Tangle - The Harris-Walz CNN interview.

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Quick hits.

1. Over the weekend, Israel's military recovered the bodies of six hostages (including an American citizen) recently killed in an underground tunnel built by Hamas. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis rallied across the country to push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a hostage-release deal. (The protests)
2. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired his air force commander just days after an F-16 fighter jet crashed and killed a pilot. Russia and Ukraine continue to trade airstrikes, with Russia's latest strikes hitting the capital city of Kyiv. (The firing)
3. After four years, Oregon ended the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of heroin, fentanyl, meth and other hard drugs. (The law)
4. More than 10,000 hotel workers across eight cities went on strike over Labor Day weekend amid contract negotiations with some of the largest hotel chains in the country. (The strike)
5. Brazil banned X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, after X failed to appoint a local legal representative as required under a new law. (The ban)

Today's topic.

The Harris-Walz interview. On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz spoke with CNN’s Dana Bash in their first interview since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president. The interview, which was broadcast Thursday night but recorded earlier that day, lasted approximately 27 minutes and touched on a range of issues, including border security, fracking and the war in Gaza, as well as how Harris’s positions on those issues have changed over time. 

Bash began the interview by asking Harris what she would do on day one as president. Harris answered that her highest priority is “to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class.” She did not share specifics when pressed by Bash, instead pointing broadly to her plan for an “opportunity economy.” 

Harris’s positions on fracking and border security also came up repeatedly. Bash asked whether Harris still supports a ban on fracking as she initially had in her 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination. “As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking,” Harris responded. 

On the border, Bash noted that Harris had been “tasked with addressing the root causes of migration” and asked why the Biden administration had “wait[ed] three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions.” Harris defended her efforts on border issues, suggesting her efforts to address root causes had “actually resulted in a number of benefits, including historic investments by American businesses in that region.” She also criticized former President Donald Trump for his efforts to stall a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, saying he “killed the bill” because Biden signing a solution would not have benefited Trump politically. 

Walz fielded just a few questions during the interview, including one over his comments on his National Guard service. When pressed by Bash, Walz seemed to concede that he misspoke, but added, “My wife the English teacher told me my grammar’s not always correct.”

In the weeks leading up to the interview, Republicans had criticized Harris for eschewing interviews or interactions with the press, and after the sit-down with Bash was announced, many critics questioned why Walz was included. Harris campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz defended the move, saying, “For at least 20 years, every ticket, Republican and Democrat, sat for a joint interview.” The campaign also said that Harris would do a solo interview at a later date but did not share further details. 

Former President Trump said Harris appeared “defective” in the interview, remarking at a campaign rally on Friday, “This is gonna be the president of our country? I don’t think so.” Harris, meanwhile, largely steered clear of mentioning Trump during the interview. When asked about Trump’s recent comments questioning her racial identity, Harris called his remarks the “same old, tired playbook” and told Bash “next question.” 

Today, we’ll explore what the right and left are saying about the interview. Then, my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right criticizes Harris’s performance, suggesting she did not give coherent, substantive answers.
• Some say the interview was a reminder of Harris’s limitations as a candidate.
• Others say Bash let Harris and Walz off the hook. 

In The New York Times, Bret Stephens wrote “a vague, vacuous TV interview didn’t help Kamala Harris.”

“Kamala Harris didn’t hurt herself in her interview this week with CNN’s Dana Bash. She didn’t particularly help herself, either. On the positive side, she came across as warm, relatable and — to recall Barack Obama’s famous 2008 exchange with Hillary Clinton — more than ‘likable enough,’” Stephens said. “Less positive: She was vague to the point of vacuous. She struggled to give straight answers to her shifting positions on fracking and border security other than to say, ‘My values have not changed.’ Fine, but she evaded the question of why it took the Biden administration more than three years to gain better control of the border.”

“A bigger weakness in the interview was the presence of Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota… He was transparently evasive in answering Bash’s questions about his misstatement about his military service, false claims about a D.U.I. arrest and misleading statements about his family’s fertility treatments. If there are other lies or untruths in Walz’s record, the campaign ought to get ahead of them now,” Stephens wrote. “There was too much fluff in this interview to lay to rest doubts about Harris’s readiness for the highest office. Tougher questions next time, please.”

