest. It’s outrageous. Outrageous.”

So to be clear, the guys up in the state capitals have no business deciding what’s in a woman’s best interest… but the Federal Government does. You know, like they did with vaccine mandates. Do the our-bodies-our-choice vagina-hat-wearing protesters realize that giving centralized power to the Federal Government is infinitely more dangerous than letting individual states decide their limitations? We’ve got the depopulation movement’s poster boy pulling all sorts of strings in Washington. Who’s to say the US would never implement a “One-Child Policy” and enforce mandatory contraception, sterilization, and abortion programs like China did? Or even a “No-Child Policy”? Would you actually put something so “outrageous” past them? I certainly wouldn’t.

Alex: “I was raised Catholic and I believe abortion is a sin, but why should we control what someone else is able to do?”

Kamala: “This isn’t about imposing my thoughts on you in terms of what you do with your life or your body. It's actually quite the opposite. It's saying the government shouldn’t be telling people what to do.”

The most amusing part of the whole nauseating exchange was when Alex—bless her heart—dropped what she clearly thought was a bomb of brilliance: “One of the biggest conversations in this election revolves around women’s bodies,” she stated for the eleventeen billionth time. “Can we try to think of any law that gives government the power to make a decision about a man’s body?”

Kamala [cackling and flabbergasted and in complete agreement]: “No. No. No, no, no. It’s… no.”

Really? Tell that to the airline pilots, military, healthcare workers, firefighters, and law enforcement agencies—all of which are male dominated industries—who were forced to inject toxic experimental substances into their bodies. Did the girl-powered pair forget about the mandatory military draft that still exists in this country? How about the paternity laws that can demand DNA testing and substance abuse laws that can mandate treatment? Courts can make decisions about men’s (and women’s) parental and custodial rights. The federal government has the authority to impose quarantine and isolation measures on men (and women) to “prevent the spread of communicable diseases.” But apparently in the face of such a heated, high-pressure grilling about her late, beloved mother, Kamala just couldn’t think of any examples of uber-privileged men being subjected to government control.

While I’m sure the podcast had a host of fawning fangirls drooling over the embarrassingly vapid exchange, it’s the backlash I find admittedly delicious. The Daily Beast rounded up some of the best, most disappointed responses:

• “One of my most favorite podcasts and now I’ll never listen again. Unbelievable.”

• “Call her daddy was more important than the millions who could use aid with rebuilding their homes?!”

• “DONE, this was my fav podcast. I’m 100% disgusted.”

• “Did you discuss the plan for getting all the bodies that got swept into the trees and along the riverbanks in NC during the taping of this podcast?”

• “Probably just lost a lot of followers.”

• “I’m so disappointed, this feels like propaganda and trying to make her look ‘gen z.”

• “Loved CHD from the beginning, but really disappointed you chose to do this one. Why alienate so many of your fans? Especially during a natural disaster when she should have been on the ground helping people.”

• “Damn call her daddy about to be canceled.”

I haven’t had a chance to watch the VEEP’s even more recent 60 Minutes chat yet, but Courageous Discourse posted a summary (TL/DR: she literally said nothing, aside from “the rich must pay their fair share in taxes”), so I think I’ll skip that one. I’ve already exceeded my cackle quota for the week.

I have so many questions for my savvy, spirited followers: Were you aware of CHD? Did you listen to or watch this painful exchange? Can you explain why abortion being federally regulated is more important to Harris supporters than war, immigration, public health, the price of gas and food, our struggling economy, or the peril and devastation gripping entire stretches of the country in real time? Please, spill your thoughts in the comments. (Also, I missed you guys! :)

You need this book. You really do.