Questions for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

Here's what I'd ask the candidates at tonight's debate

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As with everything Trump-related, coming up with a list of questions for tonight’s debate feels like an exercise in false equivalence. Kamala Harris is flawed the way most candidates well within the parameters of normal U.S. presidential politics are flawed. She has flipped on a number of issues (which as a general principle is fine in my book, so long as they’ve flipped to the right side). She’s vague on other issues. Her policy positions don’t always support her stated principles. And she has proposed a number policies that are pandering and have in the past proven to be either ineffective or counterproductive.

Trump, meanwhile, wants to put people in my profession in prison. He’s promising to use the Justice Department and criminal justice system to seek retribution toward his political opponents. He is calling for the forced deportation of 21 million people (a number that seems to get larger every time he mentions it). His anti-immigration rhetoric has also grown increasingly eliminationist, to the point where just this past weekend he was explicitly braying for immigrant blood. He’s promising policies — 20 percent tariffs across the board, the mass deportations — that will all but guarantee a recession, will almost certainly spark a global trade war, and could easily ground the economy into a depression. He has a proven record of contempt for democracy, openly adores dictators and authoritarianism, has engaged in brazen corruption, and as we near election day, has all but guaranteed violence if he doesn’t win. He has also surrounded himself with aides who have openly promised to imprison their enemies, send the military to squelch dissent, round up undocumented people (and, likely, a lot of people who merely “look” undocumented) and impose his will on places where elected officials aren’t making the decisions he would make.

Trump also responds to questions he doesn’t like with a firehose of lies. He’s utterly shameless about it. So asking him to explain past lies, exaggerations, or hypocrisies feels like a pointless exercise. He’s just going to lie again. I mean, sure, go ahead and ask him what he makes of the fact that nearly every economist in the world thinks his plan to fund the federal government with tariffs is a terrible idea. He’ll just point to the one economist who doesn’t and call the rest part of the deep state.

To ask one candidate, “How do you explain these inconsistencies in your record?” while the other demands questions like, “Will you reappoint the guy who thinks Tom Hanks and Bill Gates drink the blood of trafficked children to the most sensitive national security position in U.S. government?” feels like a futile attempt to impose some sort of unearned reality on the laziest, stupidest political dystopia imaginable.

And yet here we are.

So here are my questions . . .

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Questions for Kamala Harris

• You said in the 2020 primary that you’re opposed to the death penalty, echoing the position you took as San Francisco District Attorney. But in between, as California Attorney General, you appealed a federal court ruling finding the death penalty in the state to be unconstitutional. Many constitutional lawyers believe that if you had not appealed, the ruling could have ended capital punishment in the state. Your previous explanation — that as AG it was your job to defend state law — isn’t persuasive, given that (to your credit) you also declined to defend a state law declaring same-sex marriage unconstitutional. So why did you decide to appeal that ruling? Do you regret doing so?

• This year, the DNC removed any reference to the death penalty from the party platform. It’s the first time there’s been no criticism of capital punishment in the platform since 2004, and a marked departure from the 2016 platform, which read, “We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It has no place in the United States of America.” Why was the death penalty removed from this year’s platform entirely?

• President Biden also said during the 2020 campaign that he is opposed to the death penalty. Yet his administration has continued to defend and seek death sentences in federal cases. Do you agree with those decisions? Would your administration continue to seek and defend federal death sentences? Would you consider commuting all current federal death sentences?

• You have touted your role in prosecuting the founders of Backpage, the online classified ad site that you and other public officials accused of knowingly facilitating sex trafficking. The relentless campaign resulted in the suicide of one of those founders, while the other, a 76-year-old-man, faces years in prison. What do you make of the investigative reporting showing that Backpage actually did assist in sex trafficking investigations, and also took measures to prevent the exploitation of minors? Do you have any response to sex workers who say that the dissolution of Backpage has made their jobs more dangerous, not less, and that the absence of a transparent hub for sex work advertising has pushed sex work further underground, which has facilitated more trafficking, not less?

• Do you believe sex work is legitimate work? Do you think it should be legalized or decriminalized? In recent years we’ve seen DHS-led task forces and partnerships with local law enforcement lead years-long investigations that, in the end, result only in the arrests of consenting adult sex workers. Would your administration continue these investigations?

