Harris’s big interview and Trump’s cemetery controversy

so I don't know if you guys saw this news but apparently Donald Trump's campaign is giving pieces of the suit that he wore during his debate this summer with Joe Biden to fans who spend a lot of money on digital trading cards and so I just have so many questions about people essentially purchasing pieces of a suit has he worn it since that's a good that's a good question too he's calling it a knockout suit how many pieces do you divide the suit into and how do you price the pieces like is the Tie worth more than the shirt or you know or the jacket maybe is the premium and how do you can you buy the entire jacket is it only cut up into pieces yes mean's already jumping into like how do we actually actualize this how do you Market this how do you Market this [Music] welcome to the campaign moment on this Friday August 30th I'm elah eadi co-host of post reports and I'm Aaron Blake senior political reporter and author of The Campaign moment newsletter we're also joined this week by White House reporter for the Post yasun Abu talb hey yasm hi thanks for having me this [Music] week we're going to be talking talking about vice president kamla Harris's interview on CNN Thursday night and this was perceived as a big moment for Harris and also later we're going to get into the latest from the Trump campaign including what the Republican nominee has been saying about abortion and IVF I also wanted to talk about some other news out of the Trump campaign this week in particular a confrontation that took place on Monday at Arlington National Cemetery where defense officials and the cemetery say the Trump campaign got in a physical altercation with a worker there who was trying to prevent them from taking video and photos of a sensitive area and so before we get to all that I did want to start with the interview with kamla Harris and Tim Walls the Minnesota governor and her running mate Yas Meine I know that you cover Harris at the White House for the post and also you were up watching this interview Thursday night that she did she sat alongside Minnesota governor and her running mate Tim Walls and they both spoke to CNN's Dana Bash there was a lot of hype in the leadup to this interview so let's just talk about why ask me why did this interview matter so much and what did Harris have to do here well obviously the circumstances of this race have been so unusual and unprecedented so she's only been in the race for about 5 weeks now but in that time had not done a sitdown interview so she's obviously had this pretty crazy momentum behind her campaign and then she was starting to face some scrutiny I think especially as the Democratic National Convention approach that she had not actually been in an unscripted setting since she had become the Presidential nominee so that you know obviously she was good on the stump she was electrifying crowds but could she actually answer questions where she wasn't reading a prepared speech or it wasn't a sort of informal setting with voters you know sort hard-hitting questions and I think there were some key questions that she had to answer that Dana Bash did ask her pretty much right off the bat about why she's had some pretty dramatic changes in her policy positions since she launched her first presidential campaign in 2019 and I think there are a lot of questions about exactly what type of President she would be what would she do is she going to break with Biden anywhere it's it's sort of a tricky situation because she is his sitting vice president and he's still the president so she wants to thread that needle carefully but I think there are questions about who she is and who her political identity is now and Aaron what do you think Harris had to do here I mean there was a real question about whether Harris could kind of live up to the hype you know we've seen with Joe Biden that delivering a speech is not the same as doing an interview is not the same as debating Democrats are are eoent right now like there was a poll this week that showed their enthusiasm levels are higher than at any point since 20 2008 with Barack Obama in a lot of cases higher than it generally was when Obama was running in 2008 in 2012 like Democrats are really hyped about this um but we also have in Harris a a vice president who was not popular and has not been Popular until recently um she has been ridiculed as giving kind of Meandering and weird answers when she's given previous speeches and done interviews um and so there's a question about like can she live up to this can she carry the torch forward can she pass these tests and so there's a lot of kind of Democrats kind of downplaying the significance of this interview but answering questions on your feet and and you know withstanding scrutiny of some of these big issues that came up in this interview was a really big test for her at the beginning bash repeatedly asked Harris about policies that she backed when she was in the Democratic primary you know back during the 20 20 election cycle and this was before she was picked as Biden's VP candidate so there was like a particularly interesting exchange about fracking let's take a listen to that fracking as you know is a pretty big issue particularly in your must-win state of Pennsylvania do you still want to ban fracking no and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking as vice president I did not ban fracking as president I will not ban fracking in 2019 I believe uh in a town hall you said you were asked would