Friday briefing: What we learned from Kamala Harris’ appearance on CNN

Good morning. It has been 40 days since Joe Biden pulled out of the presidential race and, until last night, Kamala Harris was yet to sit down for a major interview. Alongside her vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz, she finally did so on CNN – and directly addressed some of the more difficult issues facing her campaign for the first time.

Their interview with Dana Bash was not exactly riveting TV – but it did shed some light on the state of the race, and the turf where Harris would like the rest of the campaign to be fought. Today’s newsletter runs you through what we learned – and why she probably won’t mind if voters thought it was a bit boring. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Health | Keir Starmer is on a collision course with the hospitality industry and political opponents after signalling plans for major curbs on outdoor smoking . The proposals, not denied by the prime minister, would potentially prohibit tobacco use outside pubs and restaurants, including on pavements.

2. Israel-Gaza war | The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza aimed at “armed assailants” trying to hijack it. But the charity that organised the aid said people killed in the strike were employees of the transport company it was working with.

3. Environment | The UK government is considering making further commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, likely to be announced at the UN climate summit this year. It is hoped the plan will help kickstart global ambitions on cutting emissions.

4. Immigration and asylum | A Vietnamese man suffered a “life-limiting stroke” after being rescued from a tiny hidden compartment in a lorry with six other people being smuggled into the UK. The group was packed so tightly inside a space “the width of a human chest” that none could move their arms, a Home Office investigator has said.

5. Health | People who “catch up” on missed sleep at the weekend may have up to a 20% lower risk of heart disease compared with those who do not, according to a study .

In depth: Harris plays it safe

It’s been three weeks since Kamala Harris said she wanted to schedule a major interview before the end of August; last night, she met that pledge. As successful as her campaign has been at generating momentum since she became the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, her failure to engage in robust questioning so far has become, if not a major issue, at least A Thing.

In one sense, then, the fact of the interview mattered more for Harris than its content – so long as she didn’t make any headline-grabbing howlers. While she had a few tricky moments on CNN, she cleared that bar: as David Smith sets out in this analysis , the interview was “radically normal … She turned a much-hyped first interview as nominee into a soon-to-be-forgotten pit stop along the campaign trail”. Here’s what else we learned.

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Policy – and changing her mind

In seeking to appeal to the progressive voters of the Democratic base during her unsuccessful run at the presidency in 2019, Harris committed to a number of positions that are a problem for her more centrist campaign today. That was a theme of the CNN interview. Three times, Harris said that her values have not changed – but she also suggested that four years of being vice-president, “travelling the country extensively”, and seeking to “build consensus” had shaped where she stands today.

In 2019, she said that she would implement a federal ban on fracking – an important issue in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, one of the world’s biggest sources of natural gas. “As vice-president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking,” she told CNN, adding: “What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”

On similar questions about immigration and her U-turn on decriminalising border crossings, she said she would “enforce our laws as president going forward”. Meanwhile, on the Israel-Gaza conflict, she trod the same line as in her speech at the Democratic national convention, saying she was “unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defence” but noting that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, and we have got to get a deal done”.

She waffled a bit when asked what she would do on day one, pointing to general policy priorities rather than any specific action. But there were no glaring errors, and her implicit distancing from her more progressive positions from 2019 will have left few viewers convinced by Republican claims that she is a leftwing radical.

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Her view of Biden’s competence

The other inevitable feature of this interview was a question about the president’s ability to do his job. “You insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong,” Dana Bash said. “Given where we are now, do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?”

“No, not at all,” Harris replied. She said that “he has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president”. Nor did she distance herself from his policies – which would be tricky, obviously – or even really set out a contrast with her own plans for the next four years.

At the same time, she found a formulation that maintained her loyalty but cast herself as the candidate of the future, and the Biden-Trump wars as a relic of the past: it was time to “turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies,” she said.

Then she deftly focused that point as a criticism of Trump’s impact on American discourse: “I’m talking about an era that started about a decade ago where there is some suggestion, warped I believe it to be, that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down instead of … who you lift up.”

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Little interest in questions about race and gender

One of the most striking features of the interview was Harris’ steadfast refusal to engage in questions about her status as a history-making candidate – whether in terms of Trump’s bigoted claim that she “was Indian all the way and then all of sudden she became a Black woman”, or in dwelling on her campaign as a powerful symbol of American progress.

Asked about Trump’s comments, she said: “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.” “That’s it?” Bash said. “That’s it,” Harris replied. And when Bash concluded the interview by asking what her gender and race mean in the campaign, she said vaguely that it was “humbling”, but noted: “I am running because I believe that I am the best person to do this job at this moment for all Americans, regardless of race and gender.”

That feels emblematic of her campaign’s wider approach: let others talk about the unprecedented nature of her candidacy, and tell voters that all she’s interested in is improving their lives.

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A supporting role for Tim Walz

For most of the interview, Tim Walz was basically a mascot: understandably, Bash focused her questioning on the candidate for president, and he wisely did not interrupt Harris or elaborate on her answers.

The questions that were directed at Walz were about claims of misleading statements in the past – and about the viral video of his son Gus proudly shouting “that’s my dad!” during his speech at the Democratic national convention.

Walz didn’t really give a satisfying answer to the criticism he has faced for saying that he carried weapons in war even though he was never deployed in a war zone, saying merely that “my grammar is not always correct”.

In talking about his family and that video of his son, Walz provided probably the most human moments of the interview. “I’m grateful for so many reasons to be on this ticket,” he said. “But that moment … was just such a visceral, emotional moment that I’m just grateful I got to experience it. And I’m so proud of him.”

