Kamala Harris avoided all media interviews for the first 40 days of her truncated presidential campaign -- having been handed her party's nomination after its elected nominee was forced out of the race, nullifying the election that had made him the nominee. She finally sat down with CNN, alongside her running mate, in late August, resulting in an exchange that elucidated very little, if anything. A month or so after that, she enjoyed a friendly chat on a supportive network, conducted by someone who had recently opined that complaints about Harris' nearly-nonexistent interview regimen were silly and overblown. That's our gal, the Harris camp seemed to immediately decide, rewarding the host with a rare interview just days later. Harris underwhelmed, even within those friendly confines. Weeks later, amid a jarring media strategy about-face, the Vice President's sudden blitz entailed a substantive 60 Minutes discussion (what was said in the full exchange remains, astoundingly, shrouded in mystery), in which she once again struggled to address any substantive issues and questions with specificity or mastery.
That's the backdrop to last evening. This person parachuted into a presidential nomination in late July, and by mid-October, she had done a grand total of two nationally-televised interviews. In the rare instances that she'd subjected herself to questions of any kind, her answers were utterly predictable and rehearsed. It's as if she has a mental filing cabinet with drawers labeled 'economy,' 'immigration,' etc., and when an inquiry arises on one of these subjects -- regardless of how it's phrased or what information is being sought -- she opens up one of those drawers and withdraws prepared material.
On the economy, she is from the middle class and envisions an "opportunity economy," with a few tinkering policies here and there, the recitation of which eats up time on the clock. On the border, she is a prosecutor who supports a failed Senate bill that Donald Trump opposed to avoid resolving an intractable problem. Toss in some claptrap about "aspirations, ambitions, and dreams," and oh look, we're out of time. Some of these 'answers' have become so familiar, any number of political observers could probably offer them, nearly verbatim, on her behalf. Bill Whitaker of 60 Minutes disrupted this substance-free approach to some extent by politely asking follow-up questions over the course of a fairly lengthy and heavily-edited back and forth. She demonstrated no ability to address those follow-ups (at least from the portions that were made public) in a serious or satisfying way.
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Then came the combative sit-down with Fox News' Bret Baier. By the time this interview took place last evening, Harris had responded to scandalously few challenging questions. She's seeking the highest office in the land, after all, and is doing so on a crunched time schedule, via an extremely unusual and effectively un-litigated nomination process. Leading into the pitched discussion, vast stretches of her record and worldview had not been addressed at all, in any interview. Baier, having been proffered half an hour with the Vice President, clearly set out to explore as many of these unexplored areas as he could. He knew which 'file cabinet' answers were coming, and had a plan to try to pry her away from them. As he labored to do so, he interrupted her and talked over her, yes, just as he did a number of times during a substance-packed, intense, and longer exchange with former President Donald Trump last year. Trump has not granted Baier another one-on-one since, and has taken a number of public shots at the Special Report anchor.
At the time, Baier won plaudits from many fellow journalists, for his insistent style, for pressing Trump with tough follow-ups, and for not allowing Trump to filibuster and meander (Trump, I'll add, was significantly more responsive to Baier's actual questions than Harris was yesterday). Applying a similar approach with Harris has earned Baier scorn from many of those same precincts. He was "rude," a "Trump surrogate," and his frequent cut-ins have predictably and cynically been deemed by some as problematic, given his subject's status as a woman of color. In truth, he was almost single-handedly trying to play catch-up on behalf of legions of journalists and voters who know full well that Harris has faced historically light scrutiny over recent months. He was trying to squeeze in as many questions on as many relevant subjects as was possible during a very short time window. And it was even shorter than promised, per Baier. The Vice President showed up late, and her team frantically, prematurely 'wrapped' the discussion in its final moments. Knowing Baier as a colleague, I'm confident that he would have preferred to avoid that degree of interruption and crosstalk, ideally over a longer interview. But he was given one limited shot at a candidate who was determined to avoid addressing questions that deviated from her existing repertoire of canned responses.
Her partisans, including quite a few members of the 'news' media, are fulminating about how terribly she was supposedly treated, while simultaneously insisting that she entered the "lion's den" and emerged triumphant. Looking at it as objectively as I can, not a single question posed by Baier even approached the 'out of bounds' line. They were all relevant and fair, if pointed and adversarial. Nearly all of them should have been fairly predictable, candidly. It was not an "ambush." The word that comes to mind is how overdue they were. Indeed, it is an embarrassing commentary on both the Harris campaign and the 'news' media that Baier was the first person to pose a number of them to her, with fewer than three weeks to go before our national election. Enduring 20-plus minutes of difficult and uncomfortable questions about her stated positions and governing record, including as the incumbent in the race, should not be considered a "lion's den" moment. It should be an expected standard. Snide objections and negative reviews from within the press to the contrary (overt partisans are going to do their thing) are reflections on the 'journalists' making them, not Baier.
As for the exchange itself, overall, it did not go well for Harris, in my view. Which is not to say that she didn't have some good moments. Her decision to forcefully reject the notion that Trump supporters or her opponents are stupid or ignorant was a wise departure of the entitled arrogance that proved costly for Hillary Clinton in 2016. She also got energized in an answer defending democracy against Trump's predations that will serve, at the very least, as a clarion call and morale-fueling moment for her base. On nearly all other subjects, however, she simply did not -- and perhaps could not, or cannot -- grapple on a detailed or substantive level with the specific questions asked of her. She was ostentatiously evasive, repeatedly deflecting to well-trod rhetorical terrain and criticisms and disparagements of Trump. It does not take a well-trained political eye to have noticed that she was refusing to engage with the meat of what was put on her plate by Baier. It was glaring. It was blatant. It was un-missable. It's hard to say for sure, as there were several contenders in the mix, but this may have been the weakest moment for the sitting incumbent trying to run on a 'change' charade:
"Your campaign slogan is 'A New Way Forward' and 'It's Time to Turn the Page.' You've been vice president for three and a half years, so what are you turning the page from?"@BretBaier puts Kamala in the hot seat 🔥 pic.twitter.com/WsnOCCWuYZ
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) October 16, 2024
Baier: More than 70% of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. If you're turning the page, you've been in office for 3.5 years
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 16, 2024
Kamala: "And Donald Trump has been running for office."
Baier: "But you've been the person holding the office." pic.twitter.com/czR60tn3Ep
In response to the televised tete-a-tete, hyperbole abounds. Righties declaring that Harris ended her candidacy in an unmitigated train wreck are overstating matters. Lefties and their media brethren performatively seething at her treatment by Baier doth protest too much. Spinning the interview as some sort of conquest for her is also wishful thinking, to the point of delusion. Fox analyst Brit Hume had the key take-away immediately after the frantic back-and-forth aired: If undecided voters hoped to glean useful information about this presidential candidate, or to have some of their doubts allayed and lingering questions addressed, she did not give them much of anything at all. She deprived those voters of meaningful answers, often clumsily and unimpressively, while offering another whiff of her signature shallowness. But she also produced some better flashes that her supporters are unsurprisingly highlighting. The interview was not good for her. It just wasn't. But I wouldn't call it disastrous. I can't imagine it will help her campaign, but it didn't constitute a debilitating blow. Beyond the news cycle and the horse race, it's a good thing that it happened. Politicians seeking immense power should face more questioning like this, not less. I'll leave you with the following observation:
Yep — and the anger from online lefties about how Bret conducted the interview are unaccustomed to seeing their side firmly held accountable and pushed in media interviews. The intensity of the exchange is something many Republican electeds and candidates know well. https://t.co/yHm7VPp31V
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 16, 2024
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