you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking on your first day in office and you said there's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking so yes so it changed in the in that campaign in 20120 I made very clear where I stand we are in 2024 and I've not changed that position nor will I going forward I kept my word and I will keep my word what made you change that position at the time well let's be clear my values not changed so Yas me what what do you make of how she handled that well clearly they prepped that answer cuz they knew she would be asked about it I thought it was interesting that she fully owned this is not her position she wasn't wishy-washy about it didn't try to take some middle ground but she also sort of tried to argue that her position didn't change in that she said her values haven't changed so I thought it was sort of an interesting approach to try to say yes her positions changed but she's still fundamentally the same person Erin did that work like I I'm wondering I mean often candidates one of the go-tos is like well I've evolved it's not that I flip-flop like one man's flip-flop is another man's EV Evolution does this work yeah yeah and it's really interesting because Dana Bash actually kind of volunteered a couple options for Harris like you know basically have you changed your position because you've gotten more information or have you changed your position because you didn't believe these things in the first place and you were running in a Democratic primary and Harris didn't really Grant either of those premises but she kind of suggested it was more the former like she was saying that these you know her priorities are similar but she's using different tools so I don't know that this is necessarily going to make these issues go away in the way that she wants them to because there wasn't a whole lot of clarity on why she's not talking about these things like she used to well a and you know yasmine's point about her hueing so much to Joe Biden's presidency were there any moments in that space that really stood out to you that really Illustrated that for you yeah she really walked to fine line on this I mean she's been doing that for a while she's kind of tried to run as the change candidate while you know obviously she's been a high ranking person in the administration for the last three and a half years I thought it was really striking some of the language she used on two occasions she referred to quote a new way forward I think that um people are ready for a new way forward um in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by by hope and by optimism on two other occasions she could you know basically suggested that we need to move on from quote the last decade and so um one I I I am so proud to have served as vice president to to Joe Biden and two I am so proud to be running with Tim Walls for president of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve which is a new way forward and turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been um contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies and Dana Bash noted like the last decade includes three and a half years of of the Biden Administration that includes time in which you've been a member of that Administration you've had a powerful perch to try and enact some of these policies that you're pushing and you know Harris she didn't criticize the Biden Administration but she did kind of set it up as like the Biden Administration was pulling us out of an economic recovery and riding the ship and now I can do more things that people are going to like basically like the almost like the Biden Administration is a first step and then now is the opportunity to do some real things which is really interesting because it's kind of difficult to square that with the idea that the Biden Administration has been a resounding success it's like we got out of a hole here but she also kind of pitched it as being transformative so it really kind of speaks to the tension here which is like how much does she embrace the things that have happened on the Biden Administration which is not a popular Administration and how does she square that with the fact that she's been there and she owns some of these results so there's actually a moment that really illustrates this I think let's take a listen you have been vice president for three and a half years the steps that you're talking about now why haven't you done them already well first of all we had to recover as an economy and we have done that I'm very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3% the work that we have done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 month for seniors Donald Trump said he was going to do a number of things including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices never happened we did it this is certainly a a difficult kind of balancing act for her like people want the change candidate but they also you know will look at her as a member of the Biden Administration and she doesn't want to go too hard against the things that have happened over the last three and a half years because she does have loyalty to Biden but I was really interested this week because I looked up some numbers on this I I wanted to see like are people differentiating her from the Biden Administration that they don't like and it seems like they kind of are there was a Washington Post ABC News ipsos poll that asked how much people perceived her as having real influence over the Biden administration's