Kamala shows her stern side in NBC interview

Small wonder that Donald Trump is dodging a new debate with Kamala Harris. If her latest television interview was anything to go by, she is a much smoother public performer than only a few months ago. She was quite steely, making her points with concision and snap. 

Harris may like to talk about joy, but she displayed little of it in her interview with Hallie Jackson of NBC News. Instead, Harris, in fending off several pointed questions, ensured that what was on display was her formidably stern side. “I’m not going down that rabbit hole with you right now,” she snapped at one point. She also refused to bite when Jackson tried to get her to agree that sexism might be at the root of some opposition to her becoming president insisting that “I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race, instead that leaders needs to earn the vote based on substance and what they will do to address challenges, and to inspire people to know that their aspirations and their ambitions can and will be achieved through the opportunity to do that.” 

It was the leitmotif of the evening’s interview. Jackson harped on abstruse issues such as transgender rights. Harris made it plain that she wasn’t having any of it. She respected them — and that was that. Any attempt to draw her out further on the volatile issue simply drew a frosty gaze. Harris’s reticence about cultural issues was not matched by her foray into economic ones. There she was a fount of policy ideas, from declaring that she will end price gouging at grocery stores to alluding to her call for a $25,000 down payment. Not to mention $6,000 to parents in the form of a tax credit for the first year of their child’s life. Harris’s proposals would cost trillions in further debt. Trump’s are even more costly. He would apparently bankrupt Social Security by 2031 by deporting millions of immigrants who pay into the system and by exempting Social Security benefits from taxation. Harris was quick to attack on this front: “I’m proud to report to you that economists from Nobel laureates to Goldman Sachs have reviewed my economic plan versus Donald Trump’s — and in comparison, have found that my plans will strengthen America’s economy, his plans will weaken America’s economy.” 

Harris’s central thrust, however, was to steer the interview toward a discussion of Donald Trump’s proclivity for extremism. She pointed out that Trump has mooted terminating the US Constitution and declared that the “American people are being represented with a choice here about whether we want a president who understands that America must stand strong as a leader around the globe, or an individual in Donald Trump who openly admires dictators.” 

Indeed he does. As Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic, observes in a new essay, Trump is not only enamored of dictators, but also disdainful of an American military that places loyalty to the constitution above fealty to an individual president. As Goldberg notes, “Trump has responded incredulously when told that American military personnel swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president.” For good measure, John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, has now vouchsafed the New York Times an interview in which he confirms that Trump expressed his admiration for Hitler on a number of occasions and that he met the definition of a fascist.  

Who knew that the Third Reich would be a debating point in the presidential race? As Harris and Trump head into the final stretch, each of them would like to launch a Blitzkrieg. But with the polls remaining tight, it seems that continued trench warfare is the likelier prospect.