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Kamala Harris’ Husband Doug Emhoff ‘Geeks Out’ About Meeting Michael Stipe

Credit: Blake Aued

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff fan-boyed about both R.E.M. and his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, while attacking Donald Trump in equal measure during a speech at a Harris/Walz campaign rally in Athens on Thursday.

“These past few months, she has been the best, most badass version of herself we need her to be,” Emhoff said of Harris, who took over the mantle of Democratic nominee from President Joe Biden in July after his disastrous debate performance.

Emhoff delivered his speech at the Epting Events space on Barber Street in front of about 300 people—a mix of University of Georgia students, longtime Democratic activists and music fans drawn by the promise of a Michael Stipe performance. Stipe later performed four songs backed by two longtime friends, Athens musicians and producers Andy LeMaster and David Barbe, on acoustic guitar. Stipe was not the only celebrity present, though—MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough also covered the rally.

In a conversational and occasionally profane speech, Emhoff contrasted his wife of 10 years’ record with Trump’s. Harris, he said, would cut taxes for 100 million Americans, reinstate the Biden administration’s expanded child tax credit, protect the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and reproductive rights, ban “weapons of war” and address a nationwide housing crisis.

Trump, on the other hand, would cut taxes for the rich again, further erode reproductive rights, appoint Supreme Court justices who would outlaw contraception and gay marriage, oppose gun reforms, try to repeal the ACA again, damage the environment, damage the economy and enact tariffs that would mean “basically, you’ve got to pay more money for stuff” and would enlarge the national debt, Emhoff said.

“This is not only the election of our lifetime, but the election of our nation’s lifetime,” he said. And since Trump lost Georgia by just 11,000 votes in 2020, young people can make the difference, he added.

Emhoff asked the audience to remember the anxiety they felt under Trump—waking up every day wondering what he said or did and being scared to look at their phones—and recounted how Trump mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and cozied up to dictators like Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin. Life under the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade has been “a hellscape” for women, Emhoff said, particularly in Georgia, where ProPublica recently revealed that two women have died because they did not receive proper medical care due to Georgia’s strict abortion law.     

“The only way [Trump] thinks he can win is because of the lies and the gaslighting,” Emhoff said, “because he’s terrible on the issues.”

In particular, Emhoff excoriated Trump for spreading misinformation about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene and claiming that FEMA has done nothing to help the victims in South and East Georgia and elsewhere. “What is so shameful and so reprehensible is the misinformation coming from Trump and his sycophantic cronies,” he said.

Emhoff also taunted Trump for refusing to debate Harris a second time. “He said, ‘I don’t want to do that again,’ after she kicked his ass in the first debate,” Emhoff said.

Blake Aued Former R.E.M. signer Michael Stipe sumps for the Harris/Walz campaign at a rally with Doug Emhoff on Thursday in Athens.

Emhoff’s tone was lighter when discussing music. Earlier that day the self-professed R.E.M. fan since the early 1980s visited Wuxtry Records, where Stipe first met guitarist Peter Buck when both were UGA students in the late 1970s. “I’m nerding out, geeking out right now,” Emhoff said.

Although an attempt to call the Dawgs fell a bit short, Emhoff was not posturing when talking about music. He bought vinyl LPs by New Order and Stone Roses at a Philadelphia record store on the eve of last month’s presidential debate, and Harris recently talked to Howard Stern about his love for U2 and Depeche Mode, and their shared Prince fandom.

After Emhoff left the stage, Stipe shared a story about meeting a friend at a Manhattan restaurant about six years ago when a woman walked up to his table. “My husband loves you, he’s a big fan,” the woman said, according to Stipe. “I’m Kamala Harris.”

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