On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris will go up against the field for the Democratic nomination in her first unscripted interview with a major media outlet.

With this campaign, Harris hopes to build on the momentum she created early on and steer clear of the kinds of careless mistakes that marred her first attempt at the presidency in 2019 and her early days as vice president. Additionally, it’s an opportunity for the recently declared candidate to draw attention to how she differs from Republican contender Donald Trump, interact with voters who aren’t sure who to support, and showcase her qualifications to lead the Oval Office during a critical period for the US both domestically and internationally.

In a CNN primetime special that airs at 9 p.m. ET, Harris will make an appearance alongside her vice presidential choice, Tim Walz. Harris is now in Georgia on a bus tour aimed at regaining control of a swing state that the GOP believed it was close to taking in November. Between the Democratic convention in Chicago last week and the presidential debate scheduled for September 10 in Philadelphia, the interview represents the most significant phase of the campaign.

Because of the tense competition Harris is in now that she is the party’s nominee and the way the interview with Dana Bash turned into a dispute between the warring campaigns, it has gained significant attention. It’s the most-awaited development in a crazy election that has seen the former president elude an assassination attempt and Trump become the first major party nominee to be found guilty of a felony. Meanwhile, a crisis precipitated by President Joe Biden’s appalling performance in the CNN debate in Atlanta led to the termination of his reelection campaign.

Significant TV interviews, such as the one on Thursday, have also been extremely important. Although the president agreed to several of them in an effort to stop his decline, this only served to heighten worries about his advanced age and ability to complete a second term.

By delaying a significant interview until now, Harris exposed herself to criticism from Trump and certain impartial observers who claim she is attempting to avoid attention. This increased the likelihood that the Trump team will capitalise on any mistakes that may be made. But another test for Trump, who has faltered since Harris changed the game by reducing his leads in crucial states and generating $500 million, would come from a good showing by the vice president.

 

Adding depth to a happy launch

Although Harris generated a great deal of excitement during the glittering Democratic convention in Chicago last week and at happy rallies attended by Democrats who had been discouraged by Biden’s chances of winning reelection, she has not yet been in a venue where her positions and responses could be questioned. Her remarks have been filled with details about what she hopes to accomplish as president, including reducing the financial load on Americans, starting a housing boom, and defeating China in the geopolitical race of the twenty-first century. However, the vice president has not made clear how, in a severely divided Washington, she would carry out some of those ambitions or secure the funding necessary to do so.

Since Harris promotes herself as a change candidate despite serving as vice president in an unpopular administration, it would be interesting to see if she gives Biden room on important subjects during the interview. Harris has already pledged to address the exorbitant supermarket prices that millions of Americans face, going above and beyond what her employer has said. Though politically astute, many economists disapproved of this populist twist.

The vice president is facing challenges because Trump advisers have been pressuring her for weeks leading up to the interview, ostensibly because they think she won’t be able to handle tough questions, won’t remember specifics about the policies, and lacks political acumen. After 39 days of avoiding reporters, Harris “mustered up the bravery to sit for a *joint* interview,” according to a statement released by Trump’s team on Wednesday. Harris has fielded some questions from reporters who are travelling with her even though she hasn’t participated in a formal interview.

Harris has a history of being more at ease posing probing questions than providing thoughtful answers, having worked for years as a prosecutor, California’s attorney general, and senator who thrived in public hearings. She doesn’t have the decades of policy experience that, for example, enabled former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to transform interviews into seminars on policy. Furthermore, unlike Trump, who frequently manages to divert attention from his real remarks by flooding interviewers with barrages of falsehoods, absurd claims, and bombast, she doesn’t do this.

 

Republicans are certain that, under duress, Harris will be revealed.

Republicans’ assurance that Harris would be revealed in a broadcast interview stems from a one-on-one interview she had with Lester Holt of NBC early in her vice presidential term. The interview concerned her function as an emissary to the countries of Latin America, which are the origin of the majority of undocumented immigration to the United States.

When asked why, in her capacity as vice president, Harris had not yet travelled to the southern border, she cited her lack of travel to Europe since accepting the position. Years of Republican attacks were fuelled by her embarrassment, and the interview remains a cloud over her vice presidential tenure. Harris appeared unprepared in the interview, which is unlikely to happen now that she is deep into her debate preparation. She appeared far more at ease in more recent interviews, such as when she defended Biden in late June with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in October of last year.

Republicans also want an explanation from Harris about why she abandoned several of her positions from her brief 2020 presidential campaign, such as “Medicare for All,” before Thursday’s interview. Additionally, according to her campaign, she is no longer against fracking, a significant issue in Pennsylvania, where Trump is promoting the state’s carbon energy sector.

The Minnesota governor, Walz, was depicted by the Trump campaign and conservative media on Wednesday as the vice president’s crutch during the interview. But it is not out of the ordinary for presidential contenders to show up accompanied by their choice for vice president. In a cordial interview that capped off with a “questions from fans” section on Fox News last month, Trump sat with Ohio Senator JD Vance, his vice presidential contender. In 2016, the former president also appeared on “60 Minutes” in a joint interview with Mike Pence, his recently nominated vice presidential candidate, at his Trump Tower penthouse. The prospective vice president made an effort to moderate the extremist views of the person who selected him, but Trump kept cutting him off.

When Harris was the Democratic nominee in 2020, Biden interviewed her jointly. In the same year, in 2016, Clinton conducted a similar interview with her running partner, Tim Kaine.

It makes sense for presidential candidates to submit to difficult interviews for a variety of reasons, partisanship included. If a candidate for president feels that they must clarify their plans, then so should their campaign managers, even if it means limiting appearances to sympathetic social media influencers and low-risk partisan media. A politician gets more skilled at doing interviews the more they do it. Before facing Trump, Harris may have improved her performance with a more comprehensive media strategy.

Political capital gained throughout the campaign trail is another foundational element of a successful presidency. While there may not be as much time in this hurried election for such events, the days of significant policy speeches anchoring presidential campaigns may have past.

However, previous presidential contenders demonstrated their legitimacy by winning over voters to their policies. For example, Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960 outlined a platform on the campaign trail addressing civil rights, housing, and foreign policy, which served as the cornerstone for policy victories during his presidency and the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson that followed.

In her interview on Thursday, Harris tells voters they have a “fleeting” chance to move on from Trump’s cacophony, but Democrats disagree on whether she should focus more on policy concerns or making character comparisons with him.

Biden’s former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield stated that Harris should take advantage of the opportunity to state clearly the causes she supports and her commitment to shield voters from what she perceives as GOP assaults on their liberties.

The former CNN pundit Bedingfield stated, “I think she needs to really exploit it as a messaging opportunity and not get too tangled up in the idea that this needs to be a Ph.D. policy test of every potential plank of a Harris government.

However, former CIA director, defence secretary, and chief of staff of the White House Leon Panetta told CNN’s Brianna Keilar that candidates ought to talk about causes they support in order to demonstrate their ability to lead the nation towards a better future.

“You better damn well know the answers to particular questions, because it will test whether you actually have a precise policy that you want to put in place or if you’re just talking in broad generalities,” he continued.