Even CNN’s shameless hour of Kamala Harris propaganda couldn’t save this flip-flopping lightweight from primetime humiliation… But, says ANDREW NEIL, some Trump confidants fear he STILL can’t stop her

CNN gave a masterclass on Thursday night on how not to hold politicians accountable.

Kamala Harris appeared for the first real television interview in her 39 days since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, accompanied by her emotional support dog, running mate Tim Walz. At least she was there, in case interviewer Dana Bash got too insistent, or even robust.

But there has never been any danger of that.

The fact that CNN agreed to Walz’s presence showed that the network had thrown in the towel before the interview even began.

As president, Harris would have to deal with the world’s most powerful dictators, like Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi. But she doesn’t feel up to a mediocre broadcast journalist like Bash? It was all a bit pathetic.

The protective fences around Harris didn’t stop there.

The interview was pre-recorded, Harris’s people (probably rightly) decided that “live” was too risky. It was recorded around a table in a coffee shop in Savannah, in the swing state of Georgia, to make it look folksy. It just looked messy in the end.

CNN billed the interview as an hour-long primetime extravaganza. But the interrogation (which is probably a misuse of the word) lasted only 27 minutes. The rest of the 60 minutes were filled with footage and sound bites that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Harris-Walz campaign commercial, with Bash being far too cozy and friendly with the pair for a supposedly independent journalist.

Bash had her moments — but not nearly enough. At key points, when Harris hesitated or blurted, she failed to force her to clarify with the right follow-up questions that pinned her down. Clearly rehearsed answers that showed nothing came without challenge. Harris emerged largely unscathed.

But not quite. Despite CNN’s kid gloves, some of the recent Harris sheen was peeling off the exchanges.

While we learned nothing new and Harris made no serious gaffes, the interview reminded us of what has been largely forgotten in her recent reinvention: that Harris is still, at heart, a mediocre lightweight who delivers glib answers without any substance.

Bash began by asking what she would do on Day One in the White House. A predictable question, but one Harris was strangely unprepared.

She kept going on and on about the various action items in her policy agenda. Bash rightly repeated the question (one of the few attempts to pin Harris down). More talk.

In a prime example of her many pivots, Bash voiced her opposition to fracking for oil and gas in 2019 and now her support for it. Harris responded that she had made it clear in 2020 that she was pro-fracking and that she has not wavered from that position since.

Bash was not prepared for this Harris dance on the pinhead.

When she made her failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, she was clear during a CNN rally: “There is no question that I support a ban on fracking.”

She even suggested the ban would be implemented on her first day in office, because “the residual impact of fracking is enormous in terms of the health and safety of communities.”

Harris claimed on Thursday that she changed her stance when she was Joe Biden’s running mate and debated Mike Pence (Trump’s then-running mate). She didn’t explain why, though Bash helpfully and inexplicably offered possible explanations (it’s really not an interviewer’s job to help politicians with answers).

But the record shows that in 2020, Harris said only, “Joe Biden will not end fracking. He’s been very clear about that.” She said nothing about her own positions.

Bash was not well informed about this and therefore did not pressure her.

Nor was Harris held to account for what she knew about Biden’s apparent cognitive decline, even as she blithely assured the world that he was as right as a feather and as sharp as a knife. Harris has clearly misled us. She must be held accountable for that.

At least we’ve been spared Harris’s infamous word salads. Well, mostly, if not entirely.

While addressing fracking, she said, “I’ve always believed, and I’ve worked to believe, that the climate crisis is real, that it’s an urgent issue that we need to apply metrics to, including setting deadlines.”

Raise your hand if you can think of a deadline that has nothing to do with time.

Harris was not pushed to make other changes from her more radical era, from defunding police to decriminalizing illegal entry into America.

To any suggestion that she was inconsistent, she responded with a ready-made, all-encompassing phrase: “my values ​​haven’t changed,” which is as meaningless as it is vague.

She was never asked what she meant.

She touted her $100 billion plan to provide a $25,000 federal subsidy to first-time homebuyers. Bash failed to point out that this was a surefire recipe for rising housing prices, putting homeownership out of reach for young people of modest means. She paraded platitudes about “turning the page on the last decade,” without properly challenging the fact that those years included the last two years of the Obama administration and nearly four years of the Biden-Harris administration.

Was she turning her back on the Biden years? Oh no, she said, they were an “extraordinary success,” “transformative.” If so, why does she want to “turn the page”? The question was not asked.

Walz didn’t say much, and Bash was largely right to ignore him. But when he did get his minutes in the sun, he showed he was just as good as Harris when it came to unmasking.

When asked about banning the possession of “weapons of war” such as those he had carried into battle (he had never been deployed to a war zone in his 24 years in the Army National Guard), he merely muttered, “My grammar isn’t always correct.”

But this has nothing to do with grammar — it’s about facts and honesty. He was just as slick when it came to his false claims about his wife’s fertility treatment and his drunk driving arrest.

The interview ended with a bit of fluff about the iconic photo of Harris’s young niece’s backside as she listened to her aunt address the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week. Fine if you’re part of Harris’s propaganda machine. Not so fine if you haven’t taken Harris to task — and the time is running out to do so.

Harris may not give another major interview between now and November 5. She got away with it, so why push your luck?

But despite all the problems, the CNN interview reminded us that she is a weak and very beatable candidate. The polls are still close enough, nationally and in the swing states, to make this a close race.

Whether Donald Trump is the opponent who can defeat her is another question.

As Labor Day approaches and the election season begins in earnest, his campaign still lacks focus, direction, purpose (other than his greater glory). The Harris-Trump debate on September 10 will be his chance to exploit all the weaknesses Harris exposed on Thursday that CNN failed to exploit.

The fear among Republican strategists is that Trump still isn’t doing the heavy lifting needed to convey Harris’s weak record of near-zero success, her past far-left positions and her tendency to flip out. He’s more comfortable with personal invective, which only serves to remind moderates and independents why they didn’t vote for him in the first place. If he stoops to that on Sept. 10, Harris could be on his way to victory.

What if he does live up to your worst expectations, I asked a seasoned Trump confidant. What’s Plan B? “Call 911. Or the Holy Spirit,” he replied. I’m not sure he was joking.