There were sidesteps, but there was also plenty of substance in the vice president’s sit-down with the NABJ.

During a sweeping interview with Black reporters this week, Vice President Kamala Harris tied former President Donald Trump’s claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, to his perpetuating the racist “birtherism” lieyears ago about former President Barack Obama.

• The 45-minute back-and-forth with the National Association of Black Journalists was easily her meatiest interview with mainstream news media since locking down the Democratic nomination.
• Not that there are many to compare it to: The mainstream press-averse vice president has done some radio interviews, took questions from Action News anchor Brian Taff in Pennsylvania and sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash.

Still, Harris took questions in front of NABJ members on a wide range of topics, including whether voters are better off than they were four years ago, Israel’s war on Hamas, Trump’s race-baiting and unsubstantiated claims that Haitian immigrants in Ohio have been abducting and eating pets, and reparations for slavery.

Here are six key moments from the 45-minute interview session.

Things Are ‘Too Expensive’

The kickoff question was whether Americans are better off than when she took office.

Rather than giving a direct yes-or-no answer, Harris described the country’s struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic and its many knock-on effects, and defended President Joe Biden’s economic record, pointing to policies like prescription drug price caps and booming job growth.

She also championed her own proposals – initiatives like boosting housing construction, expanding the child tax credit and giving first-time home buyers $25,000 in down-payment assistance.

But she also repeatedly acknowledged the surge in the cost of living Americans have experienced since January 2021.

• “Is the price of groceries still too high? Yes. Do we have more work to do? Yes.”
• Child care is “too expensive.” For the so-called sandwich generation caring for kids and aging parents, “it is just absolutely too expensive for them to be able to work and do that.”
• Housing? “It’s too expensive.”

Through the lens of crass politics, this beats pretending all is well.

Black Male Voters Are In Play

Trump and Harris are both courting Black voters. While that demographic tilts overwhelmingly Democratic, Trump has made inroads, notably among younger Black men. If this election, like the contests of 2016 and 2020, comes down to tens of thousands of votes in a handful of states, their role could be decisive.

• “It’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket. Black men are like any other voting group. You got to earn their vote,” Harris said. “So I’m working to earn the vote, not assuming I’m going to have it because I am Black.”

Israel and Gaza

Harris mostly stuck to her past remarks on the issue, which resonates among Jewish voters and Arab Americans in places like the battleground state of Michigan.

• “I absolutely believe that this war has to end, and it has to end as soon as possible,” she said, adding that the path to that objective hinges on reaching a cease-fire agreement and deal for the release of hostages Hamas has been holding in Gaza.

She repeated that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” but “how it does so matters, and far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, women and children.” Harris has regularly spoken more empathetically about Gaza’s population than Biden has.

• She was asked twice what she would do differently if she were president. She sidestepped the question both times.

Caution on Reparations

Harris was cautious on the issue of reparations payments for slavery – specifically, on legislation languishing in Congress that would create a commission to study the issue. Would she take executive action to create such a body?

• “I’m not discounting the importance of any executive action,” she said, after noting that she thinks “Congress ultimately will have the ability to do this work.”

Roe v. Wade Restrictions

Politico’s Eugene Daniels repeatedly pressed Harris on whether she would sign national legislation that not only codifies access to abortion as established under the overturned Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, but also that ruling’s provision that states could restrict abortion in the third trimester.

• She did not give a yes-or-no answer, even when pressed, saying instead she wanted to restore Roe’s “protections.”

Springfield

The vice president’s most memorable answer may have been when she connected Trump’s accusations of migrant pet-eating to his ad campaign calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, Black and Hispanic teenagers wrongly accused of a brutal rape. She also tied it to his role as a champion of “birtherism.”

• “This is not new in terms of where it’s coming from,” she said. “Whether it is taking out a full-page ad in The New York Times against five innocent Black and Latino teenagers – the Central Park Five – calling for their execution. Whether it is referring to the first Black president of the United States with a lie – birther lies.”

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