Kamala Harris’s performance in her first media interview since deposing her boss, Joe Biden, from the Democratic nomination for President was not quite a car crash, but it got agonizingly close. The Vice President’s wending, fragile performance in front of a fairly soft interviewer in CNN’s Dana Bash will doubtless cause concern inside her campaign as to how many more times she can be rolled out like that, especially given she was even flanked by her running mate, Tim Walz, this time.
While Bash’s initial questions were hardly easy–especially for a champion waffler like Harris–the CNN anchor never interrupted, as she has countless other political candidates. Nor was there ever any follow-up or pushback on the answers she received. Even when Tim Walz–who has shrunk away since the Democratic National Convention–bizarrely blamed “grammar” and school shooters for his long-standing stolen valor claims, Bash backed off.
But the whole altercation will doubtless leave Democrats and her own campaign wondering: What will happen when Kamala goes head-to-head with President Trump in a debate?
At the time of publication, that clash is just 11 days away, scarcely enough time to instill in the Vice President that her sassy, “Excuse me, I’m speaking” schtick will only work once over the course of 90 minutes. There will also be no live audience to cheer on what Kamala would doubtless want as an “Oh snap!” moment, and ABC’s insistence on muting the microphones of the other candidates when one is speaking also harms her abilities to play feisty little ethnic girl on stage. No wonder they are pushing back so hard on this rule.
As much as Harris and her team would have preferred a purely boring conversation last night, she opened up some lines of attack against her “values” that Trump and his campaign have already jumped on. In the face of a number of policy flip-flops, Kamala told CNN her values have not changed. Trump shot back on Truth Social almost immediately after, posting an almost perfect riposte to the “values” proposition Kamala espoused:
This is an important riposte to Kamala's "my values have not changed," schtick from last night. pic.twitter.com/JRFjcZ1RsP
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) August 30, 2024
For Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, last night’s performance will have raised more questions than it provided answers. It will have caused more consternation than it does quiet the critics. Given the nervousness and harm of the overall performance, it will rule out any major television interview for now and the foreseeable future.