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The Trump campaign’s reaction

You will be shocked to learn that Trump and Vance did not cover themselves in glory in their response: even before the interview aired in full, Trump said that Harris “rambled incoherently”. (He clearly hasn’t been watching his own rallies .) And Vance posted a blatantly sexist message on X , comparing Harris to a Miss Team America contestant who infamously garbled her answer to a question about Americans not knowing about geography.

After the interview aired, the Trump campaign statement criticised Harris for not “addressing the crime crisis in this nation”. (Crime has in fact mostly fallen under Biden.) They also said she “spent a mere three minutes and 25 seconds talking about the economy and two minutes and 36 seconds talking about immigration”.

If that is a pretty weird way to analyse an interview in which CNN chose the topics and which had a half-hour time limit, it does key into a sense that the abbreviated campaign has limited discussion of Harris’ agenda. The next big chance to discuss it will be on 10 September, when the two candidates meet for a debate in Pennsylvania.

What else we’ve been reading

• Kate Hutchinson has a moving interview with the Breeders and Pixies legend Kim Deal , on releasing her first solo album at 63. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters

• Adele Zeynep Walton writes wholesomely on moving to a “ sleepy town ” where the median age is 48 … at just 25. “I’m surrounded by families, friendly pensioners and retired hippies,” she writes. “It would be easy to feel out of place, but in fact I feel the opposite”. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team

• I’m probably the worst baker in London but Felicity Cloake’s perfect blueberry pie looks so delicious that I might just have to give it a try … or convince someone else tomake it for me. Hannah

• Exploring the galaxy as a lovable rogue in Star Wars Outlaws will keep me going for a while, but the Guardian’s Keza MacDonald has picked the 10 best games coming this autumn, from the next Zelda to the “deliriously joyful” Astro Bot. Charlie

• And, in case you missed it, here are the TV eds’ best shows to look out for, too, from the return of hits including Industry and Bad Sisters to a star-stuffed Apple series with Cate Blanchett. Hannah

Sport

Paris 2024 | Britain’s first gold medal of the Paralympic Games went to a teenager, and in world record time, as Poppy Maskill (above) cleared the field in the pool to win the S14 100m women’s butterfly, a moment she described as “unreal”.

Tennis | Britain’s No 1 tennis players enjoyed contrasting fortunes at the US Open on Thursday as Jack Draper eased into the third round with a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 win over Facundo Díaz Acosta to set up a potential battle with former champion Carlos Alcaraz, while Katie Boulter suffered one of her most disappointing defeats of the season, crashing out 7-5, 7-5 to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.

Cricket | Joe Root dedicated his 33rd Test century to the late Graham Thorpe , saluting the heavens upon reaching three figures in tribute to his former coach and friend. Root now sits level with Sir Alastair Cook as England’s top century-maker and is only 198 runs away from becoming his country’s top Test run scorer.

The front pages

The Guardian leads with “Starmer risks clash with pub firms over plan for outdoor smoking ban”. The PM faces criticism of another king on the Mail front page with “Outrage as Starmer removes Maggie’s portrait”. The Times reports “Workers to be weighed in office for health MoT”, while the Telegraph says “Workers to get right to demand four-day week”.

The Financial Times has news from the US election, with “Vance presses billionaire Thiel to ‘get off the sidelines’ and bankroll Trump”. Finally, the Mirror reports on the cancellation of Taylor Swift’s Austrian concerts earlier this month, under the headline “Terror swoop saved thousands”.

Something for the weekend

Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now

Film
Sing Sing
There’s charm, energy and optimism in this big-hearted film, inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts project that teaches theatre skills to US prisoners. Although Colman Domingo stars, it is performed largely by genuine former inmates playing themselves, featuring rehearsal scenes interspersed with variously tense or moving private conversations. An intriguing filmic tribute to the rehabilitation programme. Peter Bradshaw

Music
Jon Hopkins: Ritual
No one could claim that Hopkins has undersold his seventh album. The electronic producer, soundtrack composer and sometime collaborator with Brian Eno and Coldplay has described the music on Ritual as “a tool … for opening portals within your inner world”. It is obvious from the start that it carries more weight than the acres of anonymous mood music out there. But if it doesn’t quite open the portals of your inner world, it’s still worth taking. Alexis Petridis

TV
Kaos ( Netflix )
Kaos – the new venture from Charlie Covell, the creator of The End of the F**king World, and starring Jeff Goldblum – is anything but chaotic. Multi-stranded, immaculately paced and plotted, it’s a reimagining of Greek mythology that is subtle and intricate, witty, rigorous, hugely intelligent, funny and brutal. You don’t know quite what the next twist or turn may be, but you know that it will be funny, profound, moving – or all three. Lucy Mangan

Today in Focus

Black Box: episode 5 – The white mask

In January 2020, Robert Williams was arrested by Detroit police for a crime he had not committed. The officers were acting on a tipoff, but not from a witness or informant. In fact, not from a person at all. This is the penultimate episode of Black Box, as revisited this week – the final episode will be available in the Today in Focus feed tomorrow.

Cartoon of the day | Stephen Lillie

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Unexplained delays, sardine-like conditions, sweatbox temperatures … the stress of the commuter life is very, very real. A new test, however, has found that there is a natural solution to our rail-rage: birdsong.

Research undertaken by South Western Railway on real-life commuters has found that passengers listening to nature sounds, which also included flowing rivers and storms, were 35% less stressed by their travels than those with no audio stimulation, and 24% less stressed than those listening to music or podcasts.

“The results clearly demonstrate that listening to nature-inspired soundscapes exerted a significant calming effect on passengers,” said Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, who analysed the results.

No such news on whether its impact is as effective a cure for the words “rail replacement bus service”, however.

Editor’s note: yesterday’s Upside stated that Lego was Swedish – it is of course from Denmark. Sorry/undskyld!

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until Monday.

• Quick crossword

• Cryptic crossword

• Wordiply