One Weird Trick for Kamala Harris to Ace Her Interview

Or at least not bomb it

Yesterday, Kamala Harris announced she would sit down for her first interview since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

This follows much consternation from the media, who were increasingly frustrated with Harris’s unwillingness to talk to the press. Headlines ranged from:

• Just-posing-the-question, like Vox’s “Is it time for Kamala Harris to do interviews and press conferences?”, to

• Passively-aggressively posing-the-question, like the New Yorker’s “How Generic Can Kamala Harris Be?”, to

• Full-blown demands, like the Guardian’s “Kamala Harris must speak to the press”

Considering the circumstances, though, it’s clear why Harris waited so long.

Her campaign is roaring along as it is. Fueled by the relief of not running with Biden, Democrats have been ecstatic. And this feeling isn’t limited to one wing of the party; no, the whole party has unified behind Harris. Moderates and progressives alike are rallying for her. Harris’s stance on the border, or fracking, or Medicare for All are irrelevant in comparison to the joy of being unshackled from an 81 year old candidate who legitimately looked like he might die mid-debate. Harris has been given a rare gift: a party that isn’t hung up on the specifics.

An interview invites infighting. She’ll be grilled about her views on the inflation, immigration, the war in Gaza. What role did she play in [any unpopular Biden policy]? Did she notice Joe Biden’s decline? If so, why didn’t she do anything about it? If not, is she blind? Every question might tear open the wounds in the Democratic Party that magically healed when Biden stepped down. Specific answers risk alienating half of voters; vague answers risk alienating everyone.

Skirting interviews kept her in an idyllic limbo state where she is everything to everyone, truly unburdened by what has been.

The Harris camp is also wary of interviews, having been burned by them in the past.

Most famously, her interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt went viral, and not in a fun, 🥥-pilled way. The following exchange, in particular, flew around social media:

HOLT: Do you have any plans to visit the border?

HARRIS: I’m here in Guatemala today. At some point, you know, we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border, we’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.

HOLT: You haven't been to the border.

HARRIS: And I haven't been to Europe. I mean, I don't understand the point that you're making. I'm not discounting the importance of the border.

Harris took a lot of heat for this clip, even among allies. Former aides whispered to CNN about “flashbacks” to a broader pattern of missteps. Ezra Klein, who’s generally bullish on Harris, described it retroactively as “genuinely a bit of a debacle.”

At this point, I will put my cards on the table: I really want Harris to win.

I worry that, given that the current good vibes around Harris — rousing speeches! rising poll numbers! — Democrats will avert their eyes from the problem posed in this interview. They can dismiss it as a fluke or an unfair soundbyte. Talking about the possibility of a future, similar incident risks derailing the joy train. Why dwell on an old interview when the new Kamala is performing so well?

Unfortunately, this interview isn’t the only place Harris has exhibited this tendency, a sort of defensiveness-masquerading-as-confusion. When she feels cornered, especially on an unflattering topic, and especially-especially on a topic that is unflattering for her, she claims confusion, demands specificity, or dismisses the interviewer’s premise entirely. She will, in short, act almost as though she doesn’t understand the question. And for many voters, this tendency reads as off-putting.

Which is why, despite being counter to all the good vibes, it’s worth looking at. To improve her election chances, Harris wants good interviews; to have good interviews, reducing this tendency will help.

To see it repeatedly in action, listen to her interview with the New York Times’ Astead Herndon.

Early in the interview, Herndon asks Harris how she sees herself. Though the question is straightforward, Harris starts sparring with Herndon over the question itself:

HERNDON: We use terms like “liberal,” “progressive,” all of those things. When you were coming up in that world of California politics, how did you see yourself? How did you define your own politics?

HARRIS: I think it depends on who you’re talking to in terms of how they use the word. So I have — why don’t you define each one for me? And then I can tell you where I fit. If you want to say, for example, that believing that working people should receive a fair wage and be treated with dignity, and that there is dignity in all work, well, then, I don’t know what label do you give that one.

…

HERNDON: I guess, often, the label is used as kind of proxies for kind of root cause conversations. Maybe progressives believe that kind of structural inequality is such that it has to be upended. Liberals are thinking more about working within system or something like that. I’m saying when you think about the root cause of why issues are the way that they are, what do you point back to?

HARRIS: Well, name the issue, and then I’ll tell you. There’s no monolith. Name the issue.

HERNDON: Inequality. Economic inequality.