• In June, President Biden implemented a new policy that allows border agents to turn back virtually all asylum-seekers without a hearing to adjudicate their claims. This was supposed to be a temporary policy to address the surge in border traffic. But the administration recently announced that Biden will make that policy not only permanent, but nearly impossible to repeal. Immigration advocates say this would all but end the United States’s long history as a country where persecuted and politically oppressed people can seek refuge. Do you support making these policies permanent? Do you agree with the assessment that doing so would effectively end political asylum in the U.S.? Are you okay with that?

• As district attorney, you defied San Francisco’s policy as a sanctuary city by reporting undocumented juveniles who had been arrested to federal authorities for deportation before their charges had been adjudicated. According to the New York Times, your policy led to at least 100 deportations of juveniles, all of whom were brought to the U.S. as children, and many of whom were then deported to countries they’ve never known. You and your campaign have said in the past that you had no choice in the matter, and that it was the “unintended consequence” of a city policy aimed at protecting the city’s sanctuary policy. But multiple fact checking outlets spoke to city officials at the time — including many who support your campaign — who said this is a mischaracterization of what happened. They say turning these kids over to the federal government was the policy, not the unintended result of some other policy. What do you say to those claims?

• You invited members of the Central Park Five to speak at the DNC, where they made a powerful statement against your opponent, who infamously took out a full page ad in the New York Times calling for the now-exonerated men to be executed. Although you didn’t personally prosecute the case, while you were DA your office convicted at least one man — Jamal Trulove — who was later exonerated. Are there any policies or practices you could have had in place that would have prevented that conviction? What responsibility do DAs have to prevent wrongful convictions — by themselves or by their subordinates?

• The Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 limited the ability of federal courts to review state convictions, both for innocence claims and for violations of the constitutional rights of the accused. The Roberts courts has further eroded federal review of state convictions, most recently siding with Arizona in a case in which that state argued that “innocence isn’t enough” for federal courts to prevent a state execution. Would you support revising or repealing AEDPA?

• As a U.S. senator, you sponsored a bill to provide supplemental federal funding to public defenders offices around the country. Would you support a similar bill as president?

• As California Attorney General, you defended some state laws when they were challenged in court, but declined to defend others. As president, you will appoint the U.S. Solicitor General, who represents the U.S. government in federal court. Traditionally, that office has reflexively defended every federal law, every federal policy, and argued in favor of policies that favor police and prosecutors. But beginning in the Obama administration, we saw a few rare instances in which the OSG declined to defend some federal laws. What current federal laws or policies would your administration defend in court? What laws or policies would you decline to defend? Are there any laws or policies that your administration would ask a federal court to overturn?

• You made a vague, but highly-publicized promise to fight “price gouging” at the federal level. Some critics suggested you’re proposing price controls, which history has shown to be ineffective at best, and economists say can cause mass shortages. Some of your campaign surrogates have suggested your plan is not about price controls, but merely a federal version of existing state laws against price gouging during emergencies like hurricanes. But you’ve made this promise in the context of discussing inflation and grocery prices, which suggests a policy that would be neither temporary nor limited to scenarios like natural disasters. In a report last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas said inflation is primarily due to job growth, wage growth, and increased consumer demand, not corporate price gouging, which suggests you’ve misdiagnosed both the problem and offered the wrong solution.

  This has led to further criticism that instead of speaking plainly to voters about inflation, you’re trying to have it both ways — making voters think you’re going to lower their day-to-day grocery prices by promising to take on corporate greed, while your advisors privately tell journalists and economists that you’re simply proposing anti-gouging policies that would only apply during emergencies.

  Can you provide more specifics about what your administration would consider “price gouging,” and under what circumstances you would take action against it?

• The current head of the ATF, appointed by President Biden, participated as a U.S. Attorney in notorious “stash house” stings in which informants working for federal law enforcement agencies enticed poor, sometimes mentally ill or mentally disabled people into committing crimes they otherwise wouldn’t have committed. We’ve seen similar “stings” in which FBI agents have baited Muslims, social justice activists, and far-right sympathizers into committing crimes. As a former prosecutor and state attorney general, do you think this is an appropriate use of federal law enforcement powers and resources?

• More generally, critics have long argued the FBI is too focused on ideology — that is, in finding extremists and then baiting them into committing crimes — than on more proven methods of investigation. Do you agree? Do you have any ideas on how to reform or change the culture in federal law enforcement? Does it need changing?

