You can tell the presidential election is really heating up when the White House dispatches Vice President Kamala Harris to do some awards show politicking. On Sunday night (June 30), Harris made a surprise appearance during the 2024 BET Awards in a pre-taped bit paid for by the Biden/Harris campaign in which she sis’d down with fellow Howard University alum and awards show host Taraji P. Henson.

The two spoke to each other on FaceTime, with Henson dialing in from backstage and Harris appearing to connect from her residence as they chopped it up about the HBCU they both attended and Henson confessed to being worried about the upcoming presidential election. “Women’s reproductive rights are on the line, our Supreme Court is on the line,” Henson said. “Our basic freedoms are being tested Madame VP! I know you’ve been traveling across the country, what have you been hearing,” the Color Purple star added.

“Yeah, girl I’m out here in these streets, and let me tell you — you’re right, Taraji, there is so much at stake in this moment,” Harris assured her. “The majority of us believe in freedom and equality. But these extremists, as they say — they ‘not like us.’”

“No, they not,” Henson said in response to Harris dropping the title of the recent Kendrick Lamar Drake diss track that debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100.

Continuing the Biden/Harris campaign’s attack line that former president Donald Trump and his Republican followers are a threat to American democracy, Harris added, “There’s a full-on attack on our fundamental freedoms, the freedom to vote, the freedom to love who you love, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom for a woman to make decisions about her own body and not having her government tell her what to do.”

Elsewhere, Henson very adamantly urged the crowd to keep their eye on the ball. “Its’ time for us to play chess, not checkers. It’s about making decisions that will affect us as human beings… out careers, our next generations to come,” she said, referring to a just-announced Supreme Court ruling that enforces bans on sleeping outdoors that some have said is tantamount to criminalizing homelessness.

“Pay attention, it’s not a secret,” Henson said. “Look it up. They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens. The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up,” she added vehemently about the conservative presidential transition project in place to radically reshape the U.S. government in a fashion that some have said has authoritarian overtones.

Henson also paid tribute to “Not Like Us” elsewhere in the show when she dressed up as K-Dot and performed verses with BET-specific lyrics as her dancers mimicked the moves of Kendrick’s dancers from his recent Pop Out concert.

The appearance by Harris came just days after what was widely viewed as a poor performance by Biden during his first debate with convicted felon Trump, during with the president appeared confused and meandering at times.

Check out Henson and Harris below.