On the menu today: Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz have finally agreed to a formal on-camera interview, and will sit with CNN for their first joint interview on Thursday. The lucky winner of the “Who gets to interview the most camera-shy presidential candidate since Joe Biden’s basement campaign” contest is CNN’s chief political correspondent and anchor, Dana Bash; the taped and likely edited interview will air at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Remember, if Harris comes out and sees her shadow, it means six more weeks of coconut-tree memes.
The Eyes of the World Turn to . . . CNN’s Dana Bash
CNN’s article about the network’s big news states:
The 37 days since her candidacy began have generated a swell of enthusiasm and momentum for Harris, including at last week’s convention in Chicago. But her lack of a formal news conference or interview has generated criticism from her Republican rivals. Thursday’s interview fulfils a vow she made earlier in August to schedule a sit-down before the end of the month.
Thirty-seven days without an interview or press conference! Right now, some Trump campaign aide, exhausted from cleaning up his man’s stream-of-consciousness messes, is thinking, “If only we could be so lucky.”
Sure, Republicans are critical — “pouncing,” even! — but a total freezeout like this ought to generate criticism from the mainstream-media institutions Harris and Walz are ignoring. You can find some intermittent criticism here, here, and here. A week ago, The Economist reviewed all of her campaign speeches to that point and noted, “There are also no mentions of China, America’s geopolitical rival, although few subjects will be more pressing if she becomes president.” Harris made one fleeting reference to China in her convention speech. As I noted, Harris said nothing about Ukraine in her first eleven campaign speeches.
Answering questions through interviews and press conferences is part of the job of being a presidential candidate and leader. We are witnessing the establishment of a new and awful precedent where the president and vice president avoid interviews and press conferences for long stretches, sometimes more than a month. Joe Biden has done two on-camera interviews since July 17. The most recent one was with Robert Costa of CBS News on August 12.
The one before that was with Ed Gordon of BET News, way back on July 17. That was the interview where the president said, “It’s all about, it’s all about treating people with dignity, and it’s about making sure that, look, I mean, for example, look at the heat I’m getting it because I, I named a, the Secretary of Defense, a black man.” (The name Biden was looking for was Lloyd Austin.)
This past weekend, Israel repelled attacks from Iranian proxies, the Houthis recreated the Exxon Valdez spill in the Red Sea, NASA admitted it couldn’t get our astronauts back down to Earth until February, and the U.S. Navy admitted it is quietly putting together plans to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships “due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels.” And Joe Biden said nothing. Our current commander in chief “says nothing” more often than Jack Reacher.
We do get brief “issued statements” from Biden — no doubt written up by some staffer, and God only knows if Biden even looks at them — about “the price of anti-obesity medications,” “the District Court’s order on the Biden-Harris Administration’s action to keep families together,” “Russia’s aerial assault on Ukraine’s energy grid,” and “the anniversary of the terrorist attack outside Kabul Airport.” Biden hasn’t had any public event on his schedule since his remarks at the Democratic National Convention shortly after midnight on August 20.
Yesterday, Politico offered a strange report that the Harris campaign was asking members of the media for advice on which reporter should get the first interview, and added, “One of the issues that Harris world is currently working to address is how to deploy running mate Tim Walz in the media. The danger in sending him out to do big solo interviews is that he might not have a full command of where Harris is on every issue.”
As our Michael Brendan Dougherty observes, this is in large part because Kamala Harris isn’t in full command of where Harris is on every issue.
This week, her campaign announced, via terse statement from a spokesman, that she no longer supports an electric-vehicle mandate. But as a senator, she cosponsored legislation to require that half of all cars sold in the U.S. be electric by 2030 — that’s six years from now! — and ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2040!
Phil Klein reminds us that bobbled interviews and incoherent statements were a big part of what derailed Harris’s last presidential campaign:
Yet as she did a victory lap in interviews after crushing Biden in the debate, Harris walked back the walk-back of her walk-back, claiming that she misunderstood the question to be about whether she would be willing to give up her own personal health insurance for a government-run plan.
As our Dan McLaughlin lays out, this cycle the media defense of the Democratic ticket is even more intense. Perhaps most notable is the current trend of giving generous coverage to the campaign that is most ruthlessly effective at hiding the candidate: “If your concept of political journalism is simply to cheer those who wield the knife well, that yields good coverage. But it’s not what a free press is for in a free and democratic republic.” But as I noted a few weeks ago, most people in politics simply want their side to win and value winning way, way more than they value an aspiring commander in chief’s being held accountable before Election Day.
There’s no shortage of good questions to ask Kamala Harris.
In conservative-media world, there’s going to be a lot of scoffing that the Harris campaign picked Bash because it wanted someone to loft softballs.
I suspect that Bash’s questions will be tougher than the Harris campaign and her fanbase want, but not as tough as the Trump campaign and his fanbase want. A lot of people have forgotten that we’ve already seen Bash ask questions of presidential candidates, during the debate between Trump and Biden. I think the questions asked by Bash that night were largely fine and fair — not necessarily the ones I would have asked, but all within bounds.
