Kamala Harris’s CNN Interview Didn’t Inspire Confidence

Vice President Kamala Harris had her highly anticipated interview with CNN last night, and as far as candidate performances go, it was . . . fine.

That the interview had the level of hype it did was fairly absurd in the first place, since up until this point, answering questions from reporters has been a routine, unremarkable part of a politician’s job, especially one vying to become president. Not for Harris, who has faced mounting criticisms over her steadfast avoidance of any unscripted interaction with the media since becoming the Democratic standard-bearer. There is a reason that Democrats, as alarmed as they were by Joe Biden’s inability to speak coherently, were for a long time more confident in the clearly declining president than Harris, whose 2020 presidential campaign was an embarrassing flop and who has garnered numerous negative headlines as Biden’s number two over her unforced errors.

To the extent that all Harris had to do last night was avoid the kind of potentially viral disastrous interview moments that have plagued her in previous years, she passed this lowest of low bars. Even so, despite everyone and their hamster knowing the question was coming, Harris still doesn’t have a good answer for why exactly she’s done a 180 on a host of policy issues she championed when first running for president, a list that now includes not just progressive policies like a fracking ban and Medicare for All but even middle-of-the-road Democratic principles like opposing Donald Trump’s border wall, which Harris now pledges to build more of. Harris simply kept repeating that her “values have not changed,” a canned line that was enough to get her through an interview with Dana Bash but may not work as well with a more aggressive interrogator.

But it’s the substance that really matters. Here the verdict is far less rosy.

The Harris campaign so far has often seemed intentionally designed to confuse observers about what kind of…