’60 Minutes’ interview highlights reasons for Harris avoiding press interactions

Every interview Kamala Harris does reminds us why she does so few. Even with a sympathetic questioner in CBS’ Bill Whitaker and a lot of editing, her pre-recorded “60 Minutes” sitdown that aired Monday didn’t go well.

Harris gave us a glimpse into her mind, and there’s not much there.

Be thankful for small favors: At least she didn’t deflect anything with “I grew up a middle-class kid.”

But her canned evasions still aren’t actually answers to the big questions of this election: What she really believes, how she’d offer “change” from Joe Biden, what she plans to do, or why anyone should expect any of her policies to work.

Whitaker challenged Harris on a few points, but this shouldn’t have been a hard interview.

There were no “gotcha” questions. There were no surprises.

Nearly every topic he broached was something Harris had been asked before, in her debate with former President Donald Trump and in her few prior interviews.

Harris wasn’t asked to defend her administration’s lackluster performance in the response to Hurricane Helene, or its execution of anything other than opening the border to illegal migrants.

Airing as it did on Oct.7, the interview opened with questions about the war in Gaza. Harris stuck to the administration’s usual weaselly formulation, saying that Israel had a right to defend itself — but immediately pivoting to declare that too many Palestinians have died and “this war has to end.”

So long as she won’t say that Israel can and should disable Hamas and Hezbollah to prevent further attacks on Israel, that’s not a real right to self-defense, but a recipe for a never-ending war in which more Israelis and more Palestinians will die.

So much for “never again.”

Whatever else she may have said about the topic was cut off from a broadcast that was replete with edits.

Whitaker talked up the economy, but even with his encouragement, Harris could only say she had “a plan” to bring down prices. But she still can’t explain what that plan is, despite having had multiple opportunities to do so, including on the debate stage.

We do know it involves the government printing more money, which is exactly how we got in this mess in the first place.

Whitaker asked Harris twice how she would pay for her anticipated trillions in new spending. She said the richest taxpayers should pay more, but you can’t raise that much money only from them.

And everyone who got a tax cut during the Trump years should notice that her only other answer was to blame the former president’s tax cuts — all of them. Watch your wallet.

Her answers on the border crisis were even worse.

Asked why the administration reversed course on Trump’s policies and let so many people into the country, Harris blamed Congress for not passing a bill in 2024 — ignoring the fact that her own administration had unilaterally acted without Congress for three years to create the problem.

She simply had no answer as to why the Biden-Harris administration hadn’t taken steps sooner to undo its own executive policies. She looked pained that Whitaker pressed her on the question.

Harris didn’t just insult the intelligence of voters — she insulted them, period. When Whitaker asked how Harris could brand Trump’s rhetoric racist when nearly half the country supports him, she scoffed that “most reasonable people” do not.

So Trump’s voters are either racist or unreasonable? Got it.

When pressed on her many apparent flip-flops on fracking, immigration and health care, Harris claimed she had shifted after traveling the country as vice president and had discovered — shockingly! — that America is a big, diverse country in need of common ground.

Of course, she still has no regard for letting thorny issues be decided at the state level, as she would if she truly respected our differences. The next time Harris works out a compromise will be the first.

What about the gun she claims to own? Harris revealed she has a Glock, which she has used at a firing range (laughing awkwardly as she did so).

That makes it worse, not better, that she’s been so determined to take other people’s guns — and once filed a Supreme Court brief arguing there is no individual right to own a handgun.

Harris is running a campaign of slogans, not ideas or proposals — and certainly not a campaign of records and accomplishments.

On taxes, on immigration and on so much else, there are questions she can’t answer, and she can’t hide her inability to do so.

That doesn’t bode well for us if she’s our next president.

Harry Truman used to say “The buck stops here.” Harris thinks she can always just print more bucks.

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review. Twitter: @BaseballCrank