policies on the economy and immigration and I was surprised by how few people thought that she really played a central role in those you know clear majorities of people around 6 and 10 thought thought that she only had some influence or less on these really key policy areas and so I think you begin to see why people might look at her and think that she is different whether that's going to hold up over time is is a really big question you know another moment that really stood out to me yes mean and I'm really curious on your take on this as someone who has been covering the vice president was when bash asked Harris directly about some of the recent attacks Trump has made about her identity so let's take a listen to that he suggested that you happened to turn black recently for political purposes questioning a core part of your identity yeah any same old tired Playbook next question please that's it that's it okay yeah I mean that stood out to me because she's basically like I do not want to engage with this let's move on is that in line with what you know about Harris and how she talks about identity yeah I mean are colleague ma Ron wrote this story last week about how Hillary Clinton had run very much as the first woman who would become president breaking the ultimate glass ceiling Harris has not done any of that she in her convention speech and her some speeches she never talks about being the first woman to be president she never talks about being the first black woman to be president or South Asian-American woman to be president she doesn't want her campaign to be about that and later when she's asked about this picture that went viral it's the back of her niece's head with these two braids watching kamla Harris accept the nomination and it went viral because it it just spoke to the history of the moment Harris was asked about it and she spoke about it in this almost clinical way like she did not talk about the emotion behind it or what it meant to her what it meant to her and her family she just said you know she sort of described it she was like yeah you see her there with the two little braids and then there I am you're right she's it's the back of her head her two little braids and um and then I'm in the front of the photograph obviously speaking and um it's very humbling it's very humbling in many ways she does not want this to be her campaign and she says I'm the best person for the job and I think that's the point she's trying to make that it doesn't matter what her racial or ethnic background is it doesn't matter what her gender is she's trying to say you know none of that matters she she is the best person to to run for president what's the calculation there is it that she doesn't have to say it because it's so obvious is it that other people are saying it for her so she doesn't you I guess what is the calculation there like it didn't work for Hillary Clinton so let's not have you talk about it yeah I I think it's it's kind of all of the above like Democrats are kind of still stung by what happened in 2016 although I'm not sure Hillary Clinton playing up her status as the potential first female president was her biggest liability to the extent it was a liability like they Democrats are just concerned about the fact that it might be um and also like she doesn't have to say these things herself like other people know what what the deal is and so I I think that she is is focused on kind of building up her candidacy in other ways and focusing on her appeal to things that just aren't about her identity and knowing that people kind of understand those things just generally speaking so like we said there was a lot of hype in the leadup to this interview uh did she accomplish what she needed to do here what do you guys think how would you rate it I think her team will will probably believe it's a success she didn't have any major stumbles I don't think there is anything uh that she said that she would regret or in their view would be sort of picked apart in a way that would cast out on the type of campaign she's trying to run I do think the ongoing question though is obviously she's got this debate against Trump in less than two weeks and she is going to come under pressure to do many more of these media interviews like doing one nearly 30-minute interview with Tim Walls is not going to suffice for the next two months yeah we should say Tim Walls was there he was asked a few questions but uh but it was mostly the focus well and walls was there but the focus was mostly on Harris Ain did did she do what she needed to do and also I'm like who is the audience for this interview yeah I I don't I don't think that major news was made in this I think for the Harris campaign it was Lot a lot about checking a box you know understanding that this was going to be the the the first kind of major moment when it comes to answering questions and a lot of eyes were on them and they needed to make sure that they got through it and dealt with some of these questions that have been looming over their campaign I don't know that you know her explanations of you know her changing positions provided a whole ton of clarity I don't know that Tim Wall's answers about inaccuracies that he in his campaign had put forward about he said he had bad grammar he had yeah yeah he said I had bad grammar you know his family's used fertility treatments um his past campaign's inaccurate recounting of his DUI arrest in the 1990s you know he tried to pitch it as him being candid but also sometimes he makes mistakes and then