Harris's first campaign interview a spring cleaning for her political resumé
U.S. presidential candidate tosses away some old policies that risk hurting her campaign
Kamala Harris's first sit-down interview as a presidential candidate won't be the sort of television moment history remembers for better, or for worse.
History rarely recalls a closet decluttering.
Thursday's exchange with CNN included her tossing out old bits of her political resumé that risk hampering her current run, as she faced her first questions about past positions and why they shifted.
Does she still support a ban on oil fracking? Nope – not anymore. When asked what changed, it wasn't quite clear. Decriminalize illegal border-crossings? Against that too now.
What Harris made clear is she's running for votes in the political centre, continuing a pattern from the recent Democratic convention that made repeated appeals to Republicans.
She even said she would appoint a cabinet member from the other major party, something that occurs occasionally in Washington.
Sitting with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the interview was an early unscripted event for a candidate who has generated a burst of grassroots energy, and donations, but is still navigating a landscape of unknowns.
Given her late entry into this campaign, Harris has just begun releasing policies and, now, doing interviews, which are two traditional functions of a candidacy.
Her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, clearly has no desire to see her complete a successful pivot to the centre; his campaign, coveting the same moderate votes, quickly issued a press release Thursday night insisting Harris is an unreformed radical leftist. He listed numerous past statements Harris wasn't asked about.
The instant consensus from the post-interview panel on CNN was this 50-minute segment did little to change a neck-and-neck race.
One panellist, Obama strategist David Axelrod, used a football metaphor: "I don't think she moved the ball that much forward, but she certainly didn't fall back." Host Abby Philip used a medical analogy: A "do-no-harm" interview, is how she described it.
Interview starts with Harris plans for Day 1
The program began with the interviewer, CNN's Dana Bash, asking what Harris's plans were for Day 1 of her presidency.
Harris's answer went down a meandering road that mentioned the goals, aspirations and ambitions of Americans; Donald Trump's divisiveness; and, briefly, strengthening the middle class — without referring to any specific actions.
"There are a number of things," Harris replied.
When the interviewer pressed her again for her Day 1 agenda, Harris referred to lowering the cost of living. She specifically mentioned her child-tax credit proposal, a plan to slash childhood poverty — similar to Canada's — that would require congressional action.
About those 2020 promises...
Then she was asked about left-leaning promises from her ill-fated 2020 presidential run. She said in a 2019 town hall: "There's no question I'm in favour of banning fracking," which drew applause from the Democratic primary voters there, but is now seen as a liability in winning the critical general election swing state of Pennsylvania.
Harris insisted she'd repudiated that position by 2020. "As vice-president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking," she said. When asked what had changed, Harris did not answer clearly.
She did reaffirm her commitment to dealing with the climate crisis: "Let's be clear: My values have not changed," she said, referring to her casting the Senate's tie-breaking vote for a historic investment in green energy that also expanded fracking.
She was asked whether she would still decriminalize illegal border-crossings. To be clear, in 2019 remarks, Harris did not suggest letting the act go unpunished, but said she would use non-criminal penalties instead of sending people to jail.
On Thursday, Harris replied: "I believe there should be consequences.… We have laws that have to be followed and enforced."
She was asked why she'd succeed now at lowering living costs, if such living costs soared while she was vice-president.
Harris replied the country had to recover from a global pandemic, and inflation is now under three per cent, and the Biden administration has lowered prices in one area: Certain drugs for seniors, including insulin.
"But you are right," she continued. "Prices are too high." Harris proposes a mixture of spending, tax and regulatory changes to make housing, child care and groceries more affordable, although some of the details remain unclear.
Showdown with Trump
Speaking of clarity, Harris's opponent hasn't exactly been a model of it. Trump is running on a promise to implement a tariff on all imports to the U.S., which he sometimes says will be 10 per cent, sometimes 20 per cent, and has given no indication of what presidential power he would use, or what countries, or products, he might exempt, including oil.
He's spoken vaguely about military strikes against drug cartels. Just Thursday, on abortion, he appeared to support, then walk back, the idea that he will, as a Florida resident, vote in a referendum to undo his state's abortion ban after six weeks.
One unpopular bit of Harris's CV that she embraced Thursday involved the man who beat Trump in 2020: Her boss, President Joe Biden.
She described getting the shocking call July 21 from Biden announcing his intention to withdraw from the race. Harris said she'd been having breakfast with her grandnieces, and planned to do a puzzle, when the phone rang.
Given a chance to dissociate herself from the president, Harris said she was proud to work with Biden, referring to his presidency as transformative in bolstering U.S. manufacturing, infrastructure and global alliances.
"He has the intelligence, the commitment, the judgment and disposition," Harris said. "By contrast the former president [Trump] has none of them."
CNN's interviewer noted an interesting fact: She's never met Trump before.
They are now scheduled to meet, for the first time, on a debate stage Sept. 10 on what could be the most important night of this election. It'll almost certainly be more memorable than Thursday's interview.
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