Kamala Harris Is on Autopilot

Kamala Harris spent the hour she devoted to only her second “high-profile national media interview since announcing her presidential run,” according to Politico, “carefully parrying” her interlocutors’ questions. That’s a diplomatic way of describing her evasive, equivocating, deliberately ambiguous performance in an interview with representatives from the National Association of Black Journalists. Keeping voters in the dark may be a civic sin, but, for now, it’s a winning strategy. And for the political press, whatever gets Harris across the finish line first is permissible.

Harris’s penchant for “parrying” notwithstanding, the answers she did provide her interviewers were far more illuminating than those she did not. What Harris’s responses revealed was a plodding lack of dexterity from the candidate — the practiced sort. The vice president often appeared to be operating on assumptions that were overtaken by events by the time of her remarks. Indeed, she seemed to be intentionally clinging to outdated information to avoid confronting discomfiting new facts that undermined her arguments.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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Kamala Harris spent the hour she devoted to only her second “high-profile national media interview since announcing her presidential run,” according to Politico, “carefully parrying” her interlocutors’ questions. That’s a diplomatic way of describing her evasive, equivocating, deliberately ambiguous performance in an interview with representatives from the National Association of Black Journalists. Keeping voters in the dark may be a civic sin, but, for now, it’s a winning strategy. And for the political press, whatever gets Harris across the finish line first is permissible.

Harris’s penchant for “parrying” notwithstanding, the answers she did provide her interviewers were far more illuminating than those she did not. What Harris’s responses revealed was a plodding lack of dexterity from the candidate — the practiced sort. The vice president often appeared to be operating on assumptions that were overtaken by events by the time of her remarks. Indeed, she seemed to be intentionally clinging to outdated information to avoid confronting discomfiting new facts that undermined her arguments.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.