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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

When I sat down with Kamala Harris in March of 2017, two months after she assumed her seat in the United States Senate,

the last thing she wanted to talk about was whether she might be a candidate for National Office in 2020.

Instead, we talked about her life, a remarkable story that is not yet well known, but soon will be.

We talked about her rise as a prosecutor, California Attorney General, and Senator, often occupying seats of power that were once all male domains.

Now she's made history again as Joe Biden's pick for Vice President, so it seems timely, on the day the Democratic National Convention opens, albeit virtually,

to share that conversation again. Here's my sit down with Senator Kamala Harris.

Senator Kamala Harris, welcome.

Thank you. It's great to be with you, David.

Good to be with you. Let's start with the name.

Kamala.

Yes.

Because it's a good way into this whole discussion about your interesting life.

Yes, oh, good. Okay.

So it's my name, and it is actually of, it's an Indian name, which is a relatively common Indian name.

And people ask me how to pronounce it.

And so there are many ways, if you were asking my grandmother, she'd say Kamala.

I usually help people pronounce it by saying, well, just think of the hyphen of Kamala, and then I had a law at the end, and that's it Kamala.

And it means actually the lotus flower, which is a very, a symbol that is president in most Asian cultures, and it represents, as I learned it, that, you know, this flower sits on top of the water, but it's roots are grounded in the mud.

And, and that that's where you should be with your, you know, you should be able to do both and have your feet firmly planted, even if, if things look, you know, lovely on top, you still have to keep it grounded.

And seems like a good admonition for today.

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