As a conservative admittedly opposed to virtually everything she stands for, I will share the one sentence uttered by Kamala Harris in her CNN interview that I whole-heartedly believe: “My values have not changed.”
If there is anyone who strikes me as driven by a guiding set of principles, it is this vice president who seeks to be president. Her entire ascendancy and her record in public life point to a devotion to the issues she has supported vocally for years along that path.
So the problem we face with that short and cozy interview is the same one we will face in the weeks leading up to the election: If her “values have not changed,” what are we to make of her attempt to convince us that she has become suddenly friendly to a border wall, hesitant to ditch our private health insurance, reluctant to require electric cars and opposed to a fracking ban?
I know what I make of it. I don’t believe her for a minute.
This one interview, which for some reason took forever to arrange, must also be evaluated in terms of how she did alongside her running mate Tim Walz, whose addition to the proceedings allowed critics to doubt Harris’ ability to endure a one-on-one, even with a network that clearly favors her.
If that take is unfair, she should have at least known that it is pervasive and agreed to defuse it by sitting down with CNN reporter Dana Bash without an emotional support companion.
But as Bash honed in on various Walz controversies, it appeared he might be the one in need of a hug. From his claim of serving in a war zone and his false reference to experiences with in-vitro fertilization to his 2006 congressional campaign’s lies about a drunken driving arrest, Bash delivered a moment of actual importance by asking: “What do you say to voters who aren’t sure they can take you at your word?”
The question was valuable, and so was the answer, replete with the kind of irrelevancies and tortured sentence structure that have famously beleaguered Harris. Walz professed pride in his overall military service, which no one has disparaged, spoke broadly about families’ infertility challenges, which was not the question, and concluded that “I own my mistakes when I make ’em,” which appears to be fundamentally untrue.
One wishes Bash could have spread some of that inquisitive instinct across the landscape of answers Harris shared. The nominee got away with limiting her border responsibility to those infernally nebulous “root causes,” asserted with a straight face that she and President Joe Biden have helped ease inflation, and offered no regret for the months-long fraud of gaslighting the country into thinking Biden was in sound cognitive health.
These were moments ripe for mockery, but the criticisms come largely from people who are not going to vote for her anyway. The best measure of the impact of this interview is found in the reactions of people who admire her, or who are at least considering her in November.
Was it a failure likely to peel away the faithful? Not at all. Was it a performance that left voters saying “I was thinking about voting for her but now I just can’t?” Probably not for many. But was it a missed opportunity to shelve some of the concerns that have dogged the days since she became the heiress to the Democratic nomination? Absolutely.
Harris could have explained her current policy shifts in plausible detail, using as an example the JD Vance story of his 180-degree change of heart about Donald Trump. It is the way normal people honestly describe such moments, featuring some form of “I learned new information and realized I was wrong.”
She could have said that as president, she would wholeheartedly help Israel win its war against evil attackers. But that would have run afoul of that one true sentence: “My values have not changed.” Those values involve tempering support for Israel and actually hampering their war effort to placate the Hamas-friendly layers of her party.
Maybe they were in a time bind, but we did not get to hear answers on Ukraine, crime or her enthusiasm for facilitating gender transitions for children.
Those issues and many others will have to wait, but not for long. The presidential debate on ABC is Sept. 10. On that occasion, as in the CNN interview, Harris will enjoy the company of a network enthused about helping her win. But it won’t be her running mate at her side. It will be her opponent. If the moderators don’t hold her accountable, Donald Trump will.
And judging from Thursday’s brief and meandering interlude in a thoroughly friendly environment, there is a little reason to expect that night to go well for her.
Mark Davis hosts a morning radio show in Dallas-Fort Worth on 660-AM and at 660amtheanswer.com. Follow him on X: @markdavis .
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