Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz finally gave interviews to themselves, rather than to hostile (or friendly) media outlets.
The media-shy pair recorded a bizarre, non-policy-related conversation that was edited in the style of a freewheeling interview that the Harris-Waltz campaign released Thursday.
Voters wanting to know where Harris and Waltz stand on the economy, immigration or any of the pressing issues of the day aren’t going to find that in the video, but it’s packed with information for voters eager to know what Waltz puts in his “white man’s taco,” and it tests the limits of how many of Harris’ trademark laughs a self-described “hip-hop girl” can be crammed into a 10-minute video.
Simply put, the video was full of atmosphere and emptiness.
The puzzling video is unlikely to satisfy voters, much less an anxious media, who are eager to see how Harris will govern differently from the unpopular administration in which she serves as the No. 2 official.
While fans of Bruce Springsteen may share Waltz’s professed love for the musician, he has continued to ignore the vicious libel scandal that has plagued his campaign since joining the slate of candidates.
Walz has blasted those who question the value of veterans’ service but has ignored criticism that he repeatedly lied about his discharge rank, where he served and whether he knew he would be deployed before leaving the military.
“We’re not attacking his honorable service. We’re attacking his dishonesty about that service. That’s not honorable. That’s the height of dishonor, and that’s why Tim Walz should not be vice president of the United States,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump’s running mate and former Marine who served in combat zones in public affairs roles during the Iraq War, said at a rally on Thursday.
Trump and Vance have regularly answered media questions as they tour the country.
Harris has not held an unscripted press conference in 25 days since announcing her 2024 presidential candidacy.
Despite the campaign’s silly advertising, the video didn’t get much traction. Harris’s inexplicable fondness for Venn diagrams is well-known, as is her affection for the music of the late Prince.
But this is not 1999, and she’s no longer an assistant district attorney (though she’s running away from a law enforcement career), and campaigning for the nation’s highest office while ignoring policy questions is a new — and untested — strategy.
The release of this video is The Wall Street Journal Advisers to the Harris campaign say they worry releasing the “messy details” of her economic plan could backfire.
Those concerns are probably justified: In her first sign of policy, Ms. Harris has pledged to enact the first-ever nationwide ban on price gouging and fixing within her first 100 days in office, hoping to deflect what many voters see as a poor assessment of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy.
That task may be extremely difficult, with Biden himself claiming that Harris is the owner of the Biden-Harris economic record.
Their record is terrible.
According to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), consumer prices have risen 20.2% since Biden and Harris took office 42 months ago, giving Harris and Biden the ignoble record of presiding over the worst inflation since President Jimmy Carter.
But for now, Ms. Harris seems to think voters care more about her vinyl record than her economic record, and she and Mr. Walz are comfortable ignoring hard economic issues — or any issues — to focus on her past career as a lawyer in San Francisco’s law-and-order slums and as an assistant football coach when fullbacks were still on the roster.
How long this strategy will hold up remains to be seen, but unless the campaign’s trajectory changes, Walz may one day find himself looking back to the time before he entered the race. Glory Days.
