Kamala Harris gave CNN viewers a sense Thursday of what her presidency might be like, if elected: consensus, without direction or leadership.
CNN’s Dana Bash asked the same first question I would have asked: “What would you do on day one in the White House?”
There was no answer.
Harris said she would “support and strengthen the middle class,” which was a non-answer, so Bash tried again.
Answer 2.0: “implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy.”
That, too, was a non-answer.
Bash moved on; there was no point in lingering. Harris does not have a sense of priority, or policy. She has buzz words (“middle class”; “opportunity economy”) and a vague sense of a “plan,” but she does not actually have an idea what the country needs, or even what is most important to her.
Asked about changes in her policies since 2019 — on fracking, for example, or the border — Harris replied that “my values have not changed.”
Well, what are they?
We do not know — and nor, apparently, does Harris. She mentioned the “climate crisis,” and said that we should hold ourselves to “deadlines around time.” Isn’t that what all deadlines are?
This was the “word salad” for which Harris is infamous — not as inarticulate as she has been in the past, but the same tautology, the same technique of repetition.
Harris added that “it is important to build consensus,” which is true, but it does not tell us about what she believes.
Tim Walz, who had been derided as Harris’s “emotional support animal” for her first interview after more than five weeks of campaigning, was similarly evasive.
Asked about his past exaggerations about his military service, and his inaccurate claims about using in vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive children, Walz did not explain himself but tried turning the focus to his critics (“I’ll never demean another member’s service”; they want “to take those rights away”).
These were the replies of a seasoned politician, but they were not answers.
While Harris and Walz offered evasions on CNN, former President Donald Trump offered direct answers to questions at a town hall in Wisconsin, moderated by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).
Asked, for example, what he would do “to make life more affordable,” given the past four years of inflation, Trump replied: “We are going to get energy pries down.” A clear policy, a clear priority.
Harris’s (eventual) answer on inflation was “dealing with an issue like price gouging.” Inflation is not caused by “price gouging” — certainly not on groceries — and imposing price caps, which Harris implies she would do, would be a disaster.
Harris added that she would expand the child tax credit and provide $25,000 to first-time home buyers. But even if Congress could find a way to pay for these proposals, they would not deal with inflation, and might make it worse.
CNN’s Dana Bash followed up with the obvious question: assuming these policies would work, given that Harris has been vice president for more than three years, “why haven’t you done them already?”.
Harris claimed that “we had to recover as an economy” first, then pivoted to the issue of insulin. She repeated President Joe Biden’s claim that they capped insulin prices at $35 per month for seniors. Sure — after canceling Trump’s existing policy to cut insulin costs.
Overall Harris did reasonably well — though, inexplicably, she let herself be seated at a table that made her look tiny, in a dark studio filled with coffee mugs. (Trump’s town hall, in contrast, was festooned with American flags.)
And give Dana Bash credit: she asked basic questions and reasonable follow-ups. There was one she missed: if Harris has “spent [her] career inviting diversity of opinion,” as she claimed, could she provide an example of doing so?
There would have been no answer.
Harris comes from the political monoculture of San Francisco and California, and has never had to deal with real opposition before.
For her, “consensus” means satisfying the various factions within the Democratic Party — which is why she chose Walz over Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a stronger candidate from a swing state who was vociferously opposed by the Democrats’ noisy anti-Israel (and antisemitic) “progressive” left.
On that issue — Israel — Harris said she would not impose an arms embargo, but also failed to say removing Hamas was a priority. Instead, she said, “we have got to get a deal done.”
That is what Harris offers: deals without direction, “consensus” without leadership.
When “consensus” is the goal, the most extreme elements set the agenda. That is why Harris took radical positions in 2019 — the same views she is running from today — and it is a sign of things to come.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
