Kamala Harris’s week of friendly media interviews haven’t gone well

If there’s one things Americans following the US presidential campaign would know about Kamala Harris’s candidacy, it’s her vow to “turn the page”. She repeats the phrase at almost every rally and in every interview, including on her much-hyped interview on 60 Minutes that aired on Monday night (Tuesday AEST).

“I believe in my soul and heart, the American people are ready to turn the page,” she told host Bill Whitaker.

That’s why her live appearance on The View on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), part of a self-described ‘media blitz’, was such a flop. She couldn’t have asked for a more friendly set of hosts – Whoopi Goldberg almost teared up telling the audience how honoured and proud she was ahead of the television love in.

Kamala Harris at the ABC during a break during the recording of the show "The View". Picture; AFP.

But when another fawning host asked directly “would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?“, giving her a clear opportunity to say, perhaps, that she would have liked tougher action on illegal immigration sooner, Harris responded instead:

“There is not a thing that comes to mind, and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have impact”. Umm, what?

Harris has been trying to disassociate herself from the Biden administration, whose record on immigration, the economy and foreign policy have overall been dreadful, at least according to what voters tell pollsters.

On a day the New York Times published an optimistic poll for the Democrat presidential hopeful, showing Harris ahead of Donald Trump 49 per cent to 46 per cent for the first time, it was a disaster, and one seized on gleefully by Trump and his running mate JD Vance.

Her 60 Minutes interview, only her second serious interview with the media as candidate fore president after sitting down with CNN last month, also included a painful moment where the vice president was unable to explain why she hadn’t pushed to crack down on the unprecedented surge in immigration across the southern border earlier, an issue which has fuelled Donald Trump’s political comeback.

“Arrivals quadrupled … Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?” Whittaker asked, multiple times, without any satisfactory answer. “It’s a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand,” she said in various permutations, without explaining who those solutions weren’t enacted in 2021.

In short, the Republican campaign has been loving Harris’s media blitz, her performance in which tends to explain why Democrat strategists have been so reluctant to engage with even friendly outlets: it’s very hard, if not impossible to run as a ‘change’, even ‘joy’, candidate having been so instrumental in the decisions of an administration with a very unpopular track record.

Kamala is confronted by 60 Minutes on if allowing illegal immigration to quadruple on her watch was a mistake. Gets asked three times, responds with nonsense. This interview is ending her campaign: pic.twitter.com/VUlYFczisw

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 8, 2024

Asked why she had changed her position on so many issues over the years, Harris said she was travelling the country to build consensus. “We are a diverse people”.

Interviewer: ‘You have changed your positions on so many things’

Kamala: ‘We are a diverse people!’

Honestly, this interview is just unbelievably bad. Pleasantly surprised to see the interviewer press her on several issues.

pic.twitter.com/SH7y7ECgnG

— Kristen Mag (@kristenmag) October 8, 2024

Even 60 Minutes appears to have thought the prerecorded interview went poorly for Harris, swapping out a meandering ‘word salad’ answer about US influence over Israel with a response that appeared more coherent according to the Trump campaign, which has demanded a full transcript.

“The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region,” Harris said in one version.

But in the prime-time interview she answered: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end”.

Her interview with anti-Trump broadcaster Howard Stern, the longest she has conducted so far as the Democratic candidate, at one hour, didn’t generate the same blowback for the Harris campaign, but was hardly gruelling. “This is my form of therapy, right now,” Harris told the former shock-jock, relieved not to face any questions about the border.

Any swing voters listening would have learned that Harris eats raisin bran and Special K for breakfast, is a fan of U2 and Lewis Hamilton, the Formula One driver, and starts her day with a work out on an elliptical machine while watching left-wing chat show Morning Joe.

Harris’s media blitz, which began with an hour long chat with Call Her Daddy podcaster Alex Cooper on the weekend, continues in coming days with appearances on a late night comedy show with Stephen Colbert, who loathes Trump, and ends with a Univision town hall on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).

It’s too soon to any polling on whether her busiest week with media since coming the de facto leader of the Democratic Party in July has been helpful, although it’s interesting to note for the first time in a month Trump became the favourite to win in November according to the eight political betting markets tracked by RealClear Politics, the favourite flipping literally over the last few days.

“She said, ‘Tim, you know, you need to be a little more careful on how you say things,’ whatever it might be,” Tim Walz exclaimed in his interview on 60 Minutes that aired this week too, referring to what his boss had told him after he was humiliated for lying about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

At least one person has enjoyed a private smile the Democrat campaign team in recent days.