SPEAK UP: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz meet the press

The Democratic candidates turn their attention to the cable television audience and the mainstream media. What did you think?

Brat summer isn’t even over yet, but Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have already shifted the vibes, gotten the Democratic Party to show up in red states, and even turned the polls. Last night Harris and Walz sat for an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, taking a step towards mending the campaign’s relationship with legacy media and takin some mild grilling on minor gotchas (IVF — or IUI? How do you explain your positions shifting over time as you’ve learned more?) that might have made sense in an ordinary time as they addressed the vast cable television audience as in the campaign interviews of yore.

The CNN appearance (transcript here for you cord-cutters) wasn’t about mobilizing the base, nor was it the heavy policy discussion some in the mainstream press have been clamoring for. The candidates took the opportunity to tackle some nagging questions, call out some bad-faith arguments and attacks, and present capable, pragmatic leadership to the vast cable-subscribing public. Harris leaned into her commitment to the “opportunity economy” and making things easier for regular folks who are focused more on things like paying rent, buying clothes for their kids, buying groceries than threats to democracy. Trump came up mostly as a bad manager, a failure in delivering help to Americans in times of crisis, or an obstacle to progress — and was otherwise brushed aside:

BASH: Speaking of Republicans, I want to ask you about your opponent, Donald Trump. I was a little bit surprised, people might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face to face. That’s gonna change soon, but what I want to ask you about is what he said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity.

HARRIS: Yeah.

BASH: Any—

HARRIS: Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please. (LAUGH)

We’d love to know what you thought of the interview. If you tuned in to watch the interview (or you’ve caught up by now), what did you hear? What do you think the interview accomplished — or didn’t accomplish? Who was it for, and do you think the candidates made the case for those viewers? Did it satisfy Harris’s critics in the press? Let us (and your fellow Ink readers) know.

These open forums are for our subscribers, and, as such, we expect people to be generous and open, to listen and to share. This is not for anyone with an internet connection. This is your space.

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Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images