In The Federalist, Eddie Scarry said “the CNN interview reminded people of what has always been true about Kamala.”

“There’s a reason that Democrats and the media have forced an amorphous, ever-shifting concept of ‘joy’ to be the animating force of Kamala’s campaign. This interview, containing not a single unexpected question, illustrates perfectly why they’ve done so,” Scarry wrote. “Kamala can’t withstand scrutiny. She implied that she’s never been in favor of banning fracking but when confronted with her position when she ran for president in 2020, she skated past the question to only say she has ‘made very clear’ she’s not in favor of it.”

“Kamala can’t articulate an argument for herself. Confronted with her on-record position to decriminalize unauthorized crossings at the southern border, she started talking about climate policy,” Scarry said. “Kamala can’t even fake a fundamental grasp of critical foreign policy issues. The war in Israel is just one of two violent global conflicts to break out under the Kamala-Biden administration, and in the almost year since it started, the closest she could come to explaining her depth of understanding about it or how to bring it to an end was to repeat in frustration, ‘We have to get a deal done.’”

In The New York Post, Isaac Schorr argued “CNN’s interview showed how media will work overtime to get Kamala Harris elected.”

“Asked about her various flip-flops on various issues — and energy policy in particular — she served up word salad: Climate change ‘is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.’ And platitudes: ‘The most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,’” Schorr wrote. “But as full of dodges, obfuscations and outright lies as it might have been, a disaster it was not. Harris started slow, but the interview showed exactly how, with a savvy campaign strategy and friendly media, she is capable of defeating Trump.”

“This playbook of simple, scripted answers only works, though, because it was paired with Bash’s friendly tone and approach. She would press them once, but never really try to pin either of them down if they continued to evade uncomfortable terrain. Bash really gave the game away when she asked — with her final questions in the first interview Harris has granted the American people in months — softballs about her niece and Walz’s son,” Schorr said. “If Harris’ weaknesses are to be exploited, Republicans — and their standard-bearer — will need to prosecute the case against her in a diligent and intelligible manner. Because the media aren’t going to.”

What the left is saying.

• The left is mixed on the interview but many say Harris delivered a solid — if unremarkable — performance.
• Some say Harris’s messaging approach mirrors Biden’s in 2020. 
• Others argue Harris’s policy positions are still hard to understand.  

In The New York Times, Michelle Cottle called the interview “a solid first effort.”

“After all the hand-wringing about how Kamala Harris has been avoiding extended media interviews, the Democratic presidential nominee did a solid job tonight in her sit-down with CNN’s Dana Bash,” Cottle wrote. “Did we get a deep dive into Harris’s policy positions? No, we did not. But that was not the point of this interview. This was about Harris introducing herself to Americans in her new role — and proving a few basic things to everyone.”

“Her response was that her values have not changed but her experience as vice president has given her a different perspective and made her appreciate the importance of achieving consensus. You may not like that answer, but she was confident and unapologetic in explaining herself,” Cottle said. “Harris needed to come across as serious and thoughtful and, well, presidential. Mission accomplished… She was serious and at times even a bit salty — as she was when contrasting the decency of President Biden with the utter indecency of Donald Trump. But she never seemed nasty or even super angry, which was also vital, since women simply cannot get away with that like men can.”

In The New Yorker, John Cassidy wrote “Harris’s political calculus takes shape.”

“Harris and her advisers clearly believe that being accused of flip-flopping is a lesser threat to her campaign than giving her opponent the ammunition to brand her as a radical. They may well be right. Many voters have a jaundiced opinion of politicians to begin with and hardly expect them to display the constancy of a Carthusian monk. Moreover, there is no flip-flopper more unabashed than Trump, a former Democrat who donated to Harris’s 2011 and 2013 campaigns in California,” Cassidy said. “Stripping things down to essentials: Harris is running on the same platform that Biden ran on in 2020, as an antidote to the Trump insanity.”

