Comedian and pop culture personality Steve Harvey defended sticking to easy questions during an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday.
Harris spoke to Harvey at the 100 Black Men of America conference in downtown Atlanta. While the appearance was not an official campaign event, it occurred amid the Biden campaign’s push to shore up Black support going into the 2024 presidential election.
As Harvey led the conversation about Harris' Economic Opportunity Tour, he explained his intentions to the audience.
"Before y’all start calling my radio show and DM-ing me talking about why you ain’t asked no hard hitting questions - That ain’t what this is," Harvey said. "I’m throwing a lob. This is an alley-oop for a dunk. Because this administration needs to get the word out of what they’re actually doing and what they’re actually accomplishing, so we can stop all this foolishness about ‘What you doing for Black people?’"
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Harvey argued that the administration can't explicitly have an agenda "just for Black people and expect to get in the White House. You got to play the game different. Y’all know what this is. So now this next question is another lob for her to dunk."
He later went on to tell Black Americans they need to vote if they want to be able to ask for anything from the government.
"See, I’m on this radio show, I’m hearing all these people talking about, ‘I’m not voting if they not doing nothing for us,’" he said.
"Listen to me, if you do not vote, the analytics will show [it]," he said. "If we don't vote, how are we going to ask for something next time?"
"If you ain't got no voting power- You talking about reparations? Ain’t nobody finna’ to give you no reparations [if] you don't vote," he said. "Well, you think they finna’ give us some money- no how, man. I hope they do. They owe us. I’ll go down there!"