• You have said that you support Israel’s right to defend itself and that you would continue supply Israel with weapons, but also that you will not remain silent to the suffering in Gaza. But so far, Israel has not relented from its campaign in Gaza with U.S.-supplied weapons, despite admonitions from the Biden administration. And Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel will maintain a permanent military presence in Gaza, again despite opposition from both the U.S. and most of the developed world. So what specifically would your administration do differently?

• To its credit, the Obama administration formed a Forensic Science Commission to look into how bad forensics may be corrupting the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, Obama’s Justice Department also largely rejected the commission’s findings, the Trump administration then disbanded the commission, and the Biden administration hasn’t shown as much interest in these issues. Do you think bad forensics are a problem in the criminal justice system? Would you consider requiring federal agencies like the FBI to subject its forensic methods to independent evaluation by scientists instead of allowing them to self-regulate?

• Some advocates for formerly incarcerated people have objected to the “prosecutor versus felon” way your campaign has framed this election. They say a felony record can be debilitating when it comes to rehabilitation and reintegration, and that the sort of rhetoric your campaign is using only contributes to the problem. What is your response to them?

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Questions for Donald Trump

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• You have called for the execution of drug dealers. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who just endorsed you and whom you have praised, has been credibly accused of selling drugs. If those allegations can be proven true, should Kennedy be executed? Will you investigate the allegations before giving a possible drug dealer a position in your administration?

• Rep. Ronnie Jackson, another supporter and also your former personal physician, has also been credibly accused of illegally distributing controlled substances like Xanax and Adderall while he ran the White House medical office. If Jackson could be charged and convicted in court, would you call for his execution?

• Ivan Raiklin — a supporter of yours who also previously worked in the Defense Intelligence Agency and who is credited with positing the idea to pressure Mike Pence to certify fake electors — has said he’s keeping an “enemies list” of people he plans to have arrested and imprisoned after you take office. Raiklin says he plans to assemble a team of sympathetic sheriffs and ex-military to carry out his plan. His list apparently includes pundits, politicians, prosecutors who have brought charges against you, and journalists. Do you disavow Raiklin’s plan? Do you support it?

• The number of people you say you will deport once you take office has grown from 15 million to 20 million to now 21 million. How many undocumented people do you think are currently in the U.S? Nearly every immigration expert has said that it will be impossible to deport that many people without also deporting thousands, possibly tens of thousands of legal residents and U.S. citizens. Does that concern you? Does it matter?

• By most estimates, your deportation plan would require a police force larger than the U.S. Army, and would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. How do you plan to pay for it?

• It’s also unlikely that your plan to staff that force with National Guardsmen and local police will get you to the staffing levels you’ll need. Do you plan to deputize private citizens or militia groups to carry out deportations?

• Every other effort to forcibly migrate that many people has resulted in mass death. Does that concern you at all? Is it something you’re interested in preventing or, like child separation, do you think the risk of death in one of the internment camps you’ve proposed is a good disincentive for migrants who want to come to the U.S.? If you do think mass death would be a bad thing, how will your mass deportation plan be different?

• Your plan is contingent on the willingness of the home countries of undocumented immigrants to take them back. But your saber-rattling at Mexico, your denigration of the developing world as “shithole countries,” and the general cruelty and barbarity of your deportation plan all likely mean that most of those countries won’t cooperate. Where will you send these people if their home countries refuse to take them back?

• You have frequently made a vague promise to confer “immunity” on law enforcement officers. In this context, immunity typically means protection from civil liability, though you seem to have suggested you’d give them immunity from criminal charges as well. But you also just filed a lawsuit against the FBI agents you say have politically persecuted you, and you’ve frequently called for state and federal law enforcement and prosecutors who have investigated and charged you with crimes to be imprisoned.

  So what exactly do you mean when you say police should have “immunity?” Do you mean immunity from lawsuits or from criminal charges? Should all law enforcement get immunity except those who have wronged you? You and your allies? Who gets to decide which law enforcement officers and prosecutors get immunity, and which don’t?

• You said in April that the U.S. needs more immigrants from “nice” countries like Denmark and Switzerland. Critics have pointed out that those happen to be majority white countries, while the places you have called “shithole” countries have majority non-white populations. Do you think the U.S. should take in more white immigrants and fewer non-white immigrants?

• In private emails, your longtime aide, advisor, and the architect of your deportation plan Stephen Miller has been explicit about his preference for white immigrants, spreading the writings of bigoted “race science” advocates who make sweeping claims about race and characteristics like intelligence and criminality. Do you think Black people are genetically inferior to white people? Do you think any race is genetically superior to another? Do you think Black or Latino people are genetically predisposed to commit crimes?

