WASHINGTON — As Vice President Kamala Harris parses out the details of her agenda, she has favored broad strokes over detailed policy papers. Only recently has she begun sitting for interviews, which have elicited few details about what her presidential administration might look like.
Little about that careful approach changed during a 25-minute interview with Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC that was broadcast on Wednesday night. It was Harris’ first one-on-one interview on cable television since becoming the Democratic nominee.
In her discussion with a friendly interviewer, the vice president again presented herself as a champion of the middle class and hit many of the same themes from her pro-business economic speech earlier in the day. She largely avoided direct questions about how she would govern and why some voters remain fond of former President Donald Trump’s stewardship of the economy.
Here are three takeaways from Harris’ interview.
Harris had roundabout answers to open-ended questions.
Ruhle’s first question was about how Harris might respond to people who hear her proposals and say, “These policies aren’t for me.” The MSNBC host’s second was about why voters tend to tell pollsters that Trump is better equipped to handle the economy.
Harris responded to the fairly basic and predictable questions with roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer.
Instead of offering any explanation for why Trump polls better on the economy — a matter that has vexed Democrats as President Joe Biden has overseen a steadily improving economy — Harris instead blasted Trump’s record. She blamed him for a loss of manufacturing and autoworker jobs and said his tariff proposals would serve as an added sales tax on American consumers.
She said nothing about why voters think Trump and Republicans would be better on the economy.
But she did say her policies are for everyone.
“If you are hardworking, if you have the dreams and the ambitions and the aspirations of what I believe you do, you’re in my plan,” Harris said.
She avoided a looming scenario: What if Democrats lose the Senate?
Harris has been eagerly promoting the big-ticket items on her agenda. A middle-class tax cut, tax increases for the rich and for big corporations. More money for child care and health care.
Ruhle brought up the elephant in the room: How could any of this happen without Democratic control of the Senate?
This is a key question that hangs over the Harris campaign as Democrats increasingly fear Sen. Jon Tester of Montana is in a perilous political situation. If he loses his reelection bid, Democrats would need to flip at least one Republican-held Senate seat to retain control of the chamber — an unlikely prospect given this year’s daunting map for the party.
Harris skated past Ruhle’s question about where Democrats would find the money for such proposals without addressing her party’s Senate prospects.
“But we’re going to have to raise corporate taxes,” she said. “We’re going to have to make sure that the biggest corporations and billionaires pay their fair share. That’s just it. It’s about paying their fair share. I am not mad at anyone for achieving success, but everyone should pay their fair share.”
That is an argument she may find herself making to very skeptical Senate Republicans next year if she wins the White House.
A hard-hitting Harris interview is still yet to come.
Since Harris began granting more interviews in recent days, her media strategy has been to sit with friendly inquisitors who are not inclined to ask terribly thorny questions or press her when her responses are evasive.
Nothing about that changed during her interview with Ruhle before her audience on MSNBC, the liberal cable channel whose viewers overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates.
It’s not quite clear what Harris gained, aside from giving her campaign aides the ability to say she held a one-on-one cable television interview.
For the vice president, speaking with Ruhle was roughly in the same ballpark as Trump having one of his regular chats with Sean Hannity of Fox News.
Last week, Ruhle openly showed her preference for Harris over Trump during an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO program. And when she interviewed Biden in May 2023, Ruhle did not press him after his stumbling answers and praised him throughout the 14-minute discussion.
So it went with Harris. Ruhle joined Harris in attacking Trump (“His plan is not serious, when you lay it out like that”) and avoided posing tricky questions about positions Harris supported during her 2020 presidential campaign or what, if anything, she knew about Biden’s physical condition or mental acuity as his own campaign deteriorated.
Which is perhaps why Harris agreed to the interview in the first place.