Examining the Harris/Walz interview on CNN | NTD News

joining us now to discuss Harris's eagerly awaited interview is Mike Leon policy and strategy director at the free and equal elections Foundation he's also the host of the podcast can we please talk Mike it's good to see you we're seeing a lot of each other this week yeah we really are good to see you Chris did last night's interview change any undecided voters Minds well that's a great question I mean you and I were just talking about this the other day about the interview style and format and and whether or not people would be upset with the outlet it was going to be on and the journalist was going to be on so let me give a little kudos to Dana Bash and the folks at CNN because I think Dana did press her on a couple of different questions around her policies when she was running for president in 2019 versus her positions now one of them was fracking and you heard in the interview she talked about hey this is a key voter issue in the state of Pennsylvania which is a swing state in 19 electoral votes and a state that you need to win to get to the path of 270 so I think for decided voters right now I I still didn't hear from that interview and again Chris you're not going to hear it from these type of interviews unless they the campaign really puts this out materials wise if you go to kamah harris.com right now you don't see these policies around the economic vision and strategy and implementation you know Dana asked her what she would do on day one things are not executable on day one government is a group project so it works as a group so there are some things that she can't actually do on day one but I need to hear about some more of these policies that impact a wider net of of folks that would be impacted by this she mentioned the child tax credit she mentioned the first time home buyers things those are things that we already knew in terms of those price points and what that would impact those millions of Americans we need to hear more of the economic vision and policy and strategy so I I came away from it you know just maybe not learning more but wanting to learn more about it and um I'm wondering were there Parts where you thought Harris came across particularly well did anything stand out to you I mean this election is so incredibly heated yeah I mean it is look there's a couple of different points in the interview I I think and I just had somebody on from the Haley voters for Harris organization that I asked a direct hey why what you guys were prer Nikki Haley now you're shifting to KLA Harris why give me something policy position wise and the biggest thing that he said and you heard a little bit in the interview from her was is that hey she's a former Attorney General she was you know uh more to the right of the left wing of the of the democratic party when it came to issues around immigration and the Border she was responsible for putting away criminals at the US Southern border for a border state in California she's championed that record and she has been you know her head been chewed off by a lot of Progressive Democrats not only in the 2019 going into 2020 primary but even other ones that have kind of brought this up now is she going to have those same policy positions that she did when she was running for president it's it's one of those Central themes that Dana kept asking her to touch on but I think the other thing Chris you were asking about undecided voters and I know for younger voters and we saw it in the college campus protest it's really Israel Gaza right like we yeah we all agree Israel has a right to defend themselves but we don't agree with the way Israel is carrying out this war right now and the way they're using precis Precision sometimes to their advantage and then at other times just not using it to their advantage and over 40,000 are dead in Kaza and there's no end in sight for a lot of these folks and these families and there's no end in sight for the hostages so I don't think that we got clear-cut answers on that and I know that that is something that people want answers to no matter what side of the political aisle you're on yeah it seems like you know Harris and walls are trying to keep things at a higher level I mean she said my values have not changed when pressed on these flip-flop issues never fully resolving any of them I'm wondering if you think um she can you know stay at that higher level does she need to talk at the policy level are are voters going to get behind her either way well I mean I know in these campaign stops obviously these longer speeches is a little bit more drilling into the policy right an interview is always going to be high level there are certain things that you don't know the makeup of what the Senate and the house will be obviously so will she have the legislative branch in her favor come in the fall so that's that's fair but the biggest thing for me right now and what I want to hear from a sound bite perspective that at least the campaign can put out is drilling into the way you execute some of these things because yeah sure it's great to say some of these things and we've seen it all throughout different presidents from Obama telling you you can keep your doctor right which we found out you could not to president Trump telling us that Mexico would pay for a wall which did not happen so campaign promises are one thing Chris everyone does it from both sides of the political aisle the question will be how you actually exec and implement it and so when she's doing whether it be smaller sessions with voters from a town hall perspective or if she's doing larger stops on the campaign Trail I think the campaign needs to a put out more content that has her drill into policy and then b as somebody who lives in the SEO game right for websites you need to be able to put this stuff out on kah harris.com right now there's just no section that outlines the vision and policy on the economic front on the immigration front on the foreign policy conflicts the voters can go to right now to search that stuff up if you look for it right now you can look up her policy positions based on an article from PBS and that's not the way the campaign should be doing it they should be putting that more front-facing for voters and to be fair to the former president former president Trump has this listed on his campaign site on how he would execute some of this stuff so I think she needs to get ahead of that and the campaign needs to get ahead of that stuff yeah and we did hear from democratic strategist Robin brro a few weeks ago a few weeks ago saying that he wants to see more information on the website and like you're saying we're still waiting for that um you know I'm wondering about uh this this thing that was in the headlines quite a bit Harris talked about the time that Joe Biden called her uh to to let her know that he was kind of stepping out of the race you know she um was having breakfast with her family and she was doing a puzzle and she got a call from Joe Biden I wonder can you talk about the significance of that of that moment in the interview yeah you know I think it was a vulnerability thing right because I think for a lot of us over the last couple weeks and or month I should say and the way the reports were coming out about how this was working behind the scenes you know after that debate you know you could throw papers up in the air in terms of what was happening not only from the DNC but on down of the democratic party I remember having at least two to three members of the House on the podcast that were just regularly scheduled interviews that I had on my show Chris and I had to Pivot questions wise because I had to ask about what do we make of the debate performance what do we make now of the infighting I remember some of them telling me there's just no way to Rally around a candidate this fast and so now that we've seen the shift and now being able to Rally around a candidate this fast I think she was able to give uh people a little bit of an Insight of Joe Biden's career and Legacy and why he did this I mean we could get into the infighting of the the party and stuff like that and Nancy Pelosi's influence and role and all this but I think the vulnerability part of it of her you know kind of realizing the moment and now that she somebody has to step up right the number two at the job would always be the person to step up when the CEO resigns you know Al Gore ran for president back in 2000 I thought Mike Pence was going to have a la a longer lasting effect in the Republican party because he was the number two and during the covid-19 crisis a lot of people turned to Mike Pence for information during those if you recall Chris so I thought it was a a moment where she kind of reflected on Joe Biden's Legacy but then also capturing what she was thinking at the time and realizing that it was time to to go to work and try to make an impact over these last seven weeks because a lot of people don't know her positions and the and the administration wasn't really using her much outside of you know obviously visiting the triangle Nations during the immigration crisis in Guatemala El Salvador and Honduras to to be deployed as you know as a border Zar if you want to caller that um in terms of that issue so we really don't know much about kamla Harris at least from the national perspective we knew more about Joe Biden his policies Dana asked her would you adopt some of these and B bics and some of these other things so I thought it was it was a moment where she was able to encapsulate all of the emotions over the last seven weeks and and Joe Biden's impact and and Lasting Legacy on American politics well we're certainly finding out about heris very quickly there's more to go but um you know it should be interesting watching this unfold so fast looking forward to the debate that you mentioned is there anything in last night's interview that hints at how Harris might approach facing Trump I mean that's just on September 10th yeah good question Chris because you know obviously Dana asked her about the personal attacks and obviously she asked about Governor Walt's you know some misstatements that he has made and I I thought he kind of answered that question not the not the best but in terms of the debate overall I think think kamla Harris is a former prosecutor right that you've heard Democratic strategist say this and if you haveen it let me say it for them about Prosecuting the case against the former president right because it's appropo given the legal troubles he has and I think for her in the debate she has to continue to do that and I think for former president Trump I've mentioned to you this Chris a bunch of times you know if the Trump campaigns listening I hope they are your candidate has to stop talking about crowd sizes and talking about things that are hypoth icals and just deal with kamla Harris being the incumbent right now she's a part of this Administration she's a part of the economic woes that you are facing all of the things that she's talking about why hasn't any of those things been done or implemented right those are the things to focus on and again this is just more of like looking at it from a 30,000 foot overview on how campaign should strategize and I think for the debate I think both of them if they stick to those lanes and given you know the rules around the debate format and the muting of microphones and stuff like that that I think you could maybe hear an actual policy discussion which was at the first question that you asked me Chris is that's what we really want to hear we want to hear how would you execute that or when you were pres former president Trump you did this and you say you want to do this again when you become president this is how many people it impacted so I think those are the two things that I would for each campaign if I was advising either of them tell them to have their candidate focus on come September 10th