Speaking to “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert on Wednesday (March 15), Vice President Kamala Harris was caught off-guard with a question about what is her role in the executive branch.
Harris began her appearance on the show by referencing Colbert’s love of the HBO comedy “Veep,” acknowledging that her life as Vice President is similar to what or depicted in the show.
Pointing to Colbert, Harris said, “I know you love ‘Veep.'”
Colbert replied, “I do! I love ‘Veep,'” before jokingly questioning, “Is it accurate?”
Harris replied, “There are bits of [the show] that are actually quite accurate,” before sharing an anecdote about how a staffer accidentally filled her office with smoke because the staffer lit the fireplace without opening the flue.
Harris revealed she had recently met the “Veep” star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus before Colbert steered the conversation in the direction of how Harris and the fictional Vice President have in common.
Colbert mentioned that Veep’s central premise revolved around how Louis-Dreyfus’s character, Selina Meyer, was “frustrated by the sometimes vague duties of the role,” using that to segue to a question about whether that was true for Harris and what her “actual role on a daily basis” was.
Harris mentioned her “privilege of serving with Joe Biden, who… was vice president.”
Harris’s response led Colbert to ask a follow-up question, “Does [Biden] understand what it’s like to be vice president?”
Harris replied with a meandering response that included sharing how she and Biden came into office during the pandemic, and because of that, she and Biden had to “cover a lot of bases,” describing Biden as an “extraordinary leader.”
The Vice President continued that Biden is the “only one person who sits behind that Resolute Desk,” adding, “the decisions [he] has to make are the decisions that nobody else in the country can make.”
Colbert reacted, “That’s an excellent answer,” before reminding Harris that “the question was what’s the job of the vice president.”