• Do you think the left and “wokeness” are a threat to free speech and the First Amendment?

• Are there any journalists whom you think should be imprisoned for what they’ve written about you? If so, which journalists specifically?

• Do you support the efforts of governors like Gregg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, and others to prohibit public colleges and universities from teaching critical race theory, the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws, systemic racism, the destruction of Native Americans and their culture, gender studies, and other topics deemed “woke” or “politically correct?” Should these topics be prohibited at private universities, too? Is there any setting in which you think it should not be illegal to discuss them?

• You’ve said that you think burning the American flag should be a crime. Are there any other forms of expression or specific ideas that you think are too dangerous to legal, either written or spoken? If so, could you provide some examples? Should it be illegal to burn a Bible? A Koran? The Bhagavad Gita? The Tao Te Ching?

• Do you think it should also be illegal to desecrate the American flag by means other than burning? For example, there’s a long tradition of artists appropriating the flag to demonstrate their objection to U.S. policy, often by desecrating it in some way. Should that be illegal? Should it be illegal for a group like Antifa to superimpose its symbols or imagery onto a U.S. flag? What about superimposing images of celebrities, politicians, or cult leaders?

• You have called your opponent a “Marxist.” What does that mean, exactly? Has she called for the nationalization of any industries? The abolition of private property? Has she called for working class people to rise up and revolt?

• You have said you will deny federal funding to any public school that requires students to be vaccinated. Just to be clear, are you talking about all vaccines, including for diseases like polio and rubella? Do you believe those vaccines are ineffective or unnecessary? Public health experts say this would cause a spike in diseases that once were nearly eradicated. Do you disagree with those experts, or do you think a spike in children with polio, measles, or whooping cough is a price we should be willing to pay for the freedom to attend public school without vaccinations?

• You’ve said you’d consider appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to your administration. In what role? What are the policy areas over which you plan to give him influence or authority?

• Do you think people like Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama are part of an international sex trafficking operation? Do you think they drink the blood of children?

• Are you still considering appointing Michael Flynn, who has expressed his support for QAnon, to a high-level position in your administration? Will you give him another position that gives him access to classified information?

• While you were president, you often said critics of you and your administration were guilty of treason. Should it be illegal to criticize sitting U.S. presidents? What about mocking or ridiculing them? Lying about them? How about publicly questioning the country of their birth, and thus their eligibility to be president?

• Have you done anything in your life for which you are truly sorry? If so, what was it?

• Which of the following do you think is the bigger problem in the U.S. today:

  Racism and discrimination against white people, or racism and discrimination against black people?

  Sexism against men, or sexism against women?

  Bigotry against Christians, or bigotry against Muslims or other non-Christian religions?

  Discrimination against LGTBQ people, or discrimination against people who don’t approve of LGTBQ people?

• Do trans people have the right to exist? That is, should they be free to live their lives as the person they believe themselves to be? At what point, if any, should government step in and tell them they can’t?

• Do you think, as many in your party have claimed, that it’s inappropriate or a form of “grooming” to teach elementary-aged children about gay people? Nothing related to the act of sex — just the fact that some people have romantic love for and want to marry other people of the same sex?

• You’ve celebrated the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade as a much-needed decision that returns the abortion issue to the states. Are you okay with the laws in some states that now require a woman who was raped to carry her rapist’s child to term? How about states trying to make it a crime to travel to other states to obtain abortions? Do you think a mother should have to carry a nonviable pregnancy to term, as the laws in some states now require?

• You claimed for months that only you could persuade Putin to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and that you would only do so if you were elected. If you had the power to persuade Putin to release an American he was holding captive, why wouldn’t you persuade Putin to release him immediately instead of using it as a campaign issue? And what does it say about your purported influence with Putin that, despite your public pronouncements, he released Gershkovich to the Biden administration?

• Here’s a list of current world leaders. Could you rank them in terms of how much you admire them, their policies, and the way they lead their countries?

  Justin Trudeau, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orbán, Olaf Scholz, Emanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman.

  If you could assume their powers and leadership style as president of the United States, which leader would you want to emulate?

• What was the biggest mistake you made during your first term?

• If you’re declared the loser in this election, will you call on your supporters to commit violence to overturn the results? Will you ask them not to commit violence?

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