he owns them so I think these are going to loom a little bit longer but the stakes in future interviews are going to be lower I think the the real question is kind of what this says about her ability to debate Trump and how much she reassured Democrats about her ability to do that especially since Democrats just a month and a half ago went through through that Biden Trump debate you know they're going to be nervous yeah they're they're going to be nervous going into this even if they have confidence in her because they know the stakes they've seen the stakes of that debate and so I think that this interview won't last too long in the memory but it was kind of an early Proving Ground yeah okay we're going to take a quick break and when we come back we're going to get into Trump's recent comments on abortion and a confrontation at Arlington National Cemetery involving his campaign we'll be right back [Music] so let's talk about something uh that the Trump campaign is getting a lot of attention for uh earlier this week former president Donald Trump he went to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to commemorate the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 American Service members and this was during the chaotic 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal he's really criticized President Joe Biden for his handling of that withdrawal but anyway while Trump and his campaign were at the cemetery NPR reported that his staff got into an Al altercation with a an employee at the cemetery who was trying to enforce a rule that no photos or videos can be taken near the graves of soldiers who recently died this is an area known as section 60 Aaron can you tell us more about what has happened since then so the the Crux of the matter is that under federal law you are not supposed to take part in quote partisan political activities at Arlington National Cemetery and the Trump campaign went on to use footage of this event from this sensitive area this is an area where recently deceased uh service members are buried so these are these are not you know World War I World War II these are like Afghanistan Iraq veterans who are who are buried there and so it's a very sensitive subject and according to the cemetery according to defense officials the Trump campaign basically kind of bulldozed their way through and decided to do this they used them while attacking uh the Biden Administration for the Afghanistan withdrawal and I should add that the Trump campaign kind of downplayed the idea of a physical alter but it it basically acknowledged that there was some kind of a confrontation they've criticized the cemetery for talking about this and and saying what happened they've really taken this head on and it it really kind of raises issues of like sensitivities to these very sensitive and hallowed areas like it's one thing to visit these and memorialize people it's another thing to use these in a campaign context and what we know about this event suggests that the Trump campaign was pretty int upon using this politically in the 2024 Campaign which at the very least runs a foul of the spirit of the law and I think the experts I talk to suggest that it does actually violate this federal law which bans partisan political activities in this area of the cemetery well it also sounds like officials have said they're not that they consider the matter closed because the cemetery worker decided not to press charges so even if you know you're saying it does seem to run a foul of the law I'm not clear that there will be any consequence to that but Aaron you did also recently write about how this episode fits into a broader Trend that we've seen from Trump of how he talks about the military or interacts with memorials can you tell me a little bit about that Trump from the very earliest days of his presidency has really blurred the lines between military and memorials and political he went to the CIA on his first full day of President and stood in front of a wall that commemorates more than CIA service members who died in the line of service and delivered a very political kind of rambling speech he made similar remarks when he visited the Pentagon shortly thereafter he blamed the Judiciary and the media for potential future terrorist attacks when visiting an Air Force Base in Tampa in February of 2017 during phone calls with service members he would attack Democrats and previous administrations and federal judges his first visit to Iraq he talked about how Democrats were you know not funding his border wall and and so there's a lot of stuff here there's a lot of examples here yeah and I'm running through the laundry list here you know this isn't in a vacuum this this confrontation Trump has been criticized before for not respecting these lines between being the commander-in-chief who is kind of nonpartisan military and so this kind of is an even bigger example of it yes mean I'm wondering how the Harris campaign is dealing with this because it sounds like in the push back you know in the light of criticism of the Trump campaign doing this we're hearing a lot of well really what you guys really need to be talking about is how Joe Biden and kamla Harris botched the withdrawal of Afghanistan how is the Harris campaign seesing on this moment I think they're using it to highlight basically the Litany of examples Aaron laid out before of trump disrespecting service members we know that for Biden especially because his son uh was former military member that he used to highlight this a lot as