Kamala Harris’ apparent reluctance to give lengthy on-air interviews meant her conversation with CNN on Thursday night took on a melodramatic tone. And brought her under even closer scrutiny.
That’s not a good start.
Initially, Ms. Harris struggled to articulate what she would do on her first day in office, speaking only in broad strokes about creating an economy of opportunity and trying to lower the cost of living.
Ms. Harris tends to give complex, detailed, and often confusing answers. Her opponents love to mock her “mess.” That’s not the point of this interview, but she will need to provide a more concise explanation of how she plans to make life easier for ordinary, working Americans if she wants to get her message on the economy across.
Throughout the interview, which she conducted alongside vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, Harris appeared calm and confident. And crucially, she did not score any own goals.
Asked about her changing stance on some key policies since she last ran for president in 2019, Harris said her values had not changed — before confirming that she no longer supports a ban on fracking or legalizing illegal immigration.
And in responding to Republican claims that she is soft on border issues, she pointed to her previous experience as a prosecutor in California, experience that Harris has often relied on, including in her attacks on Donald Trump, whose criminal convictions she has often pointed to.
“I’m the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations that traffic in guns, drugs, and people,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash. “I’m the only person in this race who actually served as attorney general in a border state to enforce our laws.”
Immigration and the southern border are likely to be Harris’ biggest issue in this election. It’s an issue that resonates with voters across the country — and one that the Biden administration doesn’t have much to brag about, given the large number of undocumented immigrants at the southern border.
Joe Biden has tasked Ms. Harris with specifically addressing the “root causes” of Central American immigration. Republicans used that brief to declare her a “border czar.”and is therefore responsible for record-high rates of illegal border crossings in recent years.
When pressed on the issue, Harris told CNN on Thursday that she would revive a recent border security bill that passed Congress but was scuttled by Trump, who has told Republicans not to support it. The former president worries that he would be politically damaged if the Biden administration is seen as acting on immigration.
In fact, the move gave Democrats a convenient talking point when challenged about why it took them so long to crack down on illegal border crossings. Harris said she would push for the legislation again and make sure it gets to her desk so she can sign it.
As she continues to campaign in the weeks leading up to the November 5 election, Harris will have to walk a careful line. Will she talk about her role in a Biden administration? Or present herself as a candidate for change, someone who represents the future, not the past?
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On Thursday, she was fiercely loyal to President Biden and did not try to distance herself from his policies. The problem is that if she wants to take credit for, say, lowering prescription drug prices for retirees, she risks also being blamed for high inflation. This is a tricky area.
Harris’s campaign has often used the phrase “we’re not going back.” And in this interview, despite her loyalty to Mr. Biden, she also repeatedly said it was time to “turn the page on the last decade.”
She later had to clarify that she meant a decade of bitterness and division, not the final three and a half years of the Biden-Harris administration when she was in power.
It was a moment that neatly illustrated the challenge Ms. Harris faces in presenting herself as a candidate of change.
As Trump struggled to find a consistent line of attack against Ms Harris, he resorted to insults. He questioned her racial identity, saying at a recent event that “she happened to pass for black and now she wants to be known as black.”
Given a chance to respond directly on Thursday, Harris ignored it, saying her opponent was using “the same old, tired tactics.” It was almost certainly a deliberate strategy to not engage with Trump’s personal attacks on the first woman of color to become a major party’s presidential nominee.
Harris didn’t talk about breaking the glass ceiling like Hillary Clinton did in 2016. And she said little about the historic nature of a black woman running for president. She told CNN she entered the race because she believed she was the best person to do the job — regardless of race or gender.
Meanwhile, Trump posted his comments about the interview on his social media platform – “BORING”.
Harris’s campaign will take that as high praise. After all, her most important job is to make sure she doesn’t give Republicans any new ammunition to use against her.
