Did you catch Steve Harvey’s “Funderdome” on ABC? How about “The World’s Best” on CBS, “The Contender” on Epix, or “World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge” on Amazon Prime? Or the Christian-themed dramas “A.D. The Bible Continues” on NBC and “Messiah” on Netflix?No? Well, you’re hardly alone. And the man behind the string of flops is Mark Burnett, the legendary TV producer who shaped Donald Trump’s image from “The Apprentice” through his 2016 inauguration. Like his greatest creation, Mr. Trump — who sought and then lost an idiotic television ratings war on Thursday night with Joe Biden — Mr. Burnett seems to be struggling to keep his grip on the cultural moment.Mr. Burnett’s story has been told often, and until 2016 he was eager to help tell it — how he reshaped American television with “Survivor” in 2000 and how, with the 2004 start of “The Apprentice,” he “resurrected Donald Trump as an icon of American success,” as The New Yorker put it. He’s been in Mr. Trump’s ear ever since: He held a planning meeting for the 2016 inauguration in his Ritz-Carlton apartment, the event’s planner, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, wrote. His associates produced the Republican National Convention this summer, Michael Grynbaum and Annie Karni reported for The New York Times. When President Trump took the presidential helicopter from the hospital to the White House this month, panicked Twitter commentators compared an official video of his triumphal return to the work of the Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. But Mr. Burnett was the artiste whose influence really shined through on the video, though a spokeswoman said he did not consult on it.“The level of production coming out of the White House is something we would have appreciated having,” Bill Pruitt, a producer on the “The Apprentice,” said of the video’s specific camera angles and its particular obsession with helicopters, a longtime favorite prop of Mr. Burnett’s dating back to “Survivor.” “As is customary for this, the reality TV version of a presidential campaign, it seems they’re not striving as much for ‘four more years’ as they are ‘Season 2.’”But that style may have fallen out of fashion. Mr. Burnett, 60, the defining TV impresario, salesman and deal maker of the aughts, hasn’t put his stamp on a bona fide hit since the debut of “The Voice” in 2011. He shaped reality TV’s bombastic, gimmicky and sometimes cruel early years. But the genre has matured and shifted in the streaming age to what are sometimes sweeter and more positive productions, like Netflix’s “Floor Is Lava” and “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.”And Mr. Burnett, until 2016 one of the most prominent figures in Hollywood, has gone dark. His Trumpian gift for telling his own story — about his triumphant reinvention of a once-great studio, MGM, and his plan to bring Jesus Christ to entertainment — has foundered on the reality of corporate infighting, creative struggles and a religious streaming network that never got off the ground.“The impact that he was going to have on the film and Christian community has kind of gone bust,” said Peter Bart, who was a top executive at MGM before a long run as editor in chief of the trade newspaper Variety. “If that’s your main mission and your legacy is Trump and maybe the failure of the next MGM — that’s not a good chapter in his life.”The current chapter of Mr. Burnett’s career began in earnest when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the once-great studio that had recently emerged from bankruptcy, bought out Mr. Burnett’s production company in 2015 for $120 million, consummating an earlier $400 million deal. That put him in charge of the studio’s television division. MGM got his stake in long-running shows like “The Voice” and “Shark Tank,” and the promise of more of his magic. MGM’s chief executive, Gary Barber, blessed the acquisition in high corporate gobbledygook: “We believe this synergistic transaction will be very accretive,” he said in a statement.But with Mr. Burnett inside, Mr. Barber now had a charismatic rival for the affection of the chairman of the company’s board, Kevin Ulrich. One source of tension between Mr. Burnett and his new boss, two former executives said, was the enthusiasm of Mr. Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey, for faith-based programing. The couple are outspoken Christians, and in 2013 they had produced “The Bible” for the History Channel, with Ms. Downey cast as the Virgin Mary. They then founded Lightworkers Media, which MGM now controls, and had hopes that MGM would turn it into a powerhouse.But MGM never invested enough in Lightworkers to turn it into more than some scattered programming and a little-watched television channel, Light TV, showing family-friendly reruns. MGM’s biggest bet through Lightworkers, the $100 million 2016 film “Ben Hur,” lost money. Repeated promises of a high-powered streaming service never materialized.Mr. Burnett’s relationship with Mr. Trump has also shadowed his run at MGM. He had long been part of a kind of media industry kitchen cabinet for the developer, along with CNN’s chief, Jeff Zucker, who had put “The Apprentice” on NBC, and the talent agent Ari Emmanuel. He and Ms. Downey had typically supported Democrats (Ms. Downey wrote a check to Marianne Williamson’s 2014 California congressional campaign), and he said in 2016 that he wasn’t actually supporting his friend’s White House bid.But although Mr. Burnett promised associates that his friendship with the president would be great for business, he was also intensely sensitive to criticism of his old friend. He objected in particular, two people present at the time said, when an MGM board member, Jason Hirschhorn, began sharply criticizing Mr. Trump in his newsletter, REDEF in 2016. Katie Martin Kelley, MGM’s spokeswoman, said Mr. Hirschhorn’s “public statements at the time caused friction for many people at MGM,” and Mr. Hirschhorn, who left the board in 2017, declined to comment.Since the 2016 election, Mr. Burnett has gone to great lengths to keep a public distance from Mr. Trump, batting away suggestions that he helped with the Republican National Convention. “They are not in communication and he had no involvement with any of the president’s public activities around his hospitalization for Covid-19,” Ms. Kelley said in an email.Mr. Trump is just one thread in the internal tension at MGM involving Mr. Burnett. He’s always been a difficult boss, and even before the pandemic, he was a man-about-town deal maker — not an office-bound manager. He’s had so little input in the successes of the company’s scripted division, including “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Fargo,” that the division’s leader, Steve Stark, was recently forced to clarify to The Hollywood Reporter that he still reports to Mr. Burnett. He played a role in the messy 2018 ouster of Mr. Barber, which has left the company operating without a chief executive. Now, MGM is subject to perennial acquisition rumors and dependent on factors it can’t control: It is hoping theaters will be packed for the release of a new James Bond film next year and that the culture will be ready for the return of “Live PD,” a Burnett acquisition that was canceled this summer amid the wave of revolt at police violence.After Mr. Barber’s ouster, Mr. Burnett announced that he and Ms. Downey would raise $100 million to start a Lightworkers subscription service. But those plans, Ms. Kelley said, have been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, though “conversations have and are expected to continue.” For now, Lightworkers is just producing content for MGM, and recently completed production on a feature film called “Resurrection.” It also scaled back its digital presence in July, taking much of its content off the internet, including articles by Charlotte Pence Bond, the daughter of Vice President Mike Pence. (One had the headline, “Are You Narcissistic? Let’s Find Out.”)Mr. Burnett didn’t respond to interview requests directly or through an MGM spokeswoman. After years in the headlines, he is keeping his profile low, and his name didn’t even appear in a recent, gloomy Wall Street Journal assessment of MGM’s finances. Some of his old partners, like Les Moonves at CBS and Paul Telegdy at NBC, have been forced out of their positions, and a new generation of network executives doesn’t jump quite so quickly at his calls. But if he’s not quite the producing star he once was, he’s still closing deals. In 2018, Amazon Prime resurrected a show called “Eco-Challenge,” which Mr. Burnett started producing in the 1990s, though Amazon has dropped plans for a second season, MGM confirmed. When I asked MGM’s chief communications officer, Ms. Kelley, about the perception that Mr. Burnett had lost his creative touch, she responded with a litany of his long-running shows.“In his capacity as an executive producer, he has produced more than 70 seasons of shows for ABC (‘Shark Tank,’ 12 seasons), CBS (‘Survivor’ 40 seasons), Fox (‘Beat Shazam,’ 4 seasons), NBC (‘The Voice,’ 19 seasons), and the most recently launched ‘World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge’ on Amazon Prime,” she said. “Combined, programs where he serves as an EP have generated 18 Emmy wins, and 150 nominations. Burnett’s TV division is consistently amongst the most profitable divisions of MGM.”But the last great question for Mr. Burnett, of course, is Trump TV. Journalists often imagine that Mr. Trump will start a 24/7 news channel to the right of Fox News should he lose the presidency. But the best move of Mr. Trump’s career, tax returns obtained by The Times showed, was in reality, not news — his partnership with Mr. Burnett in “The Apprentice.” My colleague James Poniewozik wrote once that Mr. Trump’s problem is that “now there’s no Mark Burnett to impose retroactive logic on the chaos.”People who have worked with Mr. Burnett say they can’t help imagining that he’s working all the angles on the final, realest reality show of all, following a former president back into the real world. More

