Israel Gaza: Kamala Harris Holds Firm in Campaign Town Hall

Israel Gaza: Kamala Harris Confronts Important Themes

Right off the bat, Charlamagne tha God asked Kamala Harris in his radio town hall Tuesday afternoon about her tendency to stick to her scripts. “I would say, you’re welcome,” she laughed. “That would be called disciplined.”And if Charlamagne thought that opening exchange might loosen her up a little bit, it didn’t quite lead to a real emotional connection with his huge audience of millennial and mostly Black listeners. For an hour in front of Charlamagne’s microphone in Detroit, Harris was as disciplined as ever, unspooling a solid case for why she would be a vastly better president for Black America than Donald Trump, while sidestepping tough questions that frustrated questioners who just wanted her to get a little angry.

Addressing Complex Topics

It’s who she is. She may be doing more interviews in the final days of the campaign, but she is clearly determined not to get pushed off her message, either by friendly interviewers like Charlamagne or more adversarial journalists. Those qualities may make her an equally firm and determined president, should she win, but she will never win any awards for being a free-flowing and spontaneous campaigner.

• When one questioner asked her stance on reparations, she said it should be studied, then quickly pivoted to her economic agenda.
• When Charlamagne asked whether it was true that she had locked up thousands of Black men as the district attorney in San Francisco, she stated that was false and began to describe herself as “the most progressive in California,” though she quickly clarified she was talking about not criminalizing marijuana use.

Navigating Support Challenges

Harris is very aware that her support among Black men is soft, which is why she unveiled a plan on Monday to boost their economic fortunes. Today’s politics requires her to carefully navigate the space between directly appealing to a specific demographic group she needs and not alienating equally needed white suburban voters who don’t want reparations or financial breaks that won’t benefit them.

1. Harris made the interview a State-of-the-Union speech of ideas that include:
• Using community banks to make forgivable loans of up to $20,000 for Black entrepreneurs.
• Increasing child tax credits.
• Having Medicare cover the cost of home health care.
• Helping with down payments for first-time home buyers.

These are the details of how social programs work, but they don’t make for great radio. Charlamagne tried to get her to say Trump should be imprisoned for starting the Jan. 6 riot, but she carefully maintained that was up to the Justice Department.

The closest she came to an unscripted moment was when Charlamagne asked if it’s possible to use the word fascism to describe Trump’s vision, and with a laugh, she replied, “Yeah, we can say that.” However, she wouldn’t elaborate further, and a minute later she returned to familiar territory, describing her upbringing in the Black church.