Kamala finally gave an interview and it was an awkward and lackluster affair

Kamala finally gave an interview and it was an awkward and lackluster affair

In last night’s CNN interview with Dana Bash, Kamala Harris exhibited problems on two levels: content and process. Content is what a person says, and process is just about everything else, including tone of voice, facial expression, and posture.

It seems to me that, even objectively speaking, this interview wasn’t the sort of thing that would convince anyone not already a Harris voter to support her. Much of the content of the interview involved Harris trying to explain her past statements that are at variance with what she’s saying now, and her failure to do anything about so many of the country’s problems even though she’s been vice president for three and a half years. Although a very effective speaker might be able to give some sort of convincing explanations and/or excuses for those things despite the fact that it’s difficult to think of any, Kamala is not that speaker.

Which brings us to the second problem: process. Last night Kamala Harris transmitted a lackluster energy, a hesitancy, and a problem with what many pundits evaluating her performance called authenticity. Her words, and in particular her tone of voice and facial expressions, seemed manufactured and mismatched – not in the slick and practiced way of Hillary Clinton, for example, but in an awkward way that was unsettling to watch.

It didn’t help that Tim Walz was part of the equation, leading to the right’s almost inevitable mockery of Harris as needing her Dad there for emotional support. The taunting boiled down to the idea that, if she’s such a strong woman, why would he be there at all for this interview? Good question, and to make things worse there was another problem: the seating and perspective. Harris was in the center of the three participants, but she looked somewhat shrunken not only because Walz is a much larger person, but also because she was further back from the camera than either Walz or Bash. Her position made it even more difficult to convey power, and only fed the perception of lack of force on her part. Here’s an article at RedState that gives many examples of people pointing that out.

As for the content of Harris’ message, here’s some fact-checking that shows that even CNN was at least somewhat critical:

When Bash again noted that Harris said in 2019 that she supported a ban on fracking, and asked Harris if she changed her mind during that campaign (which Harris ended in December 2019), Harris said, “In 2020, I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024 and I’ve not changed that position, nor will I going forward.”

Facts First: This is misleading. Harris did not make her position on fracking clear during her only debate in 2020, the general election’s vice presidential debate against then-Vice President Mike Pence; Harris never explicitly stated a personal position on fracking during that debate. Rather, she said that Joe Biden, the head of the Democratic ticket at the time, would not ban fracking if he was elected president.

Harris has another built-in content problem when asked about her support of Joe Biden. She was a loyal VP who pooh-poohed any talk of him being cognitively challenged, and now she’s the current nominee because everyone saw how seriously cognitively challenged he actually is. But to turn on him now would be to exhibit disloyalty, as well as implicating her in the obvious coverup. Threading that needle is beyond her, and what she did in the Dana Bash interview was to reiterate her support of Biden – the person whose record has also been one from which she desperately wants to distance herself.

The Trump War Room quickly made use of a clip of that moment:

🚨 Kamala says she has NO REGRETS about covering up Crooked Joe Biden's obvious cognitive decline — and LYING to the American people pic.twitter.com/FMkLhhSqWw

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 30, 2024

I had originally thought that Harris’ and Walz’s decision to appear together for this interview was an attempt to spark a perception in the viewer of a genial Mom and Dad taking care of America and Americans. They may have thought that the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts, but I don’t think they succeeded.

Or maybe they just wanted to get it over with. How many interviews will Harris give in the next two months? Or will she try to continue to campaign by conveying a lukewarm version of Obama’s “hope and change” from 2008 while simultaneously hiding out like Joe Biden in 2020?

[Neo is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at the new neo.]

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