Kamala Harris defended her economic plans, refused to call Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a close ally and said she would not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for peace talks if Ukraine was not also represented, during a wide-ranging sit-down interview that aired on Monday.
With the presidential race between Harris and Donald Trump effectively dead-locked, Harris has launched an unusually robust media blitz, which includes popular podcasts, talk radio, a battleground state town hall, daytime television, late night shows and Monday’s network sit-down on CBS’s 60 Minutes prime-time election special.
Before the interview with Harris aired, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley detailed his attempts to secure a similar 60 Minutes sit-down with Trump.
“Unfortunately last week, Trump cancelled,” Pelley told the audience. He said the Trump campaign provided “shifting explanations” for why the Republican nominee declined to participate, including that he did not want to be factchecked.
Instead, the network broadcast an interview with Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican who Pelley said was “paying the price for Trump’s claims of a stolen 2020 election.” The election official lost his primary in July to an opponent who called Maricopa county’s elections a “laughing stock.”
In the interview with CBS’s Bill Whitaker, Harris was pressed on how she would pay for her economic proposals, which include plans to build millions of new housing units, tax breaks for new parents and $25,000 down-payment assistance for new homebuyers. The vice-president vowed to raise taxes on the country’s billionaires and biggest corporations, a solution Whitaker found dubious.
“We’re dealing with the real world here,” he said, asking how she would persuade Congress to raise taxes on the country’s highest earners. Harris insisted there were lawmakers who would listen to her pitch if she were president.
An analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that seeks lower deficits, released a report on Monday that found Harris’s economic proposals could see the federal debt climb by as much as $8.1t through 2035, or have no impact at all. Trump’s plans on the other hand could add as much as $15.15t to the nation’s debt over the same period.
“I cannot afford to be myopic in terms of how I think about strengthening America’s economy,” Harris said in the interview. “Let me tell you something. I am a devout public servant. You know that I’m also a capitalist, and I know the limitations of government.”
Harris navigated around the thorny question of whether Netanyahu was “a real close ally,” saying that “The better question is: Do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes.”
The excerpt was released on Sunday, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s deadly cross-border attack on Israel. In a sign Harris intends to hew closely to Biden’s approach to foreign policy, the vice-president said that Israel had a right to defend itself, while adding that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” Israel’s war has levelled Gaza and killed almost 42,000 Palestinians.
In an exchange about the future of Ukraine, Harris categorically ruled out a bilateral meeting with Putin to discuss ending the war without involving the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “Without Ukraine? No,” Harris said.
She also again warned of what could happen if Trump were in office: “Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He talks about, ‘oh, he can end it on Day 1.’ You know what that is. It’s about surrender.”
During the interview, which was pre-taped and aired in full on Monday, Harris defended her ideological shift to the political center, insisting as she has in the past that her “values have not changed.”
She said that travelling the country as vice-president, and working to pass bipartisan legislation in Congress had emphasized the need to find “common ground.”
“I believe in building consensus,” she said.
Harris was also asked about the gun she talked about owning during an event held with Oprah Winfrey last month, in which she declared: “If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot,” drawing laughs from the host and the audience. On 60 Minutes, Harris said she owns a Glock. Asked if she has ever fired it, she laughed: “Of course I have,” she said. “At a shooting range. Yes.”
Part of the interview included her running mate, Tim Walz, who was asked where he and Harris disagree.
With a bashful smile, Walz said Harris probably wished he was a “little more careful” with his public comments. Since becoming the vice-presidential nominee, Walz has had to clarify several past remarks, including his description of his military service and whether he was in Hong Kong “when Tiananmen happened”, a reference to the pro-democracy protests that culminated in the massacre of hundreds of people in June 1989.
Walz brushed off the remark during the vice-presidential debate last week, saying he had been a “knucklehead.” But Whitaker pressed him, asking if it was a misrepresentation and whether the American people could trust him.
Walz drew a sharp line between himself and Trump, who he called a “pathological liar” and said voters should feel confident trusting him.
“I will own up to being a knucklehead at times, but the folks closest to me know that I keep my word,” he said.
The 60 Minutes interview was part of a week-long media push by the Democratic ticket that began with Harris’s appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, which aired on Sunday. She is also scheduled to participate in a Univision town hall in Nevada on Thursday as well as an interview with Howard Stern on Sirius XM and appearances on The View and Late Night with Stephen Colbert. From Los Angeles, Walz was also making media appearances, including on the SmartLess podcast and Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Taken together, it represents a sharp change of pace for the vice-president after two-and-a-half months in which she mostly resisted such exchanges.
Before boarding Air Force Two, en route to New York on Monday afternoon, Harris fielded a handful of questions from reporters.
Asked about a report that the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, ignored the vice-president’s call to discuss recovery efforts as the state braces for Hurricane Milton to make landfall, Harris accused the Republican of “playing political games”.
“These are the height of emergency situations, it is utterly irresponsible and it is selfish,” she said.
She also assailed Trump as “incredibly irresponsible” for spreading falsehoods about the administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, which ripped across the southern Appalachians, killing more than 220 people in six states.
“There’s a lot of mis- and disinformation being pushed out there by the former president about what is available, particularly to the survivors of Helene,” she said. “It’s extraordinarily irresponsible. It’s about him. It’s not about you.”
