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“Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper knew her surprise interview with Vice President Kamala Harris just weeks before the presidential election would enrage fans and spur backlash – but insists she “didn’t care” as the divisive episode was “totally worth it.”
Cooper, who had previously pledged to never feature politicians on her wildly popular podcast, told Forbes in a new cover story that she felt a responsibility to her heavily female “Daddy Gang” to sit down with the failed Democratic presidential nominee, calling the decision a “no-brainer.”
“They reached out to me and I recognized that maybe in a different election it wouldn’t be the case and who knows in future elections what I’ll do, but in this specific election the entire focus is on women’s bodies and we’re losing rights by the days, and so, to have the most popular female podcast, where most women listen to the show in the country, it felt like a no-brainer,” Cooper, 30, told Forbes.
“I am very aware that my audience is very split, and I again take that with responsibility; I don’t want to alienate people but I did feel like I had a sense of responsibility, so I kind of like didn’t care.”
Harris, 60, criticized President-elect Donald Trump for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and spoke of strategies to curtail sexual and other types of domestic violence while passionately recalling how she began her career as a prosecutor during the 40-minute episode.
The interview resulted in a handful of the podcast’s fans fuming at Cooper for not only sitting down with Harris, but then failing to address more pressing matters, like illegal immigration, the Biden-Harris administration’s response to the Hurricane Helene’s devastation, and shocking accusations against her husband, Doug Emhoff.
Cooper, however, dismissed the criticism, explaining that she knew the backlash would be short-lived.
“People say they’re going to cancel me all day. They’re still listening,” she told Forbes.
“It was totally worth it. The noise always comes, the negative, and then it was overwhelming the positivity I saw. It was a lot of people coming forward and speaking up and thanking me. And it also created a lot of conversation, which I was really proud of.”
The Los Angeles-based podcaster, who features discussions about sex and advice for women, also offered to give equal time to Trump, who declined.
Harris’ failed presidential campaign reportedly spent six figures from her $1 billion war chest to build the “Call Her Daddy” set in Washington D.C. — for an interview that has only amassed 911,000 views since being uploaded Oct. 6 — a mere sliver of the viewership Trump scored on comedian Joe Rogan’s show.
Trump’s Oct. 25 appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” — which ran nearly three hours — has more than 52 million views on YouTube.
Rogan has said he was in negotiations with Harris’ team for her to appear, but the plan was scrapped after she refused to travel to his studio in Austin, Texas and imposed a strict one-hour time limit for the interview.
Cooper’s show was the second-best-performing podcast on Spotify last year, behind Rogan’s podcast, and topped the charts among women.
She has interviewed some of the most sought-after A-listers in the business, including Simone Biles, Miley Cyrus, Megan Fox, Katy Perry and Hailey Bieber.
“Call Her Daddy” jumped from Spotify to Sirius XM in a reported $125 million deal in August.
The podcast host also launched Cooper’s Unwell Network platform last year.