Here are the questions asked by Bash to the candidates in the first debate. (I’ve left out the questions asked by co-moderator Jake Tapper):
BASH: This is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. This morning, the court ruled on yet another abortion case, temporarily allowing emergency abortions to continue in Idaho despite that state’s restrictive ban. Former president Trump, you take credit for the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which returned the issue of abortion to the states. However, the federal government still plays a role in whether or not women have access to abortion pills. They’re used in about two-thirds of all abortions. As president, would you block abortion medication?
BASH: Staying on the topic of abortion, President Biden, seven states — I’ll let you do that. This is the same topic. — seven states have no legal restrictions on how far into a pregnancy a woman can obtain an abortion. Do you support any legal limits on how late a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy?
BASH: Let’s move to the topic of foreign policy. I want to begin with Russia’s war against Ukraine, which is now in its third year. Former president Trump, Russian president Vladimir Putin says he’ll only end this war if Russia keeps the Ukrainian territory it has already claimed and Ukraine abandons its bid to join NATO. Are Putin’s terms acceptable to you?
(Also easily forgotten is that Trump’s eventual answer was, “No, they’re not acceptable. No, they’re not acceptable.”)
BASH: Moving on to the Middle East, in October, Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than a thousand people and taking hundreds of hostages. Among those held and thought to still be alive are five Americans. Israel’s response has killed thousands of Palestinians and created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. President Biden, you’ve put forward a proposal to resolve this conflict. But so far, Hamas has not released the remaining hostages, and Israel is continuing its military offensive in Gaza. So what additional leverage will you use to get Hamas and Israel to end the war? You have two minutes.
BASH: President Trump, just to follow up, would you support the creation of an independent Palestinian state in order to achieve peace in the region?
BASH: President Biden, while black unemployment dropped to a record low under your presidency, black families still earn far less than white families. Black mothers are still three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. And black Americans are imprisoned at five times the rate of white Americans. What do you say to black voters who are disappointed that you haven’t made more progress?
BASH: You have 49 seconds left. What do you say to black voters who are disappointed with the progress so far?
BASH: Thank you. Another persistent challenge is the climate crisis. 2023 was the hottest year in recorded history, and communities across the country are confronting the devastating effects of extreme heat, intensifying wildfires, stronger hurricanes, and rising sea levels. Former president Trump, you’ve vowed to end your opponent’s climate initiatives. But, will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?
BASH: Let’s turn to concerns that voters have about each of you. President Biden, you would be 86 at the end of your second term. How do you address concerns about your capability to handle the toughest job in the world well into your 80s?
BASH: To you, a specific concern that voters have about you: Will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted that you will accept the results of this election regardless of who wins and you will say right now that political violence in any form is unacceptable?
BASH: President Trump, as I come back to you for a follow-up: The question was, will you accept the results of this election regardless of who wins?
BASH: President Trump, the question was, will you accept the results of the election regardless of who wins? Yes or no, please.
There are certain questions Bash is almost guaranteed to ask, because if she didn’t, the accusations that CNN was softer than marshmallows would be unbearable.
She’s going to have to ask about price controls. She’s going to have to ask about China; Walz will likely interrupt and mention how many times he’s been to China. He will probably not mention his previous belief that “when we’re on the same sheet of music, two of the world’s great superpowers, there’s many collaborative things that we can do.”
Bash will have to ask something about Harris’s abandoning so many positions from her 2019 presidential campaign. (When you withdraw by December 3 of the preceding year, does it really count as a “2020” presidential campaign?)
A recommendation: “To save time, just list the policy positions from five years ago that you still hold.”
The more interesting questions are, does Harris bobble her answers to Bash, even with 37 days of preparation time? And having checked the box on doing one televised interview, does the Harris campaign act as if this resolves the matter, and she won’t do any additional interviews before Election Day?
ADDENDUM: From the Telegraph, over in the United Kingdom:
Sir Keir Starmer failed to deny that US objections were preventing Ukraine from using Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets inside Russia.
The Prime Minister was asked during a press conference in Berlin alongside Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, if it was the case that the US was blocking the use of the missiles by Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces.
Sir Keir refused to be drawn and said he was not willing to “get into tactical questions about the use of weapons.”
The Telegraph reported last night that the UK backed the use of Storm Shadow missiles by Ukraine in Russia but would not publicly call for the move amid concern it would provoke a row with the US.
The “I’m not going to talk about that” is a yes, then, because if it wasn’t true, Keir Starmer wouldn’t want a false accusation against the U.S. floating around out there. The Financial Times reported that the U.K. unilaterally allowed the Ukrainians to use Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Crimea.
The Storm Shadow — no, not that one — has a range of 350 miles. It’s already being used against Russian targets on Ukrainian territory, but apparently the Biden administration doesn’t want it being used against Russian targets on Russian territory, because hey, we mustn’t be escalatory or provocative against the guys who sent missiles into the cancer ward of a children’s hospital.