well the way Trump disrespected uh Americans who served and I also think obviously Trump was was going to Arlington National Cemetery to try to highlight the 13 service members who died but it seems like that all got lost in the drama of the altercation and so it provides the Harris campaign a way to sort of detract from what Trump was doing which was to try to highlight what they call a major failure of the Biden and Harris Administration and instead point to Trump's disrespect and not only that Trump and his senior AIDS are really doubling down like they have not backed off at all even after the Army issued a statement defending their employee at Arlington National Cemetery so I feel like now the story is more about the altercation than it was about the initial point the Trump campaign was trying to make well before we sign off I did want to get to one other thing that came out of the Trump campaign this week and this is when Trump spoke about abortion and IVF and he's speaking about it in ways maybe we haven't heard heard him speak about before Aaron briefly can you just tell me what he said and what stood out to you about it yes so on Thursday Trump was asked about the Florida ballot measure which would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution this is obviously a big thing because Florida has a six-week abortion ban and it's been set for the ballot for five months but Trump hasn't taken a position he again criticized the six-week abortion ban but he didn't really take a position on this specific ballot measure which would expand abortion rights Way Beyond 6 weeks um the other key thing that he said on Thursday was he debuted a proposal that would make the government essentially pay for IVF services and this creates real potential tensions I think that have existed kind of beneath the surface between him and the anti-abortion movement like he's been moving away from these more Hardline positions on abortion and here he is talking about the government funding a procedure IVF which creates embryos many of which are not ultimately used and a lot of these kind of more Hardline elements regard those creation of embryos and if you destroy them later or if you don't use them they regard that as life and so the idea that the government would be getting involved in creating life that isn't actually resulting in a pregnancy and resulting in a birth is a pretty remarkable statement from a Republican presidential candidate and so I'm really interested in how these kind of anti-abortion True Believers are going to take him kind of continually moving away from them on on these kinds of issues yes mean I'm so curious how that proposal whether it's you know we don't know very much about it but this idea that Trump is saying the government will help pay for IVF how is that going to work in a matchup against Harris because abortion access and also IVF infertility have featured like such big campaign themes for the Harris walls campaign I think it's actually not that hard for them cuz Trump has waffled on this issue for the entire campaign he takes credit for overturning roie Wade and then he disavows State abortion bans like he's gone back and forth on this a number of times and I imagine he will continue to until election day so basically the Harris campaign strategy for this has been to just keep like on their Twitter account on their various social media accounts as they keep playing clips of trump taking credit for overturning roie Wade supporting a National Abortion ban like they're basically trying to tell voters don't believe what he's saying right now this is what he actually stands for and then the other thing is that JD Vance Trump's running mate is very much against abortion and he's had some sort of more extreme statements he uh voted against an IVF bill in the Senate and so even if Trump goes back and forth they can also keep highlighting what Vance has said and what he continues to say so I think that's going to be their strategy I don't think they're that thrown anymore when Trump changes his position and the other thing about the government this proposal that the government would pay for IVF he did not explain at all how that would happen even a lot of insurers don't cover IVF right now well we'll have to leave it there that's it for today's episode thank you so much yasine thank you and thank you Aaron see you next week thank you and make sure you're subscribing of course to the campaign moment newsletter you can find a link to that in our show notes and at is a White House reporter for the post and Aaron Blake is a senior political reporter that's it for this week on The Campaign moment now if you're listening to us via post reports we will keep bringing you these conversations most Fridays but I want to tell you about why you should follow the campaign moment show feed itself because Aaron and our other colleagues are going to be dropping other episodes and continuing to cover politics during the week on The Campaign moment that's right we're going to be having these exclusive episodes every week between now and election day so be sure to look that up wherever you're listening today's episode was produced by Laura benoff and mixed by Sha Carter it was edited by Lucy Perkins and Ariel plotnik our team also includes Maggie Penman Reena Flores Monica Campbell Ted maldon Alana Gordon Renny sanowski Bishop sand sabii Robinson Emma taloff Peter bresnen Ali biano Allison Michaels Rita jablonsky and Martin Powers I'm I'm eladi see you next week bye bye [Music] [Applause]