Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (D) pushed back on Newsmax host Rob Finnerty after he suggested that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris owed her career to an "unsavory" relationship with him.
Brown spoke to Finnerty Tuesday as the Democratic National Committee held the second night of its convention.
"You dated Kamala Harris for a brief time back in the 1990s," Finnerty explained. "Now she's on the verge of the White House. The convention is happening in Chicago. To me, when I read about this story, that's the power of Willie Brown."
Brown argued that Harris had been a key part of running the city when he was mayor.
"Without you, without your help, is Kamala where she is today?" the Newsmax host asked.
"Absolutely," Brown stated. "She's there based on her skill set."
"As I indicated, she was a part of the city attorney's office in San Francisco, and she earned every bit of everything she was involved in there, and that translates into much of what she talks about on the stage," he remarked.
Finnerty suggested he doubted the former mayor's answer.
"Because you know what the accusation is, and it might be unsavory, but it's that you were together, she was your, you were boyfriend and girlfriend, and you opened doors to her that otherwise wouldn't open up to somebody that young and maybe that inexperienced," the host opined. "I don't see how you didn't give her a leg up."
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"Well, let me assure you that Gavin Newsom is two years her junior," Brown pointed out. "I started his career by direct appointment, ultimately to an elective office, which is now translated into the mayorship of San Francisco, the lieutenant governorship of the state of California, and now the governorship of the state of California and maybe, just maybe, when Kamala Harris has finished her tenure as a president, he may very well be the president that we will next be involved with, and I started that."
