It finally happened. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, alongside her vice presidential pick Tim Walz, had a sit-down, unscripted interview with a member of the media. The pre-recorded interview with CNN’s Dana Bash aired Thursday night, giving the American people some glimpse into how Harris thinks and communicates her ideas.
There are a couple of things to critique about the interview at the outset. First, that it took six weeks for Harris to agree to speak with the press. Second, it was relatively brief (with Harris getting about 16 minutes of speaking time).
While the interview did include some soft, padded questions, Bash did directly confront Harris and Walz on a couple of fronts.
Bash pointed out that Harris has evidently switched her views on a number of policy fronts since her first attempt at the White House in 2019-20. This includes Harris’ flip from adamantly saying in 2019 that she would ban fracking to now apparently not supporting a ban on fracking. Harris’ answer to explain the change in her views was revealing.
First, she claimed that, actually, she had changed her mind on fracking in 2020, saying she was “clear on the debate stage in 2020” that she had changed her mind since 2019. This is actually false, though Bash didn’t know this at the time.
What Harris said on the debate stage in October 2020 as the vice presidential pick of Joe Biden is, “Joe Biden will not end fracking. He has been very clear about that.” That’s it. She didn’t make “clear on the debate stage in 2020” that she had changed her mind on fracking, only that Biden wouldn’t support a ban on fracking.
Bash still tried to press Harris to explain her thinking, suggesting Harris’ stance on fracking might’ve changed due to “scientific data” or other information. But no, no such explanation emerged from Harris.
Bash also had to ask Harris twice about what she would do Day One as president of the United States, each time getting a vague answer void of much discernible content: “I will tell you first and foremost one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people, I think that people are ready for a new way forward in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by — by hope and by optimism.”
As a generic political speech fragment that’s fine, but it’s not exactly helpful to figuring out what she would do on Day One, as was the question.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, meanwhile, was asked directly about his past misrepresentation that he had been in war. His response: “Yeah, I said — we were talking about in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war. And my wife the English teacher told me my grammar’s not always correct.” What Walz had actually said was, “Those weapons of war that I carried in war.” That’s a bit more than a grammatical issue.
Substance-wise, there wasn’t much to take home from the interview. Stylistically, both Harris and Donald Trump make George W. Bush seem like the greatest orator of our time. And both Harris and Trump have made flip-flopping on issues, once a sin in politics (see: John Kerry), an art form.
These are troubling times for our republic, with Harris and Trump both deeply-flawed messengers of really sloppy ideas.
Alas, these are the best choices the Democratic and Republican parties could come up with.