HARRIS: What kind of — economic inequality? Well, then, you’d have to look at, for example, a variety of issues. You can look at — let’s just take the African-American experience from slavery on. And we don’t have to even go back that far to understand where the inequality came from. There were no 40 acres and a mule, by the way. You look at redlining. You look at what happened in terms of, for example, the Tulsa riots. You look at Black Wall Street. You look at what happened in terms of the GI Bill when there was a boost by the federal government to invest in mostly men, but returning from battle from war, and an intent to build a middle class around those extraordinary people who sacrificed so much, and how Black folks were excluded. So economic inequality there? Well, there were issues that were about policy and practice that excluded, purposely, people based on their race.

HERNDON: But one of the quotes I most remember from your presidential run was you saying, when asked what you believe in, that you weren’t trying to restructure society. How do you solve those kind of deep, systemic inequalities that you’re laying out without restructure? You know what I’m saying?

HARRIS: Well I think you have to be more specific because I’m not really into labels in terms of that kind of approach.

By the end of the exchange, the rhythm feels comical in its regularity. Herndon asks how she views herself, she asks him to define the labels “progressive” and “liberal”. He does, she asks him to name an issue. He says “income inequality”, she asks, “What kind of income inequality?” Herndon asks a question, Harris demands specificity; rinse, repeat.

These kinds of back-and-forth keep happening. When Herndon asks if she regrets any policies or decisions from her prosecutor days, Harris again falls back on lines like “I think it depends on what kind of crime you’re talking about” and “You have to be more specific.” In a question about the implications of Biden feeling the need to pick a black woman for VP, Kamala responds with “I honestly don’t understand your question.” (In her defense, this question is weirdly worded, although the gist is clear.)

Harris’s performance frustrated even friendly audiences. On r/thedaily, a subreddit frequented by NYT-subscribing mainstream Democrats, the highest-rated comment about the interview was not great:

I know how hard Republicans are trying to malign Kamala Harris and how unfair much of the criticism is and my reaction to that is to want to give her the benefit of the doubt as much as possible... But she really comes off as unnecessarily abrasive and tense in this interview. I'm sure that the insane amount of scrutiny and bullshit she gets must do something to you as a human being, but if you want to be the US President, or even VP, you need to develop a thicker skin here. Herndon is going to come in with some challenging questions because that's his job, but ultimately, Harris is speaking to a mostly sympathetic audience here so her tone seems needlessly confrontational.

In both the Holt and Herndon interviews, many were baffled that Harris gave such tense responses to questions that were so… predictable. As Elaina Plott Calabro, who profiled Harris for the Atlantic, said of the Holt interview, “What many aides I spoke to couldn’t understand was why, when the questions were so easily anticipated, she had failed to the degree that she had.” Questions like “Given the crisis, when will you visit the border?” and “How do you see yourself politically?” should be expected and prepped for. Why did Harris sound like she was caught off-guard?

Some commentators have blamed it on a learned hyper-cautiousness. As described in the Atlantic profile of Harris:

Ron Klain, Biden’s first chief of staff, told me that after her initial missteps, Harris became highly risk-averse: “She’s always nervous that if she does something that doesn’t go well, she’s setting us back.” David Axelrod, a former senior strategist for President Barack Obama, noticed the same trait. “I think it’s one of the things that plagued her in the presidential race,” he told me. “It looked as if she didn’t know where to plant her feet. That she wasn’t sort of grounded, that she didn’t know exactly who she was.”

Harris is trying to anticipate attacks and dodge them before they even happen, to avoid saying anything that someone might misinterpret in an unfavorable light. But this cautiousness comes at a price. Play that much defense, and you inevitably come across defensive.

Making matters worse, Harris’s defensiveness feeds itself. She plays defense to avoid risk, which comes across as evasive, which makes the media push harder for answers, which makes her even more defensive.

While that all seems true, there’s another element at play. In both the Holt and Herndon interviews, Harris doesn’t just come across as merely evasive but combative. She’s not merely waffling on answers; she’s grilling the interviewer. She is interrogating their line of questioning — it’s not specific enough, it’s ill-defined, it’s irrelevant.

Commentators have noted that one of Harris’s strengths is her ability to tap into her prosecutor days and prosecute a case against, say, Donald Trump.

