Call Her Daddy host says she was in discussions with Trump team, only wanted to talk abortion with Kamala: NYT

Speaking at the New York Times' DealBook Summit in New York City on Wednesday, Cooper explained that while she wasn’t looking to dive deeply into politics, she saw the potential for a more meaningful conversation with Harris.

Cooper says she wanted to broaden the scope of the podcast and discuss important issues that mattered to her audience, namely abortion.

Cooper shared that both the Trump and Harris campaigns had contacted her team about appearing on Call Her Daddy. “We had a Zoom call with Trump’s team, but I wasn’t part of it... I thought, how do we take this to the next level?” she recalled. "Kamala seemed like the perfect fit for the conversation I wanted to have."

The focus of the interview with Harris, which came out in early October and received only a fraction of the views that podcast appearances by President Trump have received, was focused on abortion rights.

Cooper explained, “It was a chance to talk about something important to my audience—women's rights. Why not have someone with such influence on the show?”

After the interview, some viewers questioned why she didn’t ask Harris about other issues, such as the border. “I’m not here to regurgitate what you can find on CNN,” Cooper said. “My audience cares about real conversations, and that’s what I wanted to deliver.”

Cooper also addressed rumors that the Harris campaign spent a huge amount of money to recreate the Call Her Daddy studio for the interview. “That’s not true,” she said. “The studio in Los Angeles is gorgeous, but it doesn’t cost six figures.”

During the conversation, DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Cooper if she thought Harris should have appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast like Trump had. Cooper responded diplomatically, saying, “I’m not the Vice President, so that’s up to her. But I think she could’ve held her own with Joe... I just did my job.”

Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, was Spotify's most-listened-to podcast in 2024, followed by Call Her Daddy, but Cooper said, "I don’t think about Joe every morning. But I respect what he does.”

In 2024, Cooper signed an exclusive deal with SiriusXM worth up to $125 million, which marked the end of her exclusive contract with Spotify. When asked if she was being groomed to replace Howard Stern, Cooper made it clear that she wasn't trying to emulate anyone. “I don’t need to be compared to these men," she said. "I’m not trying to be the next Howard Stern.”