When my oldest son was 3 years old we got him into a preschool class at an elite private school across the street from Prospect Park in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.It was more than we could afford — we couldn’t even afford to live in Park Slope, but instead lived in the neighboring Prospect Heights section — but, nervous and stressed by the unreasonable pressure new parents often feel with a first child to give them the absolute best at all costs, we found the money anyway.I thought my son was well adjusted. I had worked evening or late shifts since my son was born. He spent his mornings with me. I took him to the park and to play spaces with other children. He always seemed to socialize well with them. In the interview for the preschool — yes, there was an interview for a 3-year-old — the admissions officer dumped a tub of toys on the floor, watched him play with them, and asked him questions. Apparently, he passed.On the first day of school, I took him to class. He seemed fine, navigating the space with comfort and ease. But, then they told the parents that it was time for us to go. We nervously shuffled out and stood near the door in the hall, peeking through the gaps in the artwork taped to the window.Some of the children cried, but none of them like my son. He threw a full tantrum, fighting and scratching the teachers who tried to calm him, screaming and crying until he finally threw up. I was stunned and anxious and mortified. I came back into the room and they let me take him home. His tiny body heaved in my arms as I walked him home until the crying stopped and he dozed off.I realized that he was always so comfortable when in the park or in play spaces because I was always there. I was the comfort. I was the safety. I was his power.For a week, I took him to class, and the scene repeated itself every day: fighting, scratching, screaming, crying and then the vomit. At which point, each day, I would collect him and take him home.This could not continue. I asked his teachers if I could sit in the back of the class with him — his school day ended at noon — until he got comfortable. They allowed it. So, every day I would sit in the back of the class in a chair design for a preschool — yes, they are very, very, very small and low, like sitting on a small stack of books — with my coffee and newspaper, him glancing over every now and then to make sure that I was still there.When they snacked, I snacked. When they went out for recess, I went out for recess.This went on for months until one day when we were heading out for recess, he turned to me and said, “Dad, it’s OK, you don’t have to come.” And that was it. That was the last day I stayed with him at school.I am reminded of that story now that President Trump is refusing to concede the election and throwing into question whether or not he will peacefully relinquish power: He is acting like a child throwing a tantrum because he is being displaced from his comfort and power. The smattering of states that four years ago handed Trump the presidency abandoned him this year and he is unable to handle that idea.But, my son didn’t hold the power of the presidency. Americans simply don’t have months to let Trump grow up and get comfortable with his loss.So he is doing, and has done, everything in his power to undermine the legitimacy of this election. And, among his supporters, that is working. A poll this week by The Economist/YouGov found that 86 percent of Trump voters believe that Joe Biden didn’t legitimately win the election. That would represent about 62 million voters under Trump’s misinformation spell.Trump is of course being aided and abetted in his deceit by a devout, deceitful conservative press and the conservative cowards in Congress who don’t want to get crosswise with him, even if Trump does damage to our democracy.Trump has essentially thrown in the towel on fighting the surging coronavirus pandemic, instead choosing to fight the will of the majority of the American electorate.Many legislators think that they can simply ride Trump’s anger as he works his way through the stages of grief, finally to acceptance. That’s the mistake they made when Trump was first elected. They thought he would grow into the normalcy of the presidency. He didn’t. He took their silence as license. And by the time they thought they needed to confront him, he had grown too strong for them to do so.Trump is once again taking Republicans’ silence as license, and by the time they speak up, he could be too invested in the idea of resisting the Election Day reality.Trump isn’t only throwing a tantrum, he’s cutting his teeth.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington State, one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent environmentalists, endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president on Wednesday after extensive private conversations in which Mr. Biden signaled he would make fighting climate change a central cause of his administration. Mr. Inslee, who mounted a long-shot presidential campaign of his own […] More

