David Smith: Guardian Washington Bureau Chief on Kamala Harris gearing up for first sit-down interview of the campaign

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her prospective VP Tim Walz are due to sit down for their first joint interview of their presidential campaign.

The pair will be interviewed by CNN in their first in-depth on-the-record exchange since Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris as his replacement.

Guardian Washington Bureau Chief David Smith says Harris has been accused of dodging the press and keeping her political plans quiet in the past.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
David Smith, Guardian's Washington Bureau chief, is with us. Hey David, Hello,
how are you very well?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (00:07):
So Carmela's agreed to the first interview. Heres she.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yes, there was growing pressure on Kamala Harris to actually
sit down with an interviewer and take some questions. As
one person actually from CNN put it to, if you're
going to have the nuclear codes, you should be able
to answer some questions. And now it's happening on Thursday
night at nine pm Eastern time in the US, both
Harris and her running mates Tim Waltz will be doing

(00:35):
an interview with CNN with the presenter Dana Bash. And yeah,
it'll be fascinating to see how she deals with questions about,
you know, what separates her from President Joe Biden and
how she shifted her position on issues such as healthcare
and immigration, for example, what does she think about Donald

(00:55):
Trump's wall and obviously a whole range of foreign policy
issues from Gaza to Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
How do you expect Dana Besh to be I mean,
is she going to go hard or what do you expect?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'd say sort of middling. I think I watch her
quite a lot on Sunday shows on TV, and she's
a widely respected journalist, been at CNN for quite a
long time. But she does not have a reputation as
a tough as a super tough sort of bruiser interrogator.

(01:29):
She's not sort of infamous for that, so I think
she'll be it should be hard, but fair, and certainly
on these occasions, like with the debates, she will be
scrutinized in terms of, you know, did she go in
hard enough, did she ask the right questions? It's a
it's a pressured moment for the for the interviewer as
well as the interviewees.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
David, what do you make of her bringing in Tim Waltz?
Is that smart because it feels like she's bringing him
in as cover.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Certainly, I think critics will say that, and I was
reading some reports that say, whilst this is you is done,
she will be under immediate pressure to do a solo interview.
But in the first instance, it sort of makes sense,
I think in that they work well together as a ticket,
they're seen as complimentary. Just in general, the Harris campaign

(02:22):
is trying to present an image to the nation which
includes not only her, as you know, a California liberals,
they're perceived and obviously so a woman from color. They've
a woman of color. They've really balanced that with this
kind of midwestern dad who's a football coach and a
bit more old fashioned and appealing to certain demographics, and

(02:45):
it's probably logical for them to present them as a package,
not least because as vice president. You know, there are
still some people who don't know that much about Kamala Harris,
but there are even more people who don't know anything about.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Obvious criticism is that she's acting like she's scared people
aren't going to like her.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I think you will certainly hear that from Republicans
and right wing media, and it will be interesting to
see this interview format in terms of does she deal
with most of the questions, is he kind of looking
on or does he chip in at times? And yeah,

(03:26):
we will then see the post mortems in terms of
how she came over and you know, what was he
assisting in that? But yeah, I think certainly there will
then be pressure for her to go solo as well.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
David, what do we have any idea what Mike Zuckerberg
was talking about, what the content was that he said
He was pressured to take off Facebook.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, this is Zuckerberg talking on Tuesday about president the
US government sense of posts, principally about coronavirus, and he
says the Biden administration repeatedly pressured his teams at Facebook

(04:11):
to sense of certain COVID nineteen content to including humor
and satire. And he's not given that much more detail
about specific posts, but we're talking about millions of pieces
of information which he now regrets. He says, you know,
Facebook should have spoken out earlier, and the consequence of

(04:33):
this is that there'll be less control of information or
misinformation at times during the coming election.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I'd love to know what it was, David, Thank you
very much, Really appreciate your time. As always, David Smith,
Guardian's Washington bureau chief.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
For more from Hither duplus Alan Drive, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.