Earlier than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ first sit-down interview aired on Thursday night, Donald Trump was already attacking it.
“She was sitting behind that desk, this massive desk, and she didn’t look like a leader today,” Trump mentioned at an occasion in La Crosse, Wisconsin, roughly half an hour earlier than the interview aired. “I’ll be honest. I don’t see her negotiating with President Xi [Jinping] of China. I don’t see her with [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong-un, like we did with Kim Jong-un.”
There was no large desk. Harris and working mate Tim Walz carried out the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash whereas seated at a small desk at a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. However since Trump was offering this little bit of unadorned misogyny earlier than the interview ran, his creativeness apparently positioned Harris behind one thing extra substantial—one thing just like the Resolute desk.
Trump’s assault on Harris’ look through the interview was sign of the place Republicans went of their responses Thursday night: prepackaged, disconnected from the reality, and weak.
All through her interview, Harris did properly. She did properly regardless that the media had raised the interview to the extent of a do-or-die take a look at. She did properly regardless that Bash appeared to mistake repeating Republican speaking factors for conducting journalism.
The spotlight of the night was when Harris refused to have interaction with Trump’s racist declare that she “turn[ed] Black” for political achieve.
BASH: What I wish to ask you about is what [Trump] mentioned final month. He urged that you simply occurred to show Black not too long ago for political functions, questioning a core a part of your id.
HARRIS: Yeah.
BASH: Any—
HARRIS: Standard, drained playbook. Subsequent query, please. (LAUGH)
BASH: That’s it?
HARRIS: That’s it.
That Harris refused to roll within the mud Trump created appeared to throw Bash off stride, however that was the theme of the night. Harris was there to offer calm, substantive solutions. Too unhealthy Bash got here so ill-equipped with substantive questions.
Because the Related Press studies, Harris’ first huge interview since changing into the Democratic nominee “was notable mostly in how routine it seemed.” Harris’ responses have been measured and cautious. She didn’t fumble or make noteworthy errors. She didn’t discuss sharks, batteries, or fictional serial killers—Trump’s latest preoccupations.
The actual fact-checkers might take it simple. And for individuals who have been trying on the interview extra thinking about warmth than gentle, they’ll have it a lot tougher.
When The New York Instances’ “7 Takeaways From Harris’s First Major Interview” embody that Harris “struggles to be punchy off the cuff,” Walz “is good at sitting and smiling,” and that Bash was hampered as a result of the small desk made it arduous for her to be powerful on Harris, you might really feel the outlet’s disappointment.
For The New York Instances and lots of different conventional shops, any interview with Trump is filtered to report the few statements that may be true or no less than coherent. When speaking about anybody else, these shops filter for something that may be seen as a lie or no less than an error.
Harris gave them little to speak about.
The identical was true of Republicans. Regardless of his eagerness to get in an inexpensive shot earlier than airtime, Trump was typically silent throughout and after it aired. His greatest criticism on social media wasn’t something Harris mentioned; it was what she didn’t say.
That response lined up with one other clearly prepackaged assertion from Trump’s marketing campaign, which contained a protracted listing of “what Kamala Harris didn’t talk about with CNN.”
Criticizing Harris for failing to supply solutions to questions that weren’t requested might not be the silliest response to an interview in historical past. But it surely’s up there.
The one line from the interview that Republicans repeated on Thursday night and are nonetheless spewing throughout Fox Information and different right-wing shops on Friday was Harris merely saying “my values have not changed.” Republicans are slotting that assertion into one other prewritten narrative that Trump’s marketing campaign has been promoting: Harris as a “flip-flopper.” So that they’re taking the “values” line and claiming Harris is saying she nonetheless holds each coverage place she has ever held—or has ever been claimed to carry—suddenly. She’s a radical who needs to cease all fracking! And likewise a flip-flopper who modified her place on fracking!
Nonetheless, that’s the alternative of what Harris mentioned. Her full sentence was “I feel crucial and most vital facet of my coverage perspective and choices is my values haven’t modified.” She clearly used the “values” phrase to elucidate that whereas a few of her positions on points like fracking might have shifted as she gathered extra info, her underlying beliefs haven’t. That’s not flip-flopping. It’s referred to as studying.
Whatever the fact, anticipate these two contradictory assault strains—Harris is a flip-flopper but additionally a radical who’s by no means modified her coverage positions—to be the first Republican speaking factors popping out of this interview. And naturally, media shops are keen to help.
What Harris delivered on Thursday night time was a strong, abnormal efficiency. Which is precisely the word she and her marketing campaign needed to hit. She wasn’t swinging for the moon. She wasn’t attempting to reforge her picture in half an hour.
She was doing what she did on the Democratic Nationwide Conference: displaying that she represents normality within the face of over eight years of Trump’s assault on primary norms and human decency.
As a result of these guys? They’re simply bizarre.