“Harris’s unflustered performance at Kim’s Café will have reassured Democrats that she is unlikely to trip,” Cassidy added. “Harris demonstrated a determination to not get distracted by Trump’s gibes and antics which she will certainly need to draw upon between now and November. In recent days, the former President has staged a political photo op at Arlington National Cemetery and reposted on his social-media account QAnon slogans and sexist, misogynistic remarks about the Vice-President. He’s flailing about.”

In Jacobin, Branko Marcetic said “Harris’s CNN interview didn’t inspire confidence.”

“That the interview had the level of hype it did was fairly absurd in the first place, since up until this point, answering questions from reporters has been a routine, unremarkable part of a politician’s job, especially one vying to become president,” Marcetic wrote. “To the extent that all Harris had to do last night was avoid the kind of potentially viral disastrous interview moments that have plagued her in previous years, she passed this lowest of low bars. Even so, despite everyone and their hamster knowing the question was coming, Harris still doesn’t have a good answer for why exactly she’s done a 180 on a host of policy issues she championed when first running for president.”

“The Harris campaign so far has often seemed intentionally designed to confuse observers about what kind of president she would actually be. She wants to raise corporate taxes, but she’s actively courting big business tycoons. She hasn’t commented one way or another on whether she’ll keep Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan in place after billionaire donors called for her ouster. Her chief foreign policy adviser is a major proponent of the Iran deal, while Harris insiders publicly say it’s as good as dead if she returns to the White House,” Marcetic said. “Last night’s interview will not be reassuring to anyone hoping Harris would steer the country in a more progressive direction, or even simply be a competent president.”

My take.

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• The interview was about what we expected — some good and some bad for each side to cherry-pick from.
• Harris gave some smart, some unhelpful, and some bad answers.
• Retrospectively, the Harris campaign may have been smarter to let Harris go solo and add Walz in later.

Is it possible for an interview like this to have a less-than-detectable impact?

A few weeks ago, we published a piece on the 2024 race becoming a toss-up. In the "my take" section of that newsletter, I alluded to the fact Harris was going to do an interview in late August. Here is what I wrote then:

Whenever she does take a tough interview (and she could do so soon), she is going to be challenged on her record. She'll be asked about her flip-flops, her role on the border as vice president, the Biden administration's record, and what she really believes now. One of three things will happen: 1) She'll step on a few rakes, remind us why she struggled so much in the 2020 Democratic primary, and bleed some support; 2) She’ll show that she is the refreshing and engaging candidate, give us something new, and the enthusiasm will go into overdrive; or 3) She’ll have some gaffes and some great moments, each side will cherry-pick those parts, and the race will not actually change much.

I think it's safe to say we are living in reality #3. Kudos to Tangle Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, who actually suggested including that bullet point as not just an option — but the most likely option, which he was right about.

I don’t think Harris nailed it, as some liberal commentators suggested. I didn't think it was a disaster, as many conservative commentators suggested. The whole interview was a predictable shrug. In fact, we predicted it! In our Sunday podcast from two weeks ago, Ari and I guessed several questions that were going to be asked and guessed how Harris might answer a few of them — and we did a pretty good job. I’m still waiting for someone to ask Harris how she will govern differently from Biden, but she’ll probably have to answer a few more questions for us to get those answers.

Some of Harris's responses in the interview were very smart. For instance, she didn't take the bait on the question about Trump saying she "turned black," instead saying it was the same old playbook from him and then moving on. I thought this was the perfect way to handle it: Voters aren't interested in that stuff right now, and Harris made a conscious choice to just say "That's Trump being Trump" and then keep the interview going — which is a very effective way to both call out his character and stay focused on her own campaign.

Some of Harris's answers were smart politically, even if they require favorably reframing her history. For instance, when asked about “Bidenomics,” she defended the president’s economic agenda by emphasizing that they inherited a crisis where hundreds of people were dying per day from Covid and an economy that had crashed; therefore, they spent most of their first term addressing multiple crises.

It's true the economy had crashed and thousands of people a day were dying of Covid when Biden and Harris came into office. But it's also true that in January of 2021, Trump was already leading a recovery — the unemployment rate had been falling for months and the global economy was already bouncing back. So they inherited a less-than-ideal situation, and certainly a far worse one than what Trump inherited from Obama, but you could also fairly say that they didn’t just inherit the crisis but the recovery effort as well. And, of course, people continued to die of or with Covid under Biden and Harris.

