Vice President Kamala Harris ’s long-awaited CNN interview provided few new details about her policy plans for the White House but did offer some clues on how she’ll approach the final two months of the campaign.
Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), fielded questions from CNN's Dana Bash for nearly a half hour. Former President Donald Trump and his allies had criticized the vice president for failing to hold a press conference or sit-down interview in the nearly 40 days since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Harris as the new Democratic Party nominee.
Thursday's interview, though long-winded in some parts and generally lacking a depth of policy prescriptions, did fulfill Harris’s stated goal to have a sit-down before the end of August. She’s preferred to rely on favorable content creators to get her message out, while Trump and his running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) have held regular press conferences and media interviews.
Harris managed to avoid making big news or gaffes during the pre-taped prime-time special. While her first media interview is unlikely to win over huge swathes of disaffected Republicans , it does foreshadow how Harris plans to conduct the final stretch of her campaign.
1. Harris dodges on plan for 'Day One'
Democratic lawmakers, strategists, and party officials routinely tell the Washington Examiner that they're fine with Harris painting her economic agenda in broad strokes.
But, as voters continue to point to the economy and inflation as the top issue of the 2024 election , the chorus of voices in both parties and the media calling for Harris to put out a detailed plan is growing louder.
Case in point? The first question from Bash was the standard fare for any interview with a presidential candidate. What are you actually going to do on Day One?
Harris immediately listed supporting and strengthening the " middle class " as her top priority but provided virtually no details on how she planned to accomplish that goal. Instead of outlining executive actions she'd take, or even legislation she'd push Congress to introduce, she dovetailed into describing the aspirations and hopes "of the American people."
A followup from Bash, again asking the vice president to specifically tick off how she would accomplish her goals on Day One, yielded a general outline for an "opportunity economy" proposal.
"Day One, it's going to be about one implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy. I've already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include what we're going to do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we're going to do to invest in America's small businesses, what we're going to do to invest in families , for example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child's life to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib," Harris told Bash. "There's the work that we're going to do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now, so there are a number of things on day one."
Virtually all of the economic proposals Harris's campaign has put forward so far would require legislation from Congress, and it's still too early to tell if her heavy-on-vibes, light-on-details approach will cut it come November.
“Kamala Harris was asked a specific question about what she would do on Day 1 if elected as POTUS,” said pollster Frank Luntz. “Her answer was so vague that it was essentially worthless. Not a good start.
2. Harris ties herself to Biden when convenient
Even before Thursday, Harris has been walking a tightrope with her current boss.
The vice president has sought to keep her distance so as to avoid having the president's unpopularity rub off on her own bid, while still being able to take credit for the Biden administration's legislative wins.
But on Thursday, Harris made a hearty defense of Biden's record, including Bidenomics and his handling of the Israel-Gaza War, not to mention his general cognition.
Prompted by Bash, Harris said she held no regrets over defending Biden from criticism regarding his age and general fitness for office.
But moments later, the vice president cast both the president and Trump as relics of the past the country needs to dump.
"I’m so proud to be running with Tim Walz for president of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve, which is a new way forward, and turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies," she declared.
Age-shaming, even politely, will likely become one of Harris's go-to moves over the final weeks of the campaign.
3. Harris tries to court Republicans by moving to the middle
The vice president, who in her 2020 campaign fashioned herself as one of the more progressive options in the Democratic primary, has raised questions about those bonafides by flipping on a number of her past positions.
Republicans generally say she's trying to mask her liberal extremism with a Biden-esque tack to the center. Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, have voiced genuine concerns about Harris's commitments to the ideals she once championed.
Asked to defend these apparent contradictions, the vice president declared Thursday that "the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is that my values have not changed."
She touted her support for the Green New Deal and growing a clean energy economy, while defending her and Biden's decision to greenlight new fracking projects.
On immigration, Harris squared her recent push to secure the southern border with past calls for an earned pathway to citizenship by highlighting her record as an attorney general in a border state, where she saw both the criminal impacts and human stories attached to the migrant crisis.
Furthermore, Harris vowed to do something neither Biden nor Trump did as president: install a member of the opposition party in her Cabinet .
4. Harris doesn't want to talk about her gender or race
Harris, if elected, would make history as the nation's first woman, and woman of color, to serve as president.
Yet, based on Thursday's interview, she doesn't really want to talk about it.
When Bash brought up Trump's claims that Harris only recently adopted a black identity, the vice president responded simply, "Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please."
Later in the interview, Bash again tried to engage Harris on her potential history-making identity, bringing up the viral photo from the Democratic National Convention showing one of Harris's grand nieces watching her deliver the nomination acceptance speech.
And, again, Harris chose to essentially dance around the issue, saying, "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," she told Bash. "I did see that photograph, and I was deeply touched by it."
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"It’s very humbling in many ways," Harris concluded without expanding.
The vice president took a similar tactic at the DNC itself, foregoing some of the more feminine colors in her wardrobe in favor of a more reserved dark navy suit for her acceptance speech. The tone of those remarks also generally steered clear of Harris's gender and race, and it appears that the vice president has learned some lessons from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 's 2016 campaign, and opted for the tactic of former President Barack Obama, who did not make the prospect of becoming the first black president as central to his 2008 win.
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