Ms. Harris is struggling to carve out a lane for herself in what may be one of the most consequential periods in the vice presidency.WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris was frustrated. The text of a speech she had been given to deliver in Chicago to the nation’s biggest teachers’ union was just another dreary, scripted talk that said little of any consequence.As Air Force Two made its way to the Midwest over the summer, the vice president told her staff she wanted to say something more significant, more direct. She brandished a Rolling Stone magazine article about the backlash against Florida school officials after new legislation barring the discussion of gender identity in the classroom.The teachers she was about to address were on the front lines of the nation’s culture wars, Ms. Harris told her staff. They were the same ones on the front lines of school shootings. Just blandly ticking through federal funding for education would not be enough. The plane was just an hour out from Chicago, but she said they needed to start over.By the time she landed, she had a more spirited version of the speech in hand, accusing “extremist so-called leaders” in the Republican Party of taking away rights and freedoms.Ms. Harris’s small airborne rebellion that day encapsulated the trap that she finds herself in. She has already made history as the first woman, the first African American and the first Asian American ever to serve as vice president, but she has still struggled to define her role much beyond that legacy.Ms. Harris speaking at the funeral for Tyre Nichols last week.Pool photo by Andrew NellesHer staff notes that she has made strides, emerging as a strong voice in the administration on abortion rights. She has positioned herself as a more visible advocate for the administration, giving a speech last week at the funeral for Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old who was beaten by Memphis police officers. And her critics and detractors alike acknowledge that the vice presidency is intended to be a supporting role, and many of her predecessors have labored to make themselves relevant, as well.But the painful reality for Ms. Harris is that in private conversations over the last few months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol Hill and around the nation — including some who helped put her on the party’s 2020 ticket — said she had not risen to the challenge of proving herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country. Even some Democrats whom her own advisers referred reporters to for supportive quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her.Through much of the fall, a quiet panic set in among key Democrats about what would happen if President Biden opted not to run for a second term. Most Democrats interviewed, who insisted on anonymity to avoid alienating the White House, said flatly that they did not think Ms. Harris could win the presidency in 2024. Some said the party’s biggest challenge would be finding a way to sideline her without inflaming key Democratic constituencies that would take offense.Given that President Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term, Republicans would most likely make Ms. Harris a prime attack line if he runs again.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesNow with Mr. Biden appearing all but certain to run again, the concern over Ms. Harris has shifted to whether she will be a political liability for the ticket. Given that Mr. Biden at 80 is already the oldest president in American history, Republicans would most likely make Ms. Harris, who is 58, a prime attack line, arguing that a vote for Mr. Biden may in fact be a vote to put her in the Oval Office.The Run-Up to the 2024 ElectionThe jockeying for the next presidential race is already underway.Falling in Line: With the vulnerabilities of Donald J. Trump’s campaign becoming evident, the bickering among Democrats about President Biden’s potential bid for re-election has subsided.Democrats’ Primary Calendar: Upending decades of political tradition, members of the Democratic National Committee voted to approve a sweeping overhaul of the party’s primary process.Trump’s Support: Is Mr. Trump the front-runner to win the Republican nomination? Or is he an underdog against Ron DeSantis? The polls are divided, but higher-quality surveys point to an answer.G.O.P. Field: Nikki Haley is expected to join the contest for the party’s nomination soon, but others are taking a wait-and-see approach before deciding whether to challenge Mr. Trump.