Some of Harris's answers were unhelpful. For instance, she had no real explanation for her change of position on fracking — except to say her "values" hadn't changed, that she did not move to ban fracking as vice president (how exactly would that have worked?), and that she has seen we can have a clean energy economy without banning fracking. That last part seems like the real answer (and I’ll tout again that this is actually the answer we thought she’d give), but she took a while to get there. I think it's safe to say Harris isn't going to ban fracking, but she still hasn’t given a good answer as to why she changed her mind from four years ago. 

Some of Harris's answers were just bad. On Biden's Israel-Gaza approach, Harris effectively said she would not do anything differently from Biden, and then insisted there would be no change of policy because they "have to get a deal done" to end the war and get the hostages home — even though the current policy has not produced a deal in 11 months. 

That answer embodies what is ultimately going to be her biggest challenge as a candidate: She needs to simultaneously champion the good things about the Biden-Harris administration while also promising to offer something new. She needs to promise to get things done while also explaining why those things haven't happened in the last four years. She needs to back the current president while also explaining how she is doing to be different. It is an incredibly difficult line to walk, and I'm not entirely sure she has a good plan for how to walk it.

As for Walz, I was not one of the people who thought it was a bad look for him to join Harris for the interview. Presidential candidates do joint interviews with their running mates all the time, and Harris and Walz are on a compressed timeline, so it makes total sense to me that he'd be there. Still, it may have been a better decision (for the optics) to let Harris go out there alone, then have Walz join her for an interview later.

After watching the interview a second time, if I were grading the three participants, this is how I’d mark them: Walz gets a C-, Harris gets a C, and Bash gets a B-. It’s never great for a campaign when the interviewer gets the best grade, but it’s not a disaster when your candidates are pulling down C’s, either. Ultimately, I don’t think this will go down as a meaningful moment in the 2024 race.

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Under the radar.

U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which tracks border encounters and releases them the following month, reported a decrease of 25,000 encounters for July — a 19% drop. The surprise decrease comes amid a recent trend of migrant encounters increasing in July and August in previous years. However, after five consecutive months of decrease, arrests for illegal southern border crossings are expected to rise slightly from July to August. CBP also tracks arrest totals, and the agency expects arrests in August to total about 58,000. Taken together, the figures indicate that border crossings could have bottomed out, but the next round of CBP data in October will provide more clarity. U.S. officials have largely attributed the decline in crossings and arrests to Mexican authorities increasing their enforcement. CBP publishes its data online, and PBS has the story on the arrests.

Numbers.

• 39. The number of days between President Joe Biden announcing his exit from the presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris’s interview with CNN. 
• 6.3 million. The number of viewers for Harris and Walz’s CNN interview, according to Nielsen. 
• 1.2 million. The number of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. 
• 3. The number of times Harris mentioned former President Donald Trump by name in the interview. 
• 7. The number of times Harris mentioned President Joe Biden by name in the interview. 
• 11. The number of times fracking was mentioned in the interview.
• 12. The number of times the southern border was mentioned in the interview.
• 5. The number of times Harris said her values had not changed or did not change in the interview. 

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just covered the announcement of Medicare drug-price negotiations.
• The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was what every European country calls Germany, and why.
• Nothing to do with politics: Eight of the top 10 cities that overspend the most on cars are in Texas.
• Thursday’s survey: 1,093 readers responded to our survey on Mark Zuckerberg’s letter about censorship with 38% questioning both the message and the timing. “Why now? Is he still trying to influence the upcoming election,” one respondent asked.

Have a nice day.

According to the Energy Information Administration, solar energy made up 60% of new electricity capacity in the first half of 2024 in the United States. Other renewable energy sources have also been increasing, including battery installations accounting for 20% of new electricity additions, with wind and nuclear power also contributing. Optimistically, the second half of 2024 could see an even greater increase in the use of renewable energy, leading some to estimate that 96% of the United States’s new electricity capacity could be emission-free. TechSpot has the story. 

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