It’s the Friendly Interviews That Can Do the Most Damage

During a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room last Friday, President Joe Biden delivered new ad fodder to the Trump campaign on a silver platter. “I’m in constant contact with her,” Biden said of Vice President Kamala Harris. “She’s aware we all, we’re singing from the same song sheet. We, she helped pass all the laws that are being employed now. She was a major player in everything we’ve done.” The Trump campaign wasted no time turning that clip into an ad that simply replays Biden’s full quote before cutting to a smiling GOP nominee: “I’m Donald Trump and I approve this message.”

Then came Kamala Harris’s interview with The View earlier today. “If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” one of the hosts asked Harris, to which she responded: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”

Harris appeared to catch herself later on in the interview: “You ask me what’s the biggest difference between Biden and me? I’m going to have a Republican in my cabinet.” But the damage was already done. The Trump campaign’s rapid-response team is having a field day with this one. Talk about the perfect way to undermine Harris’s own pitch that she’s a change candidate — simply by using her own words against her.

As Noah Rothman observed last week on X, it’s often the softball interviews that are the most dangerous.