Vice President Kamala Harris recited familiar talking points and dished out indecipherable word salads Wednesday evening during her first solo interview with a national network, MSNBC, and her second interview this month with a media figure who openly supports her campaign, Stephanie Ruhle. (Last week Harris sat down with Oprah Winfrey, the billionaire tycoon.) Most significantly, perhaps, Harris finally weighed in on the Washington Free Beacon's detailed report on the curious nature of her claim to have worked at McDonald's during college.
"I come from the middle class," Harris said for roughly the thousandth time since accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president. She also believes in the middle class, as well as "new industries," and "entrepreneurs" and "bringing down costs." She is "serious" about her "enthusiasm for small businesses" but has also "spent a lot of time with CEOs" who agree that her policies, such as they are, would revive the economy after four years of failed leadership under President Joe Biden.
Ruhle, who just days earlier defended Harris for refusing to give interviews, asked a series of softball questions about the economy, nodding along and helpfully interrupting at times to steer the VP toward a different talking point. Ruhle hardly seemed bothered when Harris made dubious claims a serious journalist could easily fact check in real time, or when Harris didn't even bother to answer her questions.
Asked about the American voters "who don't see themselves" in her economic proposals, Harris concocted one of her signature cocktails of uplifting nonsense. "Well, if you are hardworking, if you have, uh, the dreams and the ambitions and the aspirations of what I believe you do, um, you're in my plan," she said. "You know, I have to tell you, I really love and am so energized by what I know to be the spirit and the character of the American people."
Harris recited familiar Democratic talking points about raising taxes on corporations as well as individuals slightly richer than the college-educated young urban professionals who earn just $395,000 a year and vote for Democrats. Ruhle attempted to press Harris on how she would raise corporate taxes if Republicans won control of the Senate, but Harris declined to give a serious answer. "We're gonna have to raise corporate taxes," she said. "That's just it." She gave a similar answer when asked about how to solve the immigration crisis. "It needs to be fixed," she said. "We need a comprehensive plan."
Despite falsely claiming that "top economists in our country," including the CEO of Goldman Sachs, have endorsed her economic policies, Harris declined to defend the specifics of her plan to combat so-called price gouging that many economists have dismissed as unserious. The VP went on to attack Donald Trump as unserious for failing to think deeply about the issues. "One must be serious, and have a plan, and a real plan that's not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally," Harris said.
Ruhle asked Harris what actions the federal government could take to increase the housing supply in America, and the VP answered in characteristic fashion. First she acknowledged that "home ownership for too many people in our country now is elusive" under the Biden administration in which she serves. There was "too much bureaucracy" under Biden, and Harris acknowledged the need to "reduce the red tape" that her administration has failed to address thus far.
Doing what comes naturally, Harris deployed an excessive amount of words to say very little of substance about the issue. She seemed rather proud of herself for remembering to say the word "holistically" several times. "Some of the work is gonna be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in [a] holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing," Harris explained, sort of.
Ruhle eventually got around to asking the question on everyone's minds. Did Harris really work at McDonald's, a detail about her life she first shared publicly in 2019 during her disastrous campaign for president in the Democratic primary? As the Free Beacon reported last August, one of the candidate's biographers hadn't even heard about the job at McDonald's, and the campaign has already walked back Harris's initial claim to have worked at the fast food chain to "pay her way" through college.
Harris reiterated her claim but declined to offer definitive evidence. "I did fries," she cackled. "Yes, but I did." The alleged job gave her "perspective on the needs of the American people," which is why she talks about it, Harris said. For whatever reason, though, Harris stopped mentioning the McDonald's job in her stump speeches following the Free Beacon report.
"You have laid out policy in great detail," Ruhle said with unflappable credulity before concluding the interview with a series of softballs, such as "When's the last time you had to make a gut decision?" (choosing her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz) and "Can we trust you?" ("Yes. I'm not perfect but I will tell you I'm always going to put the needs of the American people first.")
MSNBC's Chris Hayes hosted the segment. His awkward presence on screen prior to the interview and after the commercial breaks may have alienated some undecided voters. When it was finished, Hayes congratulated Ruhle on "a great interview" that was "refreshingly substantive." He didn't appear to be joking.
Minutes before the interview aired, playwright Jeremy O. Harris (MFA, Yale School of Drama) ranted to MSNBC's Ari Melber about how Democrats should respect young voters who sympathize with terrorists and want the United States to place an "arms embargo" on Israel "at the very least." Minutes after it aired, Ruhle said it was all good that Harris didn't give substantive answers.
"One could watch that and say, 'Well, she didn't give a clear, direct answer,'" Ruhle said. "That's okay, because we are not talking about clear or direct issues."