Former NBA star Matt Barnes admitted he smoked marijuana before an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Barnes and his co-host, former NBA player Stephen Jackson, conducted a roughly 45-minute interview with Harris on his ‘All the Smoke’ podcast.
Speaking on The Dan Le Batard Show after his interview with the Democratic Party presidential candidate, Barnes admitted that he “prepared” his conversation with Harris and did not bring any drugs to the White House.
“Unfortunately I couldn’t smoke in the White House,” Barnes said. “But if she wins, they invited me back and I might have to sneak something in…no, I’m playing.”
‘I smoked before I left. You know what I mean? I previously played while studying. Just like I was watching game film on the morning of game day, I smoked while I went over my questions and summarized the interview, and then headed over there.’
Former NBA player Matt Barnes admitted to smoking marijuana before interviewing Kamala Harris
Barnes and his co-host Stephen Jackson spoke with Harris at his private residence in DC.
Barnes also admitted that he was working on questions for Harris leading up to the interview until the last minute.
“We gave him a skeleton and an outline of the direction he wanted the conversation to take,” Barnes said. ‘And then we were literally making up questions until we got out in the car to go see her.
‘I gave him my proposal on how we wanted to do it, have a good time. “We wanted the country to have the opportunity to get to know her a little better as a person.”
Barnes also told Le Batard that he and Jackson were debating whether or not they should talk to Harris in the first place, mainly because the content would likely differ from the typical topics discussed on the podcast.
“I wanted to get into the weeds, but so did Dan, get to know my fan base and understand that those things are interesting to me, but they may not be interesting to our core audience.
‘So it was really a fine line. Jack and I were like, “Hey, should we do this?” Jack had his reasons and concerns. I was thinking, and we really went back and forth, until the day we left.
“So it wasn’t a clear cut thing like, ‘Hey, this is a tremendous opportunity.’ Let’s jump on it.’ A lot of thought went into this because we know who we are, what we are and what we stand for.
‘Sometimes people don’t want to see them mixed together, although I don’t mind them mixing. It’s not about me. “It’s about our fans.”
Harris was interviewed by former professional basketball players for about 45 minutes.
Vice President Kamala Harris appears at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on September 29.
During the episode released Monday, the three discussed Harris’ loyalty to the Golden State Warriors, but also touched on a host of other topics, from politics to her family to her racial identity, as well as marijuana, where the vice president emphasized that the drug should be legalized.
The interview recorded at her Washington, DC home is the latest in a series of appearances in less traditional media by the vice president as she prepares her run for the White House.
It comes as Harris faces criticism for largely avoiding difficult interviews with journalists who would grill her on the issues, instead opting to appear on friendlier platforms as she works to reach voters across the country.
The vice president has gone more than seventy days without holding a solo press conference since first becoming the presumptive and then official Democratic presidential candidate.
Even as the New York Times editorial board endorsed Harris for president on Monday, it criticized her approach to the media and what appeared to be an effort to avoid unforced errors.
The group of opinion journalists wrote that “leaving the public feeling that they are being protected from difficult questions, as Mr. Biden has been, could backfire by undermining his central argument that a capable new generation is ready to take the reins of power.” ‘
Harris said in the interview that he believes marijuana should be legalized in the United States.
In the interview, Harris professed his love for the Golden State Warriors, a team that both Barnes and Jackson played for.
Harris was San Francisco district attorney during the Golden State Warriors’ ‘We Believe’ season when they were based in Oakland and made a dramatic turnaround.
Both Jackson and Barnes played on the team at the time in Harris’ hometown.
‘Our Warriors are always good, whatever the season, but that was a very special moment,’ the vice president recalls smiling. ‘I mean it was electric. Remember it was electric.
Harris gushed about the team as “the best of the best, legendary” and quickly turned the question back to his hosts to ask what it was like for them to play at that time.
