Throughout her political career, Vice President Kamala Harris has taken time during speeches and public events to define events or issues that most people are already familiar with.
It’s a strange phenomenon that now follows Harris as she takes on the 2024 presidential campaign in place of Joe Biden, who spectacularly dropped out of the race last month.
Harris has a unique style of simplifying his answers to the point where they become more confusing to the general audience and often elicit uncomfortable laughter.
At other times, Harris dodges the question by defining the topic under discussion in simple terms but without offering a clear answer, leaving audiences and presenters baffled.
And he does so in his signature “word salad” style that often further complicates his responses.
DailyMail.com looks at the most embarrassing explanations given by the presidential candidate over the years:
US Vice President Kamala Harris holds a roundtable in her office
In November 2021, Harris was asked what the Biden-Harris administration would do to combat inflation.
“Let’s start with this,” Harris replied. “Prices have gone up and families and individuals are faced with the reality that bread costs more and gasoline costs more.”
He continued: “We have to understand what this means. It is about an increase in the cost of living. It is about having to make intensive use of limited resources.”
Harris said she and Biden took the issue “very seriously” and that it was a “priority” for the administration.
In February 2023, Harris gave a speech at a Congressional Space Medal of Honor ceremony, explaining to NASA astronauts what it was like to blast off into space on a rocket.
‘Bob and Doug returned to Kennedy Space Center. They suited up, greeted their families and rode an elevator up nearly 20 floors,’ he began. ‘They buckled into their seats and waited while the tanks below filled with tens of thousands of gallons of fuel. And then they took off.’
“Yes, they did,” Harris continued, laughing awkwardly as the audience failed to react.
As a California politician, Harris prides herself on being at the forefront of public policy and technology, but she tends to get bogged down when discussing the issues by trying to explain how they work.
Vice President Kamala Harris gestures while delivering a speech on artificial intelligence
US Vice President Kamala Harris listens during a meeting at the White House
In February 2022, Harris felt it necessary to take time to remind her audience what people use the internet for, including work, school, and entertainment.
In September 2010, then-San Francisco District Attorney Harris attempted to explain what cloud computing was.
“It’s on your laptop and so it’s up here in this cloud that exists above us, right? It’s not in a physical location anymore,” he said.
Harris also spoke about technology when she assumed the title of “Artificial Intelligence Czar” and hosted an event about it in the Executive Office Building.
“I think the first thing to articulate on this topic is that AI is a somewhat sophisticated thing,” Harris said. “First of all, it’s two letters. It stands for artificial intelligence, but ultimately it’s machine learning.”
During a debate on infrastructure, Harris attempted to further simplify the term, telling her audience it was about transportation and getting places.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 on August 8, 2024 in Wayne, Michigan.
“You have to be able to go and be able to get where you need to go to get the job done and get back home,” he explained.
As Biden’s reelection campaign approached, Harris focused on a message about the importance of democracy, but first took time to explain what it meant.
“On the one hand, it’s an incredible force,” she began in a podcast interview, spending a lot of time talking about how “fragile” she was, too.
But Kamala Harris isn’t opposed to just talking about the seriousness of democracy — she also revealed the best way to cook a Thanksgiving turkey ahead of an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart in November 2019.
Capehart recorded it.
Vice President Kamala Harris at the 30th Essence Culture Festival
At the 2023 Essence Culture Festival in July, Harris was asked what culture meant to her, prompting a lengthy explanation of the meaning of culture.
“Culture is a reflection of our time and our times, isn’t it? And culture today is how we express how we feel in the moment and we should always find moments to express how we feel in the moment. That’s a reflection of joy, because, you know, it comes in the morning,” Harris said before laughing at the awkwardness.
Harris also spoke about what the word innovation meant to her during a speech given in March 2023 during a trip to Ghana.
Addressing young people, he explained that innovation was “the ability not only to see, but to do things differently” and “to challenge assumptions, question the status quo and think boldly”, but also his personal motto: “the search for what can be liberated from what has been”.
Harris also explained how electricity works during an event in California.
“Think about it. Every time you turn on a light, charge a laptop, plug in the air conditioner or put leftovers in the refrigerator, you’re relying on power delivered by our nation’s grid of transmission lines,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks during a meeting of the National Space Council
Harris also explained how electricity works during an event in California
After the Biden administration shot down a Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States, Harris was asked in February 2023 to explain why they decided to take action.
“As far as the Chinese balloon is concerned, we shot it down because it was necessary,” he began briefly.
Harris is married to husband Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, and as part of the 2020 Hanukkah celebration, the newly elected vice president spoke about the holiday and why it was important to her.
Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff celebrate Hanukkah
“I love Hanukkah because it’s really about light and bringing light where there is darkness, and there’s a lot of work to be done in the world to bring light…” she began.
His comment angered Orthodox Jews, who felt he was trivializing the importance of the holiday.
Harris attempted to simplify Russia’s war in Ukraine during an interview, where she was asked to explain why it was happening in “simple terms.”
Harris responded: “Ukraine is a country in Europe. It’s next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong.”