If she is elected president of the United States on November 5, Kamala Harris will begin by tackling the daily difficulties of the American middle class, by hunting down abusive prices, by helping SMEs, by increasing the child tax credit, in short, by “investing in American families.” This is what the Democratic candidate explained Thursday to CNN journalist Dana Bash, for her first interview with a major media outlet since the start of her campaign some forty days ago.
Donald Trump had criticized his rival for not daring to confront journalists. To better highlight Kamala Harris’s shyness with the media, the populist leader had even organized a press conference in Florida on August 8, and promised to repeat the exercise “until he was thirsty”.
A week after her triumph at the Democratic convention in Chicago, Kamala Harris has taken up the challenge. It is all the greater since she had suffered for months from a failed interview at the start of her vice-presidency, in June 2021 on NBC. On Thursday, she spoke in a duet with her running mate Tim Walz, in Savannah, Georgia. A short interview, presented in the evening on a delayed basis, interspersed with videos and advertising.
A delicate exercise
Answering open-ended questions is a delicate test, because the candidate must both show loyalty to the president who gave her a stepping stone to the White House and distance herself from an unpopular leader and record. Moreover, her voters expect her to be consistent, while Donald Trump’s voters are less concerned about her deviations.
While many Americans criticize Joe Biden for the cost of living, the candidate agreed with the observation that prices were too high, but also recalled the state the country was in when she entered the White House alongside him, at the beginning of 2021: more than 10 million jobs lost and hundreds of deaths daily “largely because of the mismanagement” of Covid by Donald Trump.
She also reiterated that she no longer opposed shale gas development, that she would sign the anti-immigration bill that Donald Trump scuttled, and that she would unequivocally defend Israel’s right to defend itself. “My values have not changed,” she repeated, as the Trump camp accuses her of being both a leftist and a political weather vane.
“Turning the page on the past decade”
When Joe Biden called her on Sunday, July 21, to announce his withdrawal from the presidential race, she was eating pancakes and bacon with her family, including her great-nieces. “Are you sure?” she asked the president, who immediately told her he would support her, according to Kamala Harris.
Asked about her continued advocacy for Joe Biden despite his cognitive decline, the candidate highlighted the qualities of the president, “so smart and loyal,” who “cares so much about the American people.” History will remember a “transformational” presidency of investment in national infrastructure and defense of allied countries, she assured.
However, the new era will begin in 2025, said the Democrat, who risks losing votes if she falls too far into line with Joe Biden. She promised “a new path forward” to “turn the page on the past decade”, an era where the strong leader was the one who defeated others, “while the true measure of a leader’s strength is in those he manages to raise”. In a spirit of openness, she said she wanted to appoint Republicans to the government, after having received several at the podium of the Democratic convention.
The little girl with the black braids
A few days ago, Donald Trump questioned her blackness. “It’s always the same tired tactic. Next question please!” the candidate dismissed.
Then she was asked to react to the photo that shows her speaking, at the convention podium, with her African-American great-niece with long, neat braids in the foreground. It is impossible not to think of Norman Rockwell’s painting emblematic of the struggle for civil rights, where we see a little black girl going to the white school, surrounded by four police officers, at the time of desegregation. Moved, Kamala Harris did not want to dwell on her own experience of discrimination. She stressed that she was running because she believes she is “the best person for this job, regardless of race or gender.”
In Donald Trump’s staff, the clock was running: “Kamala spoke for just over 16 minutes and didn’t even mention the crime crisis in this nation. She spent just 3 minutes and 25 seconds on the economy and 2 minutes and 36 seconds on immigration. Kamala said three times that her values ’have not changed.’ She remains a radical from San Francisco,” the opposing team attacked in a press release. “Boring!!!”, Donald Trump simply commented on Truth Social, while his running mate JD Vance compared the candidate to a dumb beauty queen in a video posted on X.
