Stripped of showbiz and teleprompted rallies, Kamala Harris is scrutinised at last
The headline was that it happened at all.
It took Kamala Harris five weeks from the day she took the call from Joe Biden to finally sit down for an extended interview.
On one view – a common one – it’s an astonishing length of time for a public to be kept waiting for proper, independent, scrutiny of a candidate to be their president.
Up until now, we’ve had the party-packaged version rolled out through convention and teleprompted rallies.
The launch, laced with showbiz, has worked for them.
Pic: AP
Support surging behind a pre-interviewed Ms Harris will weigh heavily in the calculations of Democratic campaign managers balancing their instinct for control with necessary exposure to media questioning.
The questions many had about Ms Harris were around her politics and how they had changed on a number of key election issues, like fracking and decriminalising illegal entry at the US border.
It feeds opposition lines of attack that, as a public servant, she lacks authenticity.
Her answer, repeated several times, was that her “values” hadn’t changed.
She will hope it flies in places like the must-win state of Pennsylvania, where fracking is a job creator and voters will ponder her new-found support for it.
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‘She didn’t look like a leader to me’
Harris has attempted to negotiate path to centre of political landscape
They’d be entitled to ask why, if consistency in her “values” hasn’t prevented change in her policy stance previously, why will they preclude a change in future?
It is one example of how Ms Harris has attempted to negotiate a path towards the centre of the political landscape.
In this US presidential contest, electability doesn’t lie in the progressive territory she trod as part of her effort to be the nominee in 2020.
Her recognition of the 2024 reality was clear in this interview, right down to her statement that she would entertain a Republican in her cabinet – a play for opposition voters feeling a distance from Donald Trump.
Little daylight between Biden and Harris
The interview didn’t show much daylight between Mr Biden and Ms Harris.
She anchored her economic credentials in the record of the current administration and welded herself to existing policy on the Middle East, rejecting suggestions she’d rethink arms shipments to Israel.
She did, however, acknowledge that continuity won’t wholly cut it when she spoke of a wish to “turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies”.
She is, at once, fighting on his record and fighting against it.
A schoolboy error in best presentation
By the end of the election campaign, this won’t be the most memorable screen event – we’ve probably had that with the Trump/Biden debate.
What will live in the memory, perhaps – certainly for Democratic party media managers – was how it looked.
It was already strange Ms Harris brought Tim Walz along to her big interview as a “plus one”.
To then have her sat low down, seemingly tiny and towered over by her running mate, was a schoolboy error in best presentation.
It’s not like they didn’t have time to plan.
This is the highest stakes diplomacy via social media.
The American president just posted on his Truth Social platform: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers.
“Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Israel-Iran live: Trump says US knows where Iran’s supreme leader is ‘hiding’
It was followed minutes later by “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
In real-time, we are witnessing Donald Trump’s extreme version of maximum pressure diplomacy.
He’d probably call it the ‘art of the deal’, but bunker busters are the tool, and it comes with such huge consequences, intended and unintended, known and unknown.
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Nuclear sites targeted in Iran
There is intentional ambiguity in the president’s messaging. His assumption is that he can apply his ‘art of the deal’ strategy to a deeply ideological geopolitical challenge.
It’s all playing out publicly. Overnight, the New York Times, via two of its best-sourced reporters, had been told that Mr Trump is weighing whether to use B-2 aircraft to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, Axios was reporting that a meeting is possible between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
The reporting came just as Mr Trump warned “everyone in Tehran to evacuate”. The nuclear sites being threatened with bunker busters are not in Tehran, but Trump’s words are designed to stoke tension, to confuse and to apply intense pressure.
His actions are too. He left the G7 in Canada early and asked his teams to gather in the White House Situation Room.
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Trump: ‘I want an end, not a ceasefire’
This is a game of smoke, mirrors, brinkmanship and – maybe – bluff. In Tehran, what’s left of the leadership is watching and reading closely as they consider what’s next.
Maybe the Supreme Leader and his regime’s days are numbered. Things remain very unpredictable.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
From history, though, regime change, even when it comes with a plan – and there is certainly not one here, spells civil war and from that comes a refugee crisis.
These are truly tense and chaotic times.
World
Ukraine war: 14 killed as Russian missile and drone attacks strike Kyiv – including American citizen
Russian missile and drone attacks have killed 14 people in Kyiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials.
A 62-year-old US citizen who suffered shrapnel wounds is among the dead.
At least 99 others were wounded in strikes that hollowed out a residential building and destroyed dozens of apartments.
Pic: AP
Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Images show a firefighter was among those hurt, with injured residents evacuated from their homes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “one of the most terrifying attacks on Kyiv” – and said Russian forces had fired 440 drones and 32 missiles as civilians slept in their homes.
“[Putin] wants the war to go on,” he said. “It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it.”
Pic: AP
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said 27 locations across the capital have been hit – including educational institutions and critical infrastructure.
He claimed the attack, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was one of the largest on the capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Drones swarmed over the city, with an air raid alert remaining in force for seven hours.
One person was killed and 17 others injured as a result of separate Russian drone strikes in the port city of Odesa.
Pic: Reuters
It comes as the G7 summit in Canada continues, which Ukraine’s leader is expected to attend.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold talks with Donald Trump – but the president has announced he is unexpectedly returning to Washington because of tensions in the Middle East.
Ukraine’s foreign minister says Moscow’s decision to attack Kyiv during the summit is a signal of disrespect to the US.
Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, and says the attacks are in retaliation for a Ukrainian operation that targeted warplanes in airbases deep within Russian territory.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko says fires broke out in two of the city’s districts as a result of debris from drones shot down by the nation’s air defences.
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Pic: AP
On X, Ukraine’s foreign ministry wrote: “Russia’s campaign of terror against civilians continues. Its war against Ukraine escalates with increased brutality.
“The only way to stop Russia is tighter pressure – through sanctions, more defence support for Ukraine, and limiting Russia’s ability to keep sowing war.”
Olena Lapyshnak, who lived in one of the destroyed buildings, said: “It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life. I can only curse the Russians, that’s all I can say. They shouldn’t exist in this world.”
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