“That will be in my opinion one of the most hard-hitting arguments against Biden,” said John Morgan, a prominent fund-raiser for Democrats, including Mr. Biden, and a former Florida finance chairman for President Bill Clinton. “It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘Look, with his age, we have to really think about this.’”So far, he said, she has not distinguished herself. “I can’t think of one thing she’s done except stay out of the way and stand beside him at certain ceremonies,” he said.Some 39 percent of Americans approve of Ms. Harris’s job performance, according to a recent aggregate of surveys compiled by the polling site FiveThirtyEight. This puts her below Mr. Biden’s approval rating, which has hovered around 42 percent for the past month.Ms. Harris’s allies said she was trapped in a damned-if-she-does, damned-if-she-doesn’t conundrum — she is expected to not do anything to overshadow Mr. Biden while navigating intractable issues he has assigned her such as voting rights and illegal immigration. And some see a double standard applied to a prominent woman of color.“That’s what being a first is all about,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina and one of the nation’s most prominent Black lawmakers, who has been an outspoken supporter. “She’s got to work every day to make sure she’s not the last.”While Mr. Biden was quoted in a new book by Chris Whipple, “The Fight of His Life,” calling Ms. Harris a “work in progress,” the White House defended her when asked for comment, forwarding a statement from Ron Klain, the president’s departing chief of staff who has been her most important internal ally.Mr. Klain, who served as chief of staff to two vice presidents, said that those who hold that post often “take grief” but go on “to prove skeptics wrong.” He cited Ms. Harris’s outspoken support for abortion rights and her international trips. “She has done all that operating under high expectations,” he added, noting her status as various firsts. “She carries these expectations not as a burden but with grace and an understanding of how much her history-making role inspires others.”Ms. Harris has a fresh opportunity to find her footing with the arrival of the new Congress. Because the Senate was split evenly for the last two years, Ms. Harris has cast 26 tiebreaking votes in her role as president of the Senate, more than any vice president since John C. Calhoun, who left office in 1832. Tethered to Washington, she could never be more than 24 hours away from the Capitol when the Senate was in session in case her vote was needed.Ms. Harris during a trip to Bangkok in November. She has told her staff that she would like to travel more frequently.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWith Democrats now holding a 51-to-49 edge, at least in cases when Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the rogue Democrat-turned-independent, votes with them, Ms. Harris has a little more breathing space. She has told her staff that she wants to make at least three out-of-town trips a week in the coming year.No one feels the frustration of being underestimated more acutely than Ms. Harris, but she makes a point of not exhibiting it publicly. In an interview with The New York Times while she was in Japan last fall, she tried to explain her own political identity..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.“You got to know what you stand for and, when you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for,” Ms. Harris said.What that translates to in tangible terms is less clear. After her disastrous interview with Lester Holt of NBC News in June 2021, in which she struggled to articulate the administration’s strategy for securing the border, White House officials — including some in her own office — noted that she all but went into a bunker for about a year, avoiding many interviews out of what aides said was a fear of making mistakes and disappointing Mr. Biden.Ms. Harris with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas at the southern border in 2021.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesMembers of Congress, Democratic strategists and other major party figures all said she had not made herself into a formidable leader. Two Democrats recalled private conversations in which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented that Ms. Harris could not win because she does not have the political instincts to clear a primary field. Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said she was strongly supportive of Ms. Harris and often spoke with her about shared experiences of being “a woman in power.” He added: “They have built and maintained a strong bond. Any other characterization is patently false.”Advisers and allies trace Ms. Harris’s challenges to her transition from the lawyerly prosecutor she used to be as district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California into a job where symbolism and politics are prioritized.Aides have encouraged her to liberate herself from the teleprompter and show the nation the Ms. Harris they say they see when the cameras are off, one who can cross-examine policymakers on the intricacies of legislative proposals and connect with younger voters across the country.Ms. Harris has acknowledged her reservations about leaning into the more symbolic aspects of her current position.