In a perfect world, Kamala Harris would never have to encounter the phrase “Daddy Gang.” Sadly, that is not the world we live in, because the woman running to be the first female president of the United States has now appeared on an episode of the podcast Call Her Daddy, which was released Sunday. Fans of the podcast, hosted by Alex Cooper, are known as the Daddy Gang, and Harris wants their votes. “I urge all the Daddy Gang, don’t hear ‘No,’ just don’t hear it,” Harris said at one point during the episode, as I felt a little life leave my body.

How did we slip into a timeline where a presidential candidate is speaking directly to the Daddy Gang? When the news broke last week that Harris would appear on the podcast, it raised eyebrows, especially because Harris has faced criticism for not doing more interviews this election cycle. (Harris is planning a media blitz this week, with appearances on 60 Minutes, The Howard Stern Show, and more.) But it also made a certain amount of sense: Call Her Daddy is one of the most popular podcasts around, second only to Joe Rogen on Spotify, with a high listenership among young women especially. If Harris wants to reach young female voters, this is a way to do it.

And yet Call Her Daddy is not an un-controversial choice for a campaign stop. The show originally gained a reputation for its raunchy discussions of sex, back when it was co-hosted by a pal of Cooper’s, Sofia Franklyn. Franklyn and Cooper split in 2020 (fans sometimes refer to as “the divorce”), and since then, Cooper has set about retooling and professionalizing the show. She’s been paid handsomely along the way, most recently landing a $125 million deal with SiriusXM. In its current incarnation, the show still includes frank discussions of sex, but now they’re much more likely to be in the form of a celebrity interview than Cooper dishing about her personal life. These days, Call Her Daddy “has become an A-list press stop for the likes of Megan Fox, Priyanka Chopra-Jonas and John Mayer,” as the Wall Street Journal put it earlier this year. You may remember Gwyneth Paltrow getting a bunch of attention last year for talking about sex with her famous exes like Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck—the source of that was none other than a Call Her Daddy interview. Clips of these episodes frequently go viral on social media, leading to even more exposure beyond the podcast listenership.

Cooper has succeeded in creating a space that celebrities feel comfortable getting vulnerable in. Some have suspected that she allows guests to dictate the topics, but she told the New York Times earlier this year that she does not provide questions in advance or allow publicists to sit in on interviews. Nevertheless, she also doesn’t probe too hard—a recent interview with Katy Perry earned widespread criticism for not holding Perry to account for her decision to work with a controversial producer. Celebrities seem to understand that they’ll never be truly challenged in a setting like Call Her Daddy, and it’s part of why they increasingly seem to be choosing it and outlets like it over traditional media. In this context, Harris’ choice to go on Call Her Daddy might register as a little disappointing, but it also seems fine—Harris will have other interviews where she’s challenged. This was something else.

In an introduction to the episode, Cooper explained that she usually tries to steer clear of politics, acknowledging that her show’s audience has a range of political views. Still, she felt compelled to be part of the conversation given how much this election has focused on women and women’s issues. To keep things fair, she said she also offered to do an interview with Donald Trump, which he has not yet taken her up on. (Despite these caveats, the episode seems to have generated a fair amount of backlash.)

I was a little afraid Cooper was going to ask Harris her favorite sex position. Instead, through issues like reproductive rights and student loans, the episode mostly consisted of Harris using the 40 minutes to pitch herself to the Daddy Gang. Yes, that was the dynamic; Cooper had the upper hand. Early on, she asked Harris what made her want to do Call Her Daddy, a question that struck me as a bit self-centered, like when people on reality TV dating shows ask their suitors what attracted them. I suppose everyone just wants to be told they’re special. And Harris needs the Daddy Gang, not the other way around. Cooper has said in interviews that she’s rejected other politicians’ offers to come on the show. And even though I felt Harris was slightly debasing herself and pandering to Gen Z by going on the show at all, she proved capable of doing so with dignity and a casual air. (Hillary Clinton’s podcast appearances in 2016 were much more labored in comparison.)

Cooper has already been outspoken on reproductive rights and sexual health. In a recent episode, she broke with the podcast’s usual format to tell the story of a years-ago trip to Paris with a regrettable hookup that resulted in her contracting a version of HPV she had to treat with a painful procedure on her cervix. It was harrowing, and I wonder if it’s part of what attracted Harris’ team to the show. Still, in the pair’s discussion of abortion, I didn’t learn much, and they avoided specifics. At times, it seemed less like an interview than two people who agree on a topic spurring each other on with “Yes, and… ”s. You know that meme, “It’s Always 2 Dumb Bitches Telling Each Other ‘Exactlyyyyy’”? It was a little like that.

Cooper can be a divisive host. Some fans miss the old, coarser days of the podcast. Some have complained about the softball interviews. Personally, I’ve struggled to see what’s compelling about her. She doesn’t come off as particularly well-informed or clever, filling the void with the endless overuse of “fuck” and the same annoying hand gestures that are all over TikTok and drive me crazy. All of this were on full display during the Harris interview, as when Cooper pinched her fingers together for emphasis, with her hoodie sleeves half-covering her hands.

I guess you could say she’s not for me. But I don’t actually know any women who listen to or profess to be big fans of Call Her Daddy. I know this means I must be living in a bubble to some degree, but I’ve long thought the amount of hype she gets is strange. Landing the Harris interview only further confirms Cooper’s golden status, of course. The WSJ quoted an NBC executive who hired Cooper for the Olympics—oh yes, she was at the Olympics this summer too—who seemed to do so partly on her 20-year-old daughters’ recommendation. “She’s this generation’s Oprah Winfrey,” the exec crowed. Is Alex Cooper just an old person’s idea of a popular young person? But Oprah’s audience at its peak dwarfed Cooper’s, and it’s a weird consequence of the fracturing of media that Cooper would be treated as a similar level of kingmaker. She’s a specific taste, for specific people. It goes to show that the media and candidates alike are grasping at straws to reach people—it feels like every week some newsmaker appears on a huge podcast I’ve never heard of. Remember when Obama went on something called I’ve Had It recently? Me neither!

The real problem with the Harris episode is that it is not particularly fun: Listeners who come to the pod because they enjoyed Miley Cyrus talking about how she likes to decorate her house with dildos or Lil Dicky on his early sexual humiliations may be disappointed. Or they may find it refreshing that Harris chose to reach out to a young woman whom they look up to. Again, who is this mystery audience anyway? In election seasons, journalists race to interview undecided voters, but when it turns out that they’re just not paying attention, it can feel unfair that these are the people who are deciding the election. I feel similarly about Call Her Daddy fans—why must it fall on Daddy Gang to decide the fate of the free world? But I guess I’ll take it. Even if I don’t want to call anyone daddy, it would be nice if we can all agree to Call Her President.