Kamala Harris launched a new media blitz on Monday with appearances on “60 Minutes” and other shows aimed at a wide range of demographic groups as the presidential campaign enters the final month before Election Day.
The Democratic nominee told the venerable CBS News program that she has a better economic plan for the middle class than former President Trump, who backed out of a similar interview with the show.
“My economic plan would strenghen our ecoomy,” Harris told correspondent Bill Whitaker. “His would hurt it,”
Harris, who has faced criticism over her relatively paltry number of interviews since launching her campaign in July, parried Whitaker’s aggressive but respectful questioning about how realistic her plans are.
“I’m going to make sure that the richest among us who can affor ti t pay their fair share,” Harris said. “It is not right that teachers, nurses and firefighters are paying a hihger tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations.”
The “60 Minutes” interview was set to air in full at 8 p.m. Monday night. The show typically does a presidential election special including interviews with both candidates, but Trump backed out after initially accepting the request from CBS, the network said.
Harris also defended the U.S. alliance with Israel, although she avoided declaring that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a “real, close ally.”
“With all due respect, the better question is whether we have an important alliance between the American and the Israeli people,” Harris said. “And the answer to that question yes.”
Harris also plans a flurry of media sit-downs with a diverse group of non-traditional media this week as early voting ramps up across the nation and the election remains a virtual dead heat.
On Tuesday, she will do interviews with shock jock Howard Stern, whose show appeals to a predominantly male audience as well as an appearance on the famously female-centric “The View” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
The vice president will participate in a town hall-style event on Thursday hosted by Univision in Las Vegas aimed at Latino voters, a key Democratic-leaning constituency in several swing states.
Harris kicked off the high-octane week with an interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, which has an audience of millions of mostly young women.
She slammed Republican efforts to shame women like her who do not have biological children, a tack that JD Vance used in his infamous barb against “childless cat ladies.”
“I just think it’s mean and mean-spirited,” said Harris, who is a stepmother to the two children of her husband, Doug Emhoff. “We each have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both. And I consider it to be a real blessing.”
AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Donald Trump arrives to a campaign rally in Juneau, Wisconsin on Sunday. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Harris’ campaign hopes to put to bed complaints that she has shied away from tough questioning. She is also aiming to expand her gaping lead over Trump with female voters while seeking to blunt his advantage with men and those without a college degree.
Trump on the other hand has stayed within his right-wing comfort zone, doing regular rallies to adoring and large crowds of MAGA loyalists and granting interviews almost exclusively to right-wing media outlets.
His campaign believes his path to victory includes maximizing his support from his base of working-class white men while picking off a significant chunk of backing from other demographics with tough talk on hot-button issues like crime, inflation and especially immigration.
In a chummy interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt on Monday, Trump accused Harris of allowing immigrants who have a genetic predisposition to criminal behavior to enter the U.S.
“We got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” said Trump, while spewing false and misleading figures about immigrants. “They … had 425,000 people come into our country that shouldn’t be here, that are criminals.”
