‘We Should Normalize Changing Our Mind’: VP Wins Plaudits for CNN Interview
Harris and Walz said to have acquitted themselves under questioning by Dana Bash
Not only did she win overall praise for her first television interview since vaulting to the front of the Democratic ticket, but Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have perhaps turned one of her nagging vulnerabilities into a positive.
Harris sat down alongside running mate, Minnesota Gov Tim Walz, for a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.
The conversation with Bash came after journalists and her political opponents criticized Harris for not answering questions from the press since she replaced President Biden as the Democratic standard-bearer in July.
While Republicans, surprisingly, were not satisfied with the Harris/Walz interview, the Democratic duo won praise from others for their interview performance.
That performance satisfied Biden and others at the White House as well as other Democrats, according to Alex Thompson of Axios.
“Yeah, which is basically they wanted to say they finally did the first big interview and not have any sort of viral clip that their opponents could seize on. I can tell you that there was, among Biden aides, Harris aides, Democrats across town, that the main attitude was, ‘Phew,’ because essentially some of her worst moments as vice president have been in these interviews, that she can get a little bit on her back foot, that she can get nervous and have these sort of viral word-salad clips,” he said. “Now, they — I don‘t think everyone was saying this was an A-plus, but they basically got through it. And that was — the one thing that comes up over and over again is, is this old Kamala or new Kamala? Old Kamala is the 2019, 2020, 2021 Kamala, where she would have some of those moments.
“Like, this new Kamala, the one that we‘ve seen the last six weeks, has been incredibly dynamic on the stump. That has rallied the Democratic Party behind her. And that’s sort of the main anxiety going on among Democrats,” he added.
Eugene Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, agreed that Harris did a good job.
“You know, the first sort of broad, unanimous reaction that I was hearing just from really both sides of the aisle was that she did no harm. That’s the sort of prime imperative when you’re doing that sort of interview,” he said. “I thought it was better than that, actually. I thought she did herself good in that interview, affirmatively, by answering Dana Bash’s persistent questions about changes in her policy positions, particularly the discussion about fracking. I thought she did herself good when she talked about her core issues, like reproductive rights. I thought it was fascinating, the way she sort of sloughed off the racist attacks from Donald Trump by just saying, ‘It was the same old tired playbook, next question,’ which was a signal that that’s not what she wants to run on, that’s not her issue.
“She’s not asking the American people to vote for her because she would be the first woman of color, the first woman to be president, that in fact, she is asking the American people to vote for her on the merits, on her experience, on her positions. I thought she did very well in that interview,” Robinson added.
And Anand Giridharadas, a journalist and columnist for The New York Times, thought that Harris well dealing with the persistent vulnerability of her changed positions on so-called “fracking” and other issues.
“First of all, we change our minds all the time based on information, based on where we’re sitting, based on whether we’re a junior person at the office or the person running the office. It’s actually normal. We should normalize changing our mind,” Giridharadas said. “I think sometimes we in journalism shame people kind of figuring out a different view that they might hold and call it flip-flopping and try to kind of catch people in it when, in some ways, on some issues, that’s a measure of progress.
“I think we also need to recognize that she is in a different context right now than she was in a 2020 Democratic primary. She’s in a general election against an American fascist, Donald Trump. You know, let’s just be real, like, you need to sometimes do different things in a general election against the far-right candidate than you do in a primary,” he added. “Like, I don’t think we can kind of pretend that’s not the case. I think she said something by way of explanation of that that actually was quite interesting and moving and goes beyond the familiar kind of tackle to the center.
“She talked about this notion of consensus when she was kind of pressed on this ideas of reversal. She said, ‘I believe we have to work toward a consensus of how we can solve these things.’ I think that kind of allows you to square the circle, which is to say — and this is true for a lot of liberals, you know, in American life, where I think a lot of liberals who would distinguish themselves from progressives — actually share progressive ideals in a certain form, share a certain notion of what immigration should be like, don’t think the way the right does about it, share certain notions about preferring people to have health care than not having health care,” Giridharadas said. “Where liberals and progressives often differ is their sense of how much power they’re willing to smash to do it, where they think other people are. So she talked about, ‘Look, I’ve expressed some of these ideals, but we have to be mindful,’ particularly in the position she is in now, of where other people are, where the country is, what can a large majority of people be led to want and be led to fight for.
“I think that’s a reasonable position to take, even if it’s not the same as my position on any given issue.”
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