Kamala Harris: “When You Break Things, You Might Get Cut”
FORTUNE: It’s been one year since Vice President Kamala Harris and then-Democratic nominee was coming down to her final days of the 2024 presidential campaign against Donald Trump. She spent 107 days on the road campaigning to earn America’s vote, but it wasn’t enough. In a wide-ranging conversation at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit, Harris joined Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell at the Washington National Cathedral to discuss the growing divides between Republicans and Democrats, how the government is not meeting Americans’ basic needs, and why not inviting Elon Musk to the White House was a mistake.”
ALYSON SHONTELL, MODERATOR, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: There’s another term that women get to have in their careers, which is sometimes a glass cliff. It’s when a job is impossible and you get to have it. Was yours 107 days the ultimate glass cliff? FORMER VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Oh, cliff to me suggests finality, and I’m not into that. But I will say this because I think if you’re raising such a wonderful point you know, like many here, I’ve mentored a lot of people in particular young women and sometimes with a bit of frustration I’ve said to them “Do you think that breaking barriers means you start out on one side of the barrier and just end up on the other side of the barrier?” No. There’s breaking involved. And when you break things, you might get cut. And you might bleed. And it is worth it every single time. It is worth it every single time. But the thing we recognize is it is not without pain.
