As former President Donald Trump stepped up his personal attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over the weekend, calling her “mentally disabled,” the vice president said she doesn’t listen to other people questioning the fabric of who she is.

“I’m really clear about who I am, and if anybody else is not, they need to do their own level of therapy,” she told former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson during a candid interview for their "All the Smoke" podcast that covered everything from co-parenting and cannabis to mental health and her favorite guilty pleasure – Nacho-flavored Doritos. 

One day before her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is set to square off in a debate with GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, who has disparaged her as a “childless cat lady,” Harris called her stepchildren, Cole and Ella Emhoff, “my children,” adding that everyone in her “modern family” is very close because she is very respectful about their relationship with their biological mother.

“The most important thing is that our kids grow up healthy,” she said on the podcast that was recorded last week at her home in Washington. “The thing we role model the most is how to form healthy relationships.”

Harris addressed mental health care multiple times during the 45-minute interview, saying the issue “is probably one of the biggest public policy failures in our country. We have acted as though the body starts from the neck down instead of understanding we need health care from the neck up.”

Growing up in poverty or around any type of violence is trauma inducing — the effects of which often last a lifetime, she said. Harris said early trauma intervention is critical because “if you don’t diagnose it, you can’t treat it.”

She referenced a program she helped develop while district in attorney in San Francisco that brought mental health care professionals to schools to speak with teachers, and her more recent work while vice president, heading the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and investing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in public school mental health professionals.

Harris said her No. 1 rule for protecting her own mental health is “don’t read the comments.” She also said she works out every morning for “mind, body and spirit.” She encouraged people to be intentional about who they have in their lives to applaud their successes and build trust and to find activities they enjoy that also relieve stress.

For Harris, that activity is cooking for friends and family, which she called “my happy place.” 

Answering a speed round of questions, Harris said cannabis should be legalized, that Too Short is the best musical artist in Bay Area history and that if she could invite five people to dinner, it would be her husband, Doug Emhoff; her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris; one of the Tennessee lawmakers expelled from their state Legislature for leading gun control protests last year; Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to be elected to Congress; and Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice.

“For me, it’s about understanding the shoulders I stand on,” Harris said to a final question about what it would mean to her to be the first woman and Black female U.S. president.

“I feel so strongly that you’ve got to leave that door open more than it was when you walked in. That’s what it means to me,” she said before quoting her late mother: “Make sure if you’re the first to do something, you’re not the last.”