Harris and Walz held their own during an interview driven more by media-made controversies than substance.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz sit for a joint interview with CNN's Dana Bash.
(Screen shot/ CNN)
No sooner had Vice President Kamala Harris agreed to the high-profile interview that media factotems had been demanding since she was endorsed by President Joe Biden—a sit-down with CNN's Dana Bash alongside her running mate, Governor Tim Walz—a new nontroversy arose. Why wouldn't Harris sit down by herself? Why did she need Walz by her side?
“First question to Harris ought to be why she couldn't appear solo?” Mark Knoller of CBS radio tweeted huffily. Meghan McCain pretended to be a feminist. “I don't know if democrats (sic) fully realize how damaging the image of the possible first woman president being incapable of giving an interview alone without the presence of a man to help her is,” McCain wrote on X. The odious CNN contributor Scott Jennings referred to Walz as Harris's “emotional support animal.” Speaking of animals, South Dakota's dog-killing governor, Kristi Noem, weighed in, telling Newsmax that Harris was being “propped up” by a man—just in case Harris “started giggling” and “looking crazy.”
I hate to tell Meghan McCain that her father must have been emasculated by appearing with his vice-presidential pick, the titanic Sarah Palin, around the same time in the campaign. Every presidential nominee since 2004 has done an interview with his or her running mate soon after their convention. Kamala Harris got endorsed by Biden 40 days ago. She was nominated by her party a week ago. The idea that she's late to any of this is ridiculous.
Aside from trashing Harris for having Walz at her side, the main issues the Beltway media wanted addressed—how Harris explains her alleged flip-flops since her 2019 presidential campaign, how 24-year National Guard veteran Walz might have misstated his record on occasion—got addressed. Congrats, guys (and some gals). We got answers! It was often tedious.
CNN's Dana Bash did… adequately. She did not indulge in the right-wing tropes against Harris, although her microscopic focus on how Harris has changed positions—on immigration, on fracking—since her unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign felt like Beltway myopia to me. We have millions of young voters who weren't eligible in 2019 or 2020. Maybe they enjoyed that stroll down memory lane; maybe they tuned out. On fracking, Harris said her experience as vice president has shown her “we can grow and increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.” She added, “My values have not changed.”
Her increased conservatism on immigration is tougher to finesse; like Joe Biden, she relied on the bipartisan border deal Trump wiped off the table.
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“Through bipartisan work that included some of the most conservative members of Congress, a bill was crafted,