“My bias has always been to speak factually, to speak accurately, to speak precisely about issues and matters that have potentially great consequence,” she said in the interview in Japan. “I find it off-putting to just engage in platitudes. I much prefer to deconstruct an issue and speak of it in a way that hopefully elevates public discourse and educates the public.”Ms. Harris finds herself navigating the unique dynamics of being a woman of color in a job previously filled only by men. In planning meetings before she travels abroad, officials from foreign governments have proposed meetings or public appearances with the first lady of the country Ms. Harris is visiting. Her staff rebuffs those proposals, saying the vice president is not visiting as a spouse but as the second-ranking official of the United States, according to current and former White House officials. There are more mundane hiccups, as well. Jamal Simmons, who recently stepped down as communications director for the vice president, said he learned that the desk chairs in her office needed to be changed to suit Ms. Harris — who stands about 5-foot-2 — instead of the “average male height” of her predecessors. “She forces us to recalibrate our assumptions,” Mr. Simmons said. Ms. Harris has, at times, expressed hesitation to become the face of certain issues. When the Biden administration confronted a shortage of baby formula across the nation last year, Ms. Harris declined a request by the West Wing to highlight efforts to solve the problem by meeting a shipment of formula at Washington Dulles International Airport, one current and two former administration officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the decision. Instead, Jill Biden, the first lady, ended up appearing alongside the surgeon general when the shipment arrived from overseas. (Nearly a month later, Ms. Harris did agree to meet one of the shipments.) Ms. Harris disputes the idea that she is concerned about being assigned — or pursuing — certain tasks solely because of her gender or identity.“I’m fully aware of stereotypes, but I will tell you something: I’ve never been burdened by a sense of ‘I should not do something that’s important because I will be pigeonholed,’” Ms. Harris said during the interview in Japan. She said she had pursued the abortion rights issue, for example, “because I feel it is one of the biggest tragedies that has happened at this level of our government in a very long time.”Ms. Harris, displaying a map showing abortion access, has emerged as a strong voice in the administration on abortion rights.Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesMs. Harris often tells senior aides that she feels most comfortable receiving intelligence briefings or addressing law enforcement officials, venues where she says substance is valued over politics. She has directed staff members to ensure that she is making trips to speak about the administration’s accomplishments, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, and not just the multiple crises it faces. She has also peppered her staff with questions about local abortion access and how the decision overturning Roe v. Wade could lead to criminalization of medical officials.“She has her prosecutor hat on that way,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood, who has watched the vice president try to distill complex health care issues in a way that “everyday citizens” can understand.Advisers and allies trace Ms. Harris’s challenges to her transition from a lawyerly prosecutor into a job where symbolism and politics are prioritized.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAnd months after she revised her Chicago speech aboard Air Force Two, Ms. Harris went through nine drafts before delivering a speech in Tallahassee, Fla., on the 50th anniversary of Roe, in which she asked if Americans can ever “truly be free” if a woman cannot make decisions about her own body.Several attendees said they were encouraged to see a Black woman speaking clearly about how threats to Roe represent a broader threat to civil rights.It was “very powerful for me to see someone with my likeness in this position in this day and age,” said Sabrita Thurman, 56, who is Black.Those close to Ms. Harris hope she can move beyond “defensive politics,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian who organized a meeting at her residence about the legacy of the vice presidency and will attend another session with her this week.“President Biden has to give her more leeway to be herself and not make her overly cautious that a mistake, a rhetorical mistake, will cost the party a lot,” Mr. Brinkley said. “It’s better to let Kamala be Kamala.”Michael D. 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