Election 2024: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Sit Down With CNN

Kamala Harris sat down yesterday for her much-awaited interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. The reactions to their conversation, which Tim Walz joined, broke down along predictable lines. Democrats hailed it. Republicans panned it.

The truth no doubt lies somewhere in between. Harris didn’t make much news, whether good or bad. She did pledge to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet. That vow is a nod to her promise to govern on behalf of all Americans. There are many highly skilled and talented Republicans who no doubt would make good additions to a Harris administration. But as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both discovered, naming a Republican to your Cabinet—even when it’s a high profile post like secretary of defense—does little to quell partisan passions.

Harris also made her views crystal clear on one issue that is dividing Democrats, namely, support for Israel’s war in Gaza. She unequivocally defended Israel’s right to defend itself and said she would not withhold weapons destined to Israel. She coupled those statements with a commitment to get a ceasefire, secure the release of all hostages, and work toward a two-state solution. That position, however, reasonable it may be, will not satisfy those Democrats who oppose U.S. policy.

What was most striking about the interview, though, was that the biggest domestic and foreign policy challenges the next president will face were largely absent. Bash didn’t ask Harris what she planned to do about America’s growing national debt, how she proposes to remake the U.S. tax system, whether she would try to regulate artificial intelligence or social media, how she would deal with China, whether and how she would continue U.S. support for Ukraine, how she would deal with Iran, or why she thinks U.S. global leadership is critical to advancing American security and prosperity.

Of course, no interview that runs for less than an hour can cover every topic. That is especially so when journalists also ask personal questions or press candidates on inconsistencies in their past statements. But with any luck, some future interviewer will ask Harris—and Donald Trump as well—about the issues that will dominate the next president’s agenda.

Campaign Update

The Harris and Trump campaigns continue to debate whether everything is set for their planned September 10 debate. Harris’s team says no. Trump’s team says yes. The sticking point looks to be whether one candidate’s microphone will be muted when the other candidate is speaking. That was the case at the June 27 debate that prompted Biden’s departure from the race. Trump wants to keep the rule. Harris wants to jettison it.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Trump last Friday after suspending his own candidacy. Kennedy said he lacked “a realistic path to an electoral victory” and that his polling showed that if he stayed in the race he “would most likely hand the election to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on most existential issues.” Not all pollsters agree that Kennedy’s candidacy was helping Democrats.

While Kennedy has left the race, his name will remain on the ballot in some of the nineteen states where he has formally qualified. Election officials in Kentucky, Michigan, and Wisconsin said this week that they would not be taking Kennedy’s name off the ballot. He may also not be able to get his name off the ballot in North Carolina, where Harris and Trump are running neck and neck.

Both Trump and Kennedy say that the former president has not offered Kennedy a job in a second Trump administration should there be one. However, Trump did name Kennedy and former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team. Kennedy said that means he will be working “to help pick the people who will be running the government.”

As Kennedy seeks to get off state ballots, independent presidential candidate Cornel West is trying to get on them. He’s not having much luck. He has so far qualified in only five states. Last Friday, a Pennsylvania court upheld the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s decision that West had failed to meet the state’s qualifications to be on the ballot.

West’s failed effort in Pennsylvania is hardly the only legal challenge on the campaign trail. Election season, it is safe to say, is also lawsuit season. Just look to the Peachtree State. Last week, the Georgia state election board changed the state’s rules for certifying election outcomes, giving local election officials considerable discretion to delay the certification process so that they can hunt for voting irregularities. This week the Democratic Party and a coalition of allies sued the board. They argued the new “requirements introduce substantial uncertainty in the postelection process and—if interpreted as their drafters have suggested—invite chaos by establishing new processes at odds with existing statutory duties.” The plaintiffs want the courts to rule that election boards must follow the calendar for certifying election results and that challenges to those results should be handled by courts. Expect both parties to keep their legal teams on speed dial for the rest of the year.

Trump's personal legal problems also continue. On Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday filed a revised indictment of the former president for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Smith revised the revised indictment to accommodate the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that presidents enjoy sweeping immunity for official acts while in office. The main change in the revised indictment is that Trump is no longer charged with having broken the law by pressuring the Justice Department to support his claims that the election had been stolen from him.

What the Pundits Are Saying

Foreign Policy profiled eleven men—and they are all men—“whose views and ideas could have a meaningful impact on Trump’s foreign-policy decisions.” FP doesn’t attempt to pick who might get which jobs in a second Trump administration. That’s probably for the best. Trump went through several sets of advisers the last time he was president. His past behavior is likely indicative of his future behavior.

U.S. News & World Report posted a “decision guide” for comparing how Harris and Trump will approach foreign policy. The guide focuses on four topics: China, Israel, NATO, and Russia.

The New York Times’s David Sanger noted that while China may be dominating the conversation in the White House Situation Room, it is not dominating the conversation on the campaign trail. As Sanger put it, when the issue of China “comes up on the campaign trail at all, it’s framed chiefly as an economic threat. Thornier discussions of China’s role as a broad strategic competitor, with ambitions that are already forcing the United States to change how it prepares its workers, shapes its investments and restructures its defenses, have fallen largely by the wayside. China has fallen victim to what I call Situation Room-Campaign Trail disequilibrium. It works something like this: If there is a topic that is fixating Washington policymakers, it’s usually a good bet no one is talking about it, except in platitudes, on the campaign trail.” Last night’s CNN interview is good evidence of Sanger’s thesis.

What the Polls Show

Gallup found that Americans, and Democrats in particular, have become much more enthusiastic about voting in November. In March, 56 percent of Americans, and 55 percent of Democrats, said they were “more enthusiastic than usual about voting.” Those figures are now 69 percent and 78 percent, respectively. Republican enthusiasm also increased, rising from 59 percent to 64 percent. The 69 percent figure is the highest overall enthusiasm level since Gallup began asking the question in 2000. The previous highs were set in August 2004, October 2008, and September 2020, when 67 percent of Americans said they were more enthusiastic about voting. Voter enthusiasm and voter turnout broadly correlate. The 2004, 2008, and 2020 elections had the highest voter turnout of the six presidential elections since 2000.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that Americans have mixed views about the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Six-in-ten Americans favor military support for Israel until the hostages are released. Forty-nine percent favor continuing that support until Hamas is destroyed. At the same time, 53 percent favor restricting U.S. military aid to Israel to limit the harm done to Palestinians.

The Campaign Schedule

The second presidential debate is in eleven days (September 10, 2024).

North Carolina will begin sending mail-in ballots to all voters who request them one week from today (September 6, 2024). Pennsylvania will allow voters to request mail-in ballots ten days later (September 16, 2024).

Donald Trump’s sentencing hearing on his New York felony convictions is in nineteen days (September 18, 2024).

The first in-person absentee voting in the nation begins in Minnesota and South Dakota in three weeks (September 20, 2024). 

Election Day is sixty-seven days away.

Inauguration Day is 143 days away.

Aliya Kaisar assisted in the preparation of this post.