5 takeaways from Kamala Harris’ one-on-one interview with ‘60 Minutes’
Vice President Kamala Harris faced tough questions about how she’d pay for her economic plans, whether Democrats were too slow to enact border security measures, how she’d confront Russia over its war in Ukraine and more in a wide-ranging “60 Minutes” interview that aired Monday.
The Democratic presidential nominee’s sit-down with CBS comes amid a media blitz that is also putting Harris in front of friendlier interviewers with more targeted audiences. Her interview with Alex Cooper, host of the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast, went live Sunday. On Tuesday she’ll visit ABC’s “The View,” sit down with Howard Stern and appear on CBS’ “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert. Then, on Thursday, she’s set to participate in a Univision town hall.
With no more debates between Harris and former President Donald Trump currently scheduled, this slate of interviews could present the best opportunities for surprising and news-making moments in the final four-week sprint to Election Day.
Here are five takeaways from Harris’ sit down with “60 Minutes”:
Harris says Congress must act on border security
Harris maintained migration is a “longstanding problem” when asked about President Joe Biden’s administration’s approach to immigration policies and refused to answer whether officials should’ve cracked down sooner.
From the outset, the Biden administration faced record migration in the Western Hemisphere, which was hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Over the last three years, US officials grappled with migrant surges at the southern border.
Asked why the administration didn’t crack down earlier, Harris cited an immigration bill proposed to Congress in early 2021 and slammed Republicans for tanking a recent bipartisan border bill after Trump urged them to reject the measure.
CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker asked: “But there was an historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years of your administration. As a matter of fact, arrivals quadrupled from the last year of President Trump. Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?”
“It’s a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand. And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions,” Harris said.
Pressed on the record number of crossings and whether more action should’ve been taken sooner, Harris refused to answer, focusing instead on recent action that has resulted in a drastic drop in crossings and putting the onus on Congress to act.
“We need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem,” she said.
No one-on-one meeting with Putin
Harris said she would not meet bilaterally with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a solution to end the war in Ukraine.
“Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine,” she said.
Harris said that there “will be no success in ending that war without Ukraine and the UN charter participating in what that success looks like.”
The vice president avoided answering whether she would support the effort to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, to include Ukraine, saying she would “deal with if and when it arrives at that point.”
“Those are all issues that we will deal with if and when it arrives at that point. Right now, we are supporting Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s unprovoked aggression,” Harris said.
She said if Trump were president, “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” referring to the Ukrainian capital.
“He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one. You know what that is? It’s about surrender,” Harris said.
Harris met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House last month, where she reiterated her unwavering support for the country.
“As I have made clear on our six previous meetings and throughout Putin’s brutal aggression and war against Ukraine, my support to the people of Ukraine is unwavering,” Harris said. “I’ve been proud to stand with Ukraine – I will continue to stand with Ukraine, and I will work to ensure Ukraine prevails in this war, to be safe, secure and prosperous.”
Harris and Cheney’s alliance on display
The interview at one point featured Harris together in Ripon, Wisconsin – claimed to be the birthplace of the Republican Party – with former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
Cheney, who was ousted in a primary last year over her role in the House’s investigation into Trump supporters’ January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, endorsed Harris and spoke at a rally in the key swing state last week.
“I hope that if you had said to me four years ago, ‘Our Constitution is going to be under threat and it’s gonna be crucial for the parties to come together and to support Vice President Harris because she’ll defend the rule of law’ — I know I would’ve said, ‘That’s exactly what I’ll do,’” Cheney told CBS.
When asked if she’d imagined campaigning alongside Cheney four years ago, Harris responded warmly.
“That’d be great,” Harris said, as both her and Cheney laughed.
“She’s really diplomatic,” Cheney joked.
Walz says Harris told him to be more careful with his words
Later, it also featured Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has faced probing questions about past statements that had been dissected by Republicans and the press after he became the vice presidential pick.
He acknowledged making false claims about his military record and about being in Hong Kong during Tiananmen Square unrest. But he said those moments were “expressing emotion, telling a story, getting a date wrong,” as opposed to being “a pathological liar like Donald Trump.”
Still, Walz said Harris had encouraged him to choose his words more carefully.
“She said, ‘Tim, you know, you need to be a little more careful on how you say things,’ whatever it might be,” Walz said.
Harris slams Trump’s decision to drop out of ’60 Minutes’ interview
Trump backed out of his “60 Minutes” interview after his campaign had agreed to it and scheduled a sit-down at his Mar-a-Lago estate, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley said Monday night at the start of the nation’s most-watched newsmagazine’s broadcast.
Trump sat down with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl in October 2020 and abruptly ended the interview when he apparently objected to Stahl’s questions. Trump told reporters in Wisconsin last week that he’d “like to get an apology” for that interview before sitting down for another one.
The former president has largely only taken questions from friendly interviewers, including Fox News, in recent weeks.
“If he is not going to give your viewers the ability to have a meaningful, thoughtful conversation, question and answer with you, then watch his rallies,” Harris told Whitaker.
“You’re going to hear conversations that are about himself and all of his personal grievances. And what you will not hear is anything about you, the listener. You will not hear about how he is going to try to bring the country together, find common ground,” she said. “And, Bill, that is why I believe in my soul and heart, the American people are ready to turn the page.”
