On Thursday night, CNN gave a master class on how to No To hold politicians accountable.
Kamala Harris showed up for her first television interview in the 39 days since becoming the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee with her emotional support dog, running mate Tim Walz, in tow, lest interviewer Dana Bash get a little inquisitive or even harsh.
But there was never any danger of that happening.
The fact that CNN agreed to Walz’s presence showed that the network had effectively thrown in the towel before the interview began.
As president, Harris would have to deal with the world’s most powerful dictators, such as Putin in Russia and Xi in China. But she doesn’t feel up to taking on a mediocre radio and television journalist like Bash on her own? It was all a bit pathetic.
The protective guardrails surrounding Harris didn’t end there.
On Thursday night, CNN delivered a master class in how not to hold politicians accountable.
The interview was pre-recorded, and Harris’s people (probably rightly) concluded that “live” was too risky. They filmed her around a table in a coffee shop in Savannah, in the key state of Georgia, to make her look more popular. In the end, she just looked messy.
CNN billed the interview as a prime-time hour-long extravaganza, but the grilling (which is probably an incorrect use of the word) lasted only 27 minutes. The rest of the 60 minutes was filled with footage and audio clips that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Harris-Walz campaign ad, during which Bash appeared too uptight and friendly with the couple for a supposedly independent journalist.
Bash had her moments, but not enough. At crucial moments, when Harris faltered or looked confused, he failed to force her to clarify her doubts with appropriate follow-up questions designed to corner her. Clearly rehearsed answers that revealed nothing were not let go unchallenged. Harris emerged from all of this largely unscathed.
But not quite. For all CNN’s dismissive gestures, some of Harris’s recent luster faded in the exchanges.
While we didn’t learn anything new and Harris didn’t make any serious mistakes, the interview reminded us of something that has largely been forgotten in her recent reinvention: that at her core, Harris remains a mediocre, lightweight person, given to simplistic answers without substance.
Bash began by asking her what she would do on her first day in the White House. A fairly predictable question, but Harris was curiously unprepared.
Harris hesitated to list the various action items on her policy agenda. Bash rightly repeated the question (one of the few attempts to corner Harris). More rambling.
As a clear example of her multiple changes in position, Bash expressed her opposition to fracking for oil and gas extraction in 2019 and, now, her support for the initiative. Harris responded that in 2020 she had made it clear that she was in favor of fracking and that she had not changed her position since then.
Bash was not prepared for this Harris dance on the head of a pin.
During her failed bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate in 2019, she was unequivocal during a CNN debate: “There’s no question that I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
He even hinted that the ban would be implemented on his first day in office because “the residual impact of fracking is enormous in terms of the health and safety of communities.”
Harris said Thursday that she had changed her position while she was Joe Biden’s running mate and debating Mike Pence (Trump’s then-running mate). She didn’t explain why, though Bash helpfully and inexplicably offered possible explanations (it’s not really an interviewer’s job to help politicians with answers).
But records show Harris in 2020 simply said, “Joe Biden will not end fracking. He’s been very clear about that.” She said nothing about her own views.
Bash was not properly informed about this and so he did not press her.
Kamala appeared for her first televised interview in the 39 days since becoming the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee accompanied by her emotional support dog, running mate Tim Walz.
Dana Bash was unprepared, ill-informed, and too friendly with the couple for a supposedly independent journalist.
Harris was also not criticized for what she knew about Biden’s obvious cognitive decline, though she blithely assured the world that he was absolutely right and very smart. Harris clearly misled us. She must be held accountable for it.
At least we are spared Harris’s infamous word salads. Well, to a large extent, if not entirely.
As he writhed around the issue of fracking, this fallacy occurred to him: “I have always believed, and worked on, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we must apply metrics that include meeting deadlines over time.”
Raise your hand if you can think of a deadline that doesn’t involve time.
Harris was not pressured to change her stance from her more radical days, from defunding the police to decriminalizing the act of entering the United States illegally.
To any suggestion that she was inconsistent, she would respond with a prepared, general phrase: “my values haven’t changed,” which is as vague as it is meaningless.
She was never pressed to explain what she meant.
Bash touted his $100 billion plan to give a $25,000 federal grant to first-time homebuyers. He failed to point out that this was a surefire recipe for driving up home prices, putting homeownership out of reach for young people of modest means. He touted platitudes about “turning the page on the last decade,” without being properly challenged that those years included the last two years of the Obama administration and nearly four years of the Biden-Harris administration.
Was he turning his back on the Biden years? Oh no, he said, they were an “extraordinary success,” “transformative.” If so, why does he want to “turn the page”? The question was not asked.
Walz didn’t say much, and Bash was wise to ignore him, but when he did get his moments of glory, he proved he was Harris’ equal when it came to dissembling.
When pressed about his claim that he wanted to ban the possession of “weapons of war” like those he had carried into battle (he was never deployed to a war zone in his 24 years in the Army National Guard), he simply muttered that “my grammar isn’t always correct.”
But it’s not about grammar, it’s about facts and honesty. He was equally slippery when it came to his false claims about his wife’s fertility treatment and his arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol.
The interview ended with a sly comment about the iconic image of the back of Harris’s young niece’s head as she listened to her aunt speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week. That’s fine if you’re part of Harris’s propaganda machine. Not so fine when you’ve failed to hold Harris accountable and are running out of time to do so.
Harris may not give another major interview between now and November 5. She got away with it this time, so why push her luck?
But for all her problems, the CNN interview reminded us that she is a weak and eminently beatable candidate. The polls remain close enough, nationally and in the key states, to make the race a close one.
But the fear among Republican strategists is that Trump is not yet doing the heavy lifting needed to convey Harris’s weak record of near-zero accomplishments, her past far-left positions and her tendency to flip-flop.
Another question is whether Donald Trump will be the right opponent to defeat her.
As Labor Day approaches and the election begins, her campaign still lacks focus, direction and purpose (beyond her greatest glory). The Harris-Trump debate on September 10 will be her chance to exploit all the weaknesses Harris showed on Thursday but CNN failed to exploit.
The fear among Republican strategists is that Trump is not yet doing the heavy lifting needed to convey Harris’s poor record of near-zero accomplishments, her past far-left positions and her tendency to flip-flop. He is more comfortable with personal insults, which simply remind moderates and independents why they didn’t vote for him. If he stoops to that on Sept. 10, Harris could be on his way to victory.
What if he lives up to your worst expectations? I asked a longtime Trump confidant. What’s Plan B? “Call 911. Or the Holy Ghost,” he replied. I’m not sure he was joking.