I'm James Holman, a columnist for the Washington Post, and this is the inaugural edition of

our new opinion podcast.

Please, go on.

Every Friday, I'll interview someone who's written an important op-ed for our paper.

Sometimes, our guests will be folks you've never heard of, like a prisoner in Florida

sentenced to life for a crime he committed as a teenager.

Other episodes will feature household names, like our first guest, Vice President

Kamala Harris.

James, you're now in the conference.

We're just going to wait on the Vice President just giving you one more.

Vice President Harris has a lot on her plate.

Last week, President Biden announced that she will lead the administration's efforts

on voting rights.

This week, she's been in Central America as part of an effort to address the root causes

of the border crisis.

Ultimately, administration officials recognize that the American people will judge their

success or failure based on their ability to, as Biden's mantra has been for a year now,

build back better from the pandemic.

It gets lost in the news cycle, but the White House's overarching fears,

the past five months, have been around getting control of COVID with shots and arms

and getting the economy back on track.

In that vein, Vice President Harris wrote an op-ed for the post in February,

...