Lousy Interview Bodes Ill For Harris-Walz Campaign | Opinion - Newsweek
Category: News & Politics
Via: texan1211 • one month ago • 20 commentsBy: Paul du Quenoy (Newsweek)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
CLOSE X By Paul du Quenoy President, Palm Beach Freedom InstituteFOLLOW
"I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed," replied Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in a verbose word salad when CNN's Dana Bash asked in her Thursday interview why her policy positions have changed since President Joe Biden cleared the path for her to run for president.
Bash looked curiously embarrassed for even asking such germane questions of someone seeking to be the most powerful person in the world. Harris, on the other hand, seemed confident that Bash would make no attempt to press her on any issue, likely knowing that the interview's main purpose was to offer her campaign cover from accusations of dodging media scrutiny. Accordingly, she did not explain what her "values" are, how they have led her to endorse policies significantly at odds with those she espoused before she became the de facto Democratic nominee five weeks ago, or why Americans should trust her.
CNN featured Harris' verbose and evasive response in a 90-second teaser released before the full interview, which lasted only 27 minutes. As short as the interview was, Harris' actual airtime was further reduced by media footage of her campaign and the unusual inclusion of her running mate Tim Walz, who, as CNN's own Anderson Cooper cynically noted, was there to reduce the amount of time Harris would be exposed to unscripted questioning. As some commentators have noted, seating Walz to Harris' right at a round table—and thus closer to the viewer—made her look physically small and unassuming, almost as though her presence was deliberately diminished.
When Harris did talk, she often stepped into the very traps her campaign has been trying to avoid. When Bash asked what she would do on the first day of her administration, Harris replied that she would "support and strengthen the middle class," adding that she believes Americans are "ready for a new way forward." She did not state what could be done in one day, but did raise the obvious question of why the middle class needs help after four years of an administration in which she later said she is "so proud" to be serving as vice president.
Still less did Harris explain why Americans, nearly 80 percent of whom believe they are worse off now than they were four years ago, feel they must escape the Biden-Harris legacy with a "new way forward" led by her. The pollster Frank Luntz called her answer "essentially worthless" and "not a good start."
US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) and Minnesota Governor and 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz attend the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United...US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) and Minnesota Governor and 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz attend the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 19, 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris will formally accept the party's nomination for president at the DNC which runs from August 19-22 in Chicago. More KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / AFP/Getty Images
In a similar blunder, when asked about illegal immigration across the southern border—one of the most important issues to voters this year—Harris boasted of having taken on the issue as California's attorney general. But she apparently forgot that as vice president, Biden placed her in charge of containing migration and that her solemn "Do Not Come" admonition to migrants was subsequently ignored by at least 7.2 million migrants who are now here.
Harris got into deeper rhetorical trouble when Bash moved on to environmental issues. The CNN host noted that the Democratic candidate flip-flopped on her opposition to fracking—approval of which will be vitally important in Pennsylvania, a must-win swing state—and on the Green New Deal, which Harris once supported but says she no longer does. "We can do what we have accomplished thus far," Harris declared in a bizarre tautology, adding that "the climate crisis is real...an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time." She did not say what "metrics" we must apply or why, but are there deadlines that can be set in any way other than "around time?"
Walz was scarcely more impressive. When Bash asked about apparent false statements he has made about his military service, he guiltily replied that "my record speaks for itself" before meandering into a weird digression about how much he cares about school shootings. When Bash pressed him on the specific issue of whether he had made misstatements about having served in a war zone, Walz even less comfortingly replied that "my grammar is not always correct." His answers on his DUI arrest and family fertilization treatments were equally petty and evasive.
The baleful results are already trickling in. Betting odds on the presidential election's outcome shifted on Friday from a slight advantage for Harris to parity with Trump. The pollster Nate Silver shifted his forecast from a slight Harris lead in the electoral college results to a slight Trump lead. Harris' bounce in swing states seems to be receding. If Republicans want more movement in that direction, all they need to do is to keep Harris talking. She will almost certainly avoid that as much as possible, but American voters deserve to hear her.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute. The views expressed as the writer's own.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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She seemed very ill-prepared for the biggest, most important interview of her life.
Just saying.
Just imagine if she was interviewed someplace not considered her home court. She is not fit to lead the nation if she can't even tell us how she would lead and what she wants to accomplish in words other than bumper sticker quotes
I am wondering:
Did viewers actually learn anything about her or her policies?
Nope!
She has policies?
What's wild is comparing Bash's solicitous attitude, offering helpful suggestions and such, to the way she went after JD Vance a couple weeks ago.
This was a layup for her.
I am sure this can somehow be spun as her answering the question, and wasn't it a smart answer!
She'll get hidden away again. It's better to let the media create an image of her than expose the world to reality.
Bash should have asked tough questions like sharks versus batteries stuff.
LMAO!!!
Kamala didn't exactly handle the softballs Bash tossed her way very well.
Doubtful she could handle any tougher 'questions'.
Here you go, America.
This from the woman so many liberals have insanely gone ga-ga over for no apparent reason.
I wonder if anyone will even bother to dispute that this is a word salad, devoid of real meaning.
Perhaps the entire Democrat party has taken two giant steps left ward because "But Trump"?....
The Democratic Party used to have ideas.
Now it is limited to amnesty, wealth redistribution, social experiment spending and Not Trump.
So, the woman second-in-charge to Biden now wants at least 4 more years to fix what they could not in the first 4 years.
Interesting that people will fall for the lies so easily.
May the gods bless her for avoiding the triteness of panaceas such as 'drill baby drill'.
BTW, this is not news, it is a top to bottom op-ed piece.
"Wonder Woman" also avoided any answers with any real substance.
That was no interview, it was a political ad.
You were preordained by numerous squirrel tossers to see it that way.
No, I saw what I saw.
Did you think Harris told us anything new, or expounded on how she was going to now fix what she and Joe didn't?
Thank you for noticing.
And if one reads all the way to the very, very end of the article, one finds this: