Harris’s vague presidential campaign launch opens the door to bipartisan criticism

The rough start to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has been criticized by conservatives and normally supportive mainstream media alike, as they note her unwillingness to talk to reporters, extreme policy proposals, and severe reversals on key policy issues.

Since Harris started her presidential campaign less than four months before the presidential election, she has purposely avoided the media and been light on specifics of policy proposals. The few policy issues she has addressed have either been extremely left-wing or a 180-degree turnaround to more closely align with those of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Despite being a candidate with little time to convince voters to cast ballots for her in November, Harris has not participated in an unscripted press conference or media interview since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed her for the candidacy on July 21, which was 38 days ago as of Wednesday.

Harris’s first interview since her candidacy began will be a joint interview with running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday, which will air on CNN at 9 p.m. Eastern. The interview will be conducted by CNN's Dana Bash.

Then, Trump and Harris are scheduled to face off in the first debate on Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. E.S.T in Philadelphia, moderated by ABC News' "World News Tonight" anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live "Prime" anchor Linsey Davis.

Trump announced on Tuesday that he agreed to debate rules from ABC News, which he said were the same as CNN's, including debaters' microphones being muted when they are not speaking, and candidates not being allowed to bring "cheat sheets" or notes.

Trump’s and Harris’ campaigns had previously disagreed over whether microphones should be muted when the other candidate is speaking.

Jason Miller, senior adviser for Trump, told Politico on Sunday, “The Harris camp, after having already agreed to the CNN rules, asked for a seated debate, with notes, and opening statements. We said no changes to the agreed upon rules.”

Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, told Politico, “All three parties (Trump, Harris and ABC) have agreed to standing and no notes, and we never sought otherwise.”

Former New York GOP Congressman Lee Zeldin slammed Harