Doug Emhoff Interview: Second Gentleman Talks About The Alarming Spike In Antisemitism, 2023 And The VP & How Hollywood Helped Shape His Role

deadline.com:

Hanging on the wall next to a picturesque window view of the White House grounds in Doug Emhoff’s sunlit corner office is a handmade rectangular wood carving with the words, in all caps, “SECOND GENTLEMAN.” When the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris and veteran entertainment lawyer took this newly titled role, it was, as he put it, an “open slate.” The election of his wife as the country’s first female VP meant that, for the first time, there would be a male spouse of one of the White House principals.

Almost three years in to this position, Emhoff said that circumstances, more than anything else, have defined what he does. In the past year in particular, he has become a leading voice on antisemitism, adding to a portfolio that has included such other issues as gender equity and mental health.

The role, Emhoff said in an interview with Deadline this week, has “evolved into helping the administration in any way I could, and unfortunately, with the rise of hate and the rise of antisemitism, even prior to October 7, being the first Jewish person ever to be a White House principal, that was a real natural area for me to jump into.” At the lighting of the menorah on the Ellipse this month, Emhoff talked of his conversations with representatives across the Jewish community via multiple roundtables, meetings with hostage families and other events. “The common denominator of these conversations is that we’re feeling alone, we feel hated, we’re in pain,” Emhoff said in his remarks.

In the interview, Emhoff described not just the horrific nature of the 10/7 attacks but the reactions of Hamas — “the glee, the laughter, makes it so much worse.” What followed has been a “crisis” and “tsunami of antisemitism.” “There is a