Kamala Harris’s CNN Interview

from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal this is patomic watch kamla Harris gives her first big interview since securing the Democratic nomination a CNN two onone with her running mate Tim Walls how did she do and did the public learn anything new about how she intends to govern if she's elected to the Oval Office meantime Donald Trump says again that he opposes Florida's 6we abortion ban but promises free IVF in vitro fertilization if he wins the White House in November welcome I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal we are joined today by my colleagues columnist Bill mcgurn and editorial board member Kate bachelder Odell the early ratings are in and about 6 million people watch the CNN interview with KL Harris According to neelon which is not a debate audience but maybe a pretty good crowd for a random third Thursday night let's start with a clip of Harris tangling with host Dana Bash about the economy biomics and why she hasn't achieved more in the past three and a half years as Vice President we had to recover as an economy and we have done that I'm very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3% the work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors Donald Trump said he was going to do a number of things including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices never happened we we did it Bill what did you make of the interview I guess my read is that the Harris headquarters Camp is probably pretty pleased about this no big meltdowns no big boo boos and a little bit of Personality shown by the Vice President and her new running mate yeah the short answer is I believe she did very well last night in presenting herself and I also believe we learned absolutely nothing from the interview which I think was their goal they didn't want to say thing it's a low bar for the vice president they want to avoid a stumble or a gaff or something like with her interview with ler Holt a few years ago where she really botched her answer on going to the Border let's listen to Harris talking about her past positions this is danab Bash pushing her on whether she has changed her position on Banning fracking which she called for in 2019 my values have not changed I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate was there some policy uh or scientific data that you saw that you said oh okay I get it now what I have seen is that we can we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without Banning fracking Kate what do you make of this to my eye I can only imagine that this line that my values have not changed must have been workshopped in the Harris headquarters because she said it or words to that effect more than once and yet it's not a repudiation of any of those past stances and so it almost looks to me like it is intended to be reassuring to swing voters while it pitched as kind of a wink to Progressive voters on the left it suggests to me that the KL Harris whose values told her in 2019 that it was the good idea to abolish Private health insurance if those values haven't changed then it suggests to me that this is all a matter of tactics right I mean keep in mind to how we got to this point on Thursday she declined to do an interview for several weeks and weeks ago said she was going to do one by the end of the month which she be a deadline that she just barely managed to make what we've had is her campaign surrogates saying to the press that she disavows her past stances for instance on fracking without any further scrutiny or explanation or requiring her to justify that and so I think she did very little of that in this interview and that I'm completely agree that my values have not changed is a fudge and when she was asked about fracking she basically said it's 2024 and I I don't support it anymore and I don't think that's a satisfying answer I think that people will find in it whatever they want to find but I do think that for trump it is something that he is starting to exploit and it's probably wise of him ically to do so to keep running the cut of her saying my values have not changed because she's on the record supporting so many Progressive ideas and you mentioned single par Healthcare supporting Bernie Sanders's Bill to set up a Medicare for all system enormous cash payments through the welfare state I mean she's she's been on board for a lot of different Progressive projects and what she's trying to tell the left is that they can feel comfortable voting for her because she still believes those things but she also just wants to win over the moderate voters that she needs to win so I think that is going to be a high tight rope for her to walk and I think Trump's right to start trying to exploit that bill what do you make of this and on the point about an opening potentially for Trump here here is a piece of his truth social yesterday he said he saw Harris's answer to a very weakly phrased question a question that was put in more as a matter of defense and curiosity but her answer rambled incoherently and declared that her values have changed on that I agree her values haven't changed and then he goes through a few things including the border is going to remain open he says gun confiscation zero fracking private healthc care will be abolished and so forth but I think he has an opportunity here if he can stay on that message to put her on the defense what does it mean if your values haven't changed and you're not really repudiating or explaining why your views on these positions from 201 19 2020 why they are not still your positions well part of the reason is we know why she changed she was a candidate running for president coming from California where when she was in the Senate she was to the left of Bernie Sanders right and then she ran for president she lost that but she selected as vice president and right now in this election year she realizes gee Pennsylvania is key to my victory if I'm gonna win and Pennsylvania has fracking so I can't say what I'm all about I agree with you that it's kind of a wink to other Democrats it should have been it begged for a follow-up question because you don't have to ban franking to eliminate it you can regulate it to death put limits everywhere else in the supply chain second thing I agree with Kate she mentioned fracking and Trump can exploit it with her words I think the most powerful thing for Trump to do is run ads featuring comla Harris not himself and just giving two sides and saying come on kamla which is it and I think you can do that on a host of issues from the border to fracking to the economy I think they would be very powerful in the swing safe hang tight we'll be right back in a moment welcome back here's another point of the CNN interview with Kay Harris that is getting some attention listen to this will you appoint a republican to your cabinet yes I would anyone in I would no one no one in particular in mine I got a we got 68 days to go with this election so I'm not putting the cart before the horse but I would I think I think it's really important I I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion I think it's important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views and here is JD Vance Donald Trump's running mate matching that Pledge on Fox and Friends this morning Friday morning would you guys appoint a Democrat to your cabinet oh of course we would Stephen we've actually got a lot of great Democratic support uh we just got RFK of course Tulsi Gabbert who endorsed the president in just the last couple of days if you look at the Trump movement in 201 24 it's actually the common sense big ttin movement in American politics we don't agree on everything of course not everybody who votes for Donald Trump is going to agree with every policy issue but we agree on the basics Kate what do you make of this I guess I have a couple thoughts one is that I'm generally skeptical of this kind of thing because people end up in these two political parties because they have real fundamental underlying disagreements about the direction that policy should go bigger government or smaller government higher taxes or lower taxes and so on so the idea that kamla Harris is going to Appo some Republican to some position I don't know Housing and Urban Development secretary that is either unimportant or where he's going to be expected to implement a policy that is not the way that the Republicans would run that agency I I don't know why anybody in the middle would be would would feel encouraged by that development on the other hand Donald Trump strikes me as more theologically flexible he has been out and about the recent days with not only RFK Jr but also tulsy gabard and maybe he would put somebody like gabard in in his cabinet in a place where she can really make her influence felt I think it is first of all hard to see any Republican of consequence in a Harris cabinet I mean he us the example of Hud but keep in mind the housing policies uh Harris has been proposing she's endorsed basically the Biden rent control plan which is panned by economists of every stripe and she's been pumping a $25,000 home buying subsidy that would basically drive up the prices of houses so even on some of these cabinet agencies that seem tertiary I mean the difference in Visions as you describe it is substantial I do take Vance more seriously that the Trump campaign is considering democrats for its cabinet but I don't consider that necessarily to their political credit the Tulsi gabard endorsement uh has been hard for me to understand given how much of what Trump did in his first term especially on world affairs she opposed she is not a fan of his tough on China approach and she panned his decision to leave the INF treaty that we had with Russia she's now a huge critic of Ukraine I mean so it just I suppose that is where some of the uh convergence lies but Donald Trump is courting more of these uh sort of disaffected Democrats but also bringing in some of their views which is hard for me to to understand and I don't think that is necessarily a winner for him I think if anything the problem for Trump might be that he's not doing anything to try to get the Republican primary voters who preferred Nikki Haley of which there was a substantial chunk and so going the Tulsi Direction I think there is uh potentially a risk for him as it's this election if you look back to 2016 and how few votes it came down to in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania I mean it's close-run thing you need every one of them so I do think it's plausible that that Donald Trump could have Democrats in his cabinet but I wouldn't exactly Express too much excitement about that but he seems to be making a conscious effort to reach out beyond the Republican base it suggest to me that he is aware of recent polls including the national ones and including in some of these swing states that show him a point or a couple points or even several points behind kamla Harris and he is working feverishly to try to expand his Coalition as we get within 60 days here coming up of the November election and one other notable place where he is moving a little bit bill is abortion Donald Trump is a Florida resident now Florida has a six- week restriction on abortions and on the ballot this November is going to be Amendment for here is the summary of it from the Florida Division of Elections it says no law shall prohibit penalize delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's Health as determined by the patient's healthcare provider and so it is going to be pitched as recent ballot initiatives in other states have been as restoring or codifying a row Wade standard though the critics will say that especially in that that piece about protecting the patient's Health uh which is typically undefined it probably goes beyond roie Wade and this week Trump was asked about his position on that Amendment here's what he said I'm going to be voting that we need more than 6 weeks unquote which was taken as an endorsement of this amendment four that is going to be on the ballot the the Trump campaign then came in and was cleaning up after that a bit saying that he is not saying how he intends to vote on his own ballot he is only saying what he has said before which he says that six weeks is not enough access to abortion and Bill I asked on a podcast a couple days ago some of our other colleagues this question of whether Trump is at risk of losing elements of the pro-life Republican base that have supported Republican candidates for years and for decades and let me put that question to you noting that your column this week is under the headline Confessions of a prolifer okay well I answer it in two ways first your general question about reaching out to other cons encies I think Trump has done a good job of that Hispanics africanamerican men and so forth he's done a good job but when he does a good job it's largely the fact of going to those groups taking them seriously and trying to explain how the classic principles of the Republican Party would be more beneficial to them than the Democrat prescriptions and he has a record showing that that's true so that's in the abstract I like hey the bipartisan Zeal over someone of the other party in a cabinet I don't think that matters one of course if they shared your principles but if they're just going to be for show and we're going to have Democratic policy in a republican Administration or republican policy in Democratic Administration just to prove it's bipartisan that's incoherent I think the voters care whether it's bipartisan or not on abortion when I wrote my column Trump hadn't given his latest news on Florida and so forth I think he also promised free IVF pro-lifers have a problem with that because there are embryos left over that are discarded that said I think the problem with the president and JD Vance is the political problem is what they're doing is not going to get them a single pro-choice vote and it is alienating pro-life lead ERS I think Trump believes that he can take them for granted because the Democratic party is worse I'm not sure that's a right calculation the second problem with his positions they're incoherent he seems to be floundering for position I know he wants to say he's not for a federal ban as Democrats have accused him of that's a perfectly reasonable position I'm prite I'm not for a federal ban I think you could say I oppos a national ban on this the country is very divided and I think the people Louisiana should decide what abortion is in their state and the people in New York and California may have a different view that's how our system is set up instead you have him making these statements that all they do is suggest he has no principles and I was surprised to see JD Vance weigh in on that about a week ago I think in his comment you know he he said he would support vetoing a national ban if the American people through the Congress presented one to him I think that's insane that kind of talk what he should have said it's a BS question for reasons Nikki Haley pointed out in one of debates Congress is not going to pass a pro-life law in anytime soon just don't have the votes to overcome a fill Buster and so forth and meanwhile it's the Democrats who are trying to codify the issue and the final thing is that there are host of abortion related issues Biden had a lot of executive orders there's no question that a Harris Administration would be far more pro-abortion than a trump Administration although Trump is muddying the water