Harris bolsters momentum in first sit-down interview but leaves gaps on policy detail

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) — Kamala Harris showed how she plans to deal with Donald Trump and win the presidency in CNN’s exclusive first interview with the vice president since becoming Democratic nominee, avoiding slips that could slow her momentum.

Harris went into the interview on Thursday under enormous scrutiny, with Trump and his allies accusing her of dodging the press and predicting she’d fizzle under pressure, be undermined by her own policy switches and burst the bubble of joy around her campaign.

The vice president preferred sweeping themes and aspirations rather than detailed policy blueprints and declined to fully explain reversals on issues like immigration and energy. But she was a more deft, disciplined and prepared political figure than she appeared in her short-lived bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination or in accident-prone moments early in her tenure as vice president. Harris smoothly countered questions and follow-ups about her vulnerabilities by pivoting to safer talking points as she failed to do in a damaging interview with NBC in 2021.

Harris also steered clear of any obvious errors that would knock her campaign off track and require her to perform damage control in the vital build-up to her debate showdown with the former president on September 10 in Philadelphia. And a week after her keynote speech at the Democratic convention expanded on her core argument that it was time to “turn the page” from Trump’s divisiveness, she also refused to be drawn into her Republican rival’s provocations over her racial identity.

She dismissed the issue by simply telling CNN’s Dana Bash: “Same old tired playbook. Next question, please.” Her response showed that she has no intention of allowing the campaign to be overtaken by questions about race, even though her potential as the first Black woman and Indian American president will form a constant backdrop to the rest of the campaign.

A contrast with Trump

Harris was at ease and pragmatic, contrasting with the tetchy self-obsession and bombast of her opponent. Her demeanor, as she tried to appeal to available voters who were unenthusiastic about former President Joe Biden, probably fulfilled most of her campaign’s goals for the interview and was in keeping with her apparent strategy of providing a safe harbor for any American disgusted by Trump.

She also debunked claims by Trump and conservative media that she was using running mate Gov. Tim Walz as a crutch in the interview and was unable to answer questions herself as she dominated the time and was clearly the senior partner in their double act.

She used the interview to develop her core attack on Trump’s character and conduct, which is the foundation of the case she’s making to voters. “I think sadly, in the last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and strength of who we are as Americans, really dividing our nation,” Harris told Bash.

Later, at a rally in Savannah, Georgia, where the interview was conducted, she warned her crowd that the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling carving out significant immunity for Trump from criminal prosecution meant that the ex-president would seek vengeance against people who disagree with him. “Understand: This is not 2016 or 2020. This is different.”

Few specifics on how Harris would enact her agenda

But Harris was elusive on what she would actually do as president, dealing in themes and aspirations rather than policy specifics and sometimes straddling key issues to avoid painful choices that she’d face in the Oval Office.

Her answers were replete with ways she hoped to help the middle class by lowering prices, making housing more affordable, lowering drug prices and creating new jobs. But Harris did not lay out a clear path for navigating treacherous politics to enact such plans. She also did not say how she’d pay for such programs.

Her tendency to talk in generalities rather than policy nuts and bolts was exemplified by the first question in the interview when she was unable to provide a precise answer on one distinct step that she’d take on day one of her presidency. She spoke broadly about her economic plan and work to invest in the American family, concluding, “There are a number of things on day one.”

Harris also shrugged off questions about why she had been vice president for three-and-a-half years in the administration and had not effected items in her economic plan, offering a potential opening to the Trump campaign. And while she effectively showed she understands the painful impact of high grocery prices, she was not fully able to account for why they had risen so high under the Biden-Harris administration.

Instead, the vice president accused Trump of creating an economic crisis she and Biden inherited through his mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic and pointed to the White House’s strong job creation record and the easing of inflation.

Finessing shifts in policy

At times, Harris’ pragmatism faded into fuzziness. When confronted on reversing her previous opposition to fracking — a huge issue in swing state Pennsylvania – she insisted she’d not really reversed her position. “What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking,” she said.

Many climate change campaigners would argue that fracking — a practice used to extract hard to reach oil and gas and that can pollute water sources and harm wildlife – is incompatible with a green economy. Yet Harris insisted that while she opposed a fracking ban “my values have not changed,” apparently seeking to disguise contradictory positions.

She also took a both sides approach on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Harris argued that Israel must have the right to defend itself but that “far too many Palestinian civilians have been killed.” As the administration seeks to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas to release remaining hostages and reach a ceasefire, the vice president insisted, “We have to get a deal done.” This may be the only way out of the horror, but US diplomacy has for months fallen short of this goal and failed to end the civilian toll in Gaza. And events in the conflict have shown that the Harris position that Israel must have the right to defend itself but that too many Palestinians have died has often been an irreconcilable one.

Harris also finessed the question of why she argued that Biden was fit to serve another four-year term, even after his disastrous performance in the CNN debate in Atlanta. She said she didn’t regret her remarks and paid warm tribute to the president, saying that “he has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgement and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president.”

And displaying the political dexterity that many in her party and outside once believed she lacked but that succeeded in uniting her party around her and erasing Trump’s opinion poll leads, Harris quickly flipped to a harsh critique of Trump — expanding on the entire rationale of her bid for the White House.

“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 where I believe most Americans are, which is to believe that the true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”

“That’s what’s at stake as much as any other detail that we could discuss in this election.”

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