Her response when pushed on an uncomfortable topic, I suspect, is the flipside of that strength. When she feels attacked, it brings out her prosecutorial instinct turned against the interviewer. When she demands specificity and questions the interviewer’s premise, she’s trying to shift their focus away from evidence that hurts her case and toward a more narrow frame that helps it. She is cross-examining her interviewer, trying to force them into friendlier territory.

Calling out interviewers isn’t necessarily a bad tactic. There are bad faith questions, and calling them out can convey that you don’t take bullshit.

But importantly, this tactic has to be deployed when the question is unjustified or unfair. When deployed against a question any voter might ask, like “Do you consider yourself progressive, liberal, or something else?”, it gives off the vibe that Harris either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to say her answer. Especially for predictable questions, not having a ready talking point comes across as at best unprepared and at worse evasive.

Worse, the back-and-forth makes Harris spend more time on the questions she wants to minimize. It draws attention to the very topics she’s trying to downplay.

The simplest fix: rather than trying to parry her interviewers into friendly territory, just go there herself. Interview questions are often open-ended, or at least open to reframing. Harris doesn’t need to debate every framing she doesn’t like when she can simply reframe the conversation to one she does.

For example, consider how Harris responds when asked how she sees herself. Imagine the following response:

HERNDON: We use terms like “liberal,” “progressive,” all of those things. When you were coming up in that world of California politics, how did you see yourself? How did you define your own politics?

HARRIS: I view myself as someone who cares most about what will work and what my constituents need. Sometimes that looks like what some would call a moderate policy, like working with conservative Republicans to pass comprehensive immigration reform, despite the wishes of Donald Trump. In other places, it might be a traditionally liberal policy, like enshrining Roe v. Wade through Congress as the law of the land, or something people would call progressive, like ensuring that the price of insulin is capped at $35 a month. I will fight for longstanding Democratic issues like protecting Social Security and Medicare. The underlying thread is that I think about the problems my constituents face and how I can fix them. That’s whether it’s protecting our seniors, resolving the crisis at the border, removing Republican-imposed restrictions on the right to reproductive care, or ensuring everyone can afford essential medical treatment. I don’t want to be hamstrung by ideology, and feel forced to take a liberal, moderate, or progressive stance simply because that’s the brand I’ve associated with myself. Instead, I always listen to my constituents, and I always choose what works, whatever the label.

In intent, this is not much different than Harris’s actual answer. She doesn’t like labelling herself as “progressive” or “liberal” or “moderate”. But rather than rejecting any question Herndon poses, which appears simultaneously combative and noncommittal, she can jump straight to her own framing. Offering her view — along with specific examples to ground it and answer the implicit question “Where do you stand on the issues?” — lets her define herself on her own terms, without alienating the interviewer and audience.

There are signs Harris has already improved on this front. In an interview with ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Harris answers pointed questions about the border, Gaza, and TikTok without slipping into defensiveness.¹

But there’s still a risk. Harris seems most triggered when unflattering questions target her. Why hasn’t she done more on the border? Does she have regrets about her time as a prosecutor? What is her political philosophy, and why is she cagey about it? Questions about the administration’s failure are less personal. The more an interviewer challenges her directly (and in her view, unfairly), the more likely it is to activate her cross-examination mode.

When she starts interviewing as the newly-anointed Democratic nominee, the focus will be on her. Her policy views, her past mistakes, and her flip-flops over her political career will be front and center. Consider these two questions from the NYT’s “21 Questions for Harris”:

You have changed your position on immigration. You once called for decriminalizing illegal border crossings. Now you are an immigration hawk who promises to secure the border better than Donald Trump would. Can you explain your evolution?

Four years ago, you said, “It is actually wrong and backward to think that more police officers will create more safety.” Do you still believe that?

The Harris campaign announced that her first interview would be a joint interview with her VP pick, Gov. Tim Walz. This is a genius move, in that it breaks up the focus, gives her an in-person ally, and reduces the likelihood of a defensive spiral.

Still, the focus here and in future interviews will primarily be on Harris. When she gets unflattering questions about herself, it’s essential that she responds with empathy rather than defensiveness. Responding with confusion, demanding specificity, and rejecting the premise of these questions only makes her look out-of-touch: all voters understand these questions, so why doesn’t she? When the interviewer, whoever it is, asks about her changing views, they are asking because every voter is asking, too.

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1. The NYT still described her answers as “noncommittal”, but she’s repping the Biden administration positions, which themselves are noncommittal. Harris can’t unilaterally dictate her own policy.