Kamala Harris’s first interview as a presidential candidate was exceedingly short. She appeared on CNN on Thursday night for a mere 25 minutes. And for big chunks of that, her running mate Tim Walz was answering the questions. She spoke for such a small amount of time that CNN had to pad out their 45-minute programme with four ad breaks and footage of Harris and Walz buying brisket on the campaign trail. Such a format does not ooze confidence.
Indeed, her campaign so far has been tightly stage-managed, cautious and hidden from the media’s direct questions. Her advisers are obviously nervous about Harris facing questions. Before last night, her only interviews had been with social media influencers. Calling them “interviews” is probably a stretch; she guest starred in TikTok videos with soft-ball questions. In one, she was asked about her mother’s surname, her favourite Chicagoan foodstuff and what she was most excited about at the Democratic convention.
CNN’s Dana Bash was more exacting. Bash spent the first ten minutes constructing a case that Harris was opportunistic because she abandoned positions for political gain. For instance, why had Harris wanted to ban fracking in 2019 – but not now? And why had she wanted to decriminalise illegal border crossings in 2019 – but not now?
Harris replied that while her positions have changed, her “values” have not. It is hard to imagine the value common to both decriminalising border crossings and being a former prosecutor who wants a “secure border” and is tough on the gangs who facilitate the crossings. The real answer is probably that when she ran for president in 2019, progressive positions on immigration and the environment were fashionable – today, less so.
Her answer on Joe Biden’s fitness to lead was, however, worse. She stood by her claim that Biden had the capacity to stand for election. That does not sound plausible. Everyone saw Biden’s performance in the debate against Trump in late June. One could argue her answer makes her sound loyal to the president. But it doesn’t make her sound honest.
Harris is in a bind: she wants to distance herself from the unpopular policies of the past four years, while taking credit for the wins. She rattled off Biden’s administrative achievements on the green economy, infrastructure investment and the recovery from Covid. And yet, real wage growth has been a meagre 0.3 percentage points a year since Biden took office. So Harris is hit with questions such as: what would she say to voters who preferred the economy under Donald Trump? Is Bidenomics a success? In response, Harris dodged and dived. She knew she couldn’t slam the past four years when she was at the administration’s core. Ditto on Gaza. She promised to stick to Biden’s policy on Israel, which means working for a peace deal while supplying weapons that perpetuate the war. She risks being a “change” candidate who is offering no change.
Or at least, no policy change. Harris promises a new politics and a new tone. A politics that is less angry, more joyful. She wants to Make America Nice Again. In the interview, she called it a “new way forward”, which seems to amount to little more than a request for civility. This might genuinely appeal to moderate and independent voters. Yet Harris does not offer an explanation as to why people are angry and uncivil beyond Trump’s divisive manipulations. Her primary policy so far is what she calls an “opportunity economy”, the name for her plans to penalise price gouging, build more homes and hand cash to first-time buyers. Yet, there are scant details on how she would pay for this, let alone a plan for the rest of the economy beyond the status quo.
As Harris did not stand in a primary, she has faced extraordinarily little scrutiny for someone who could be elected president in 67 days. This single interview revealed a campaign still grappling with this last-minute substitution. It was far from fatal. But viewers might have been left with the suspicion that she probably would not have survived 25 minutes more.
[See also: Donald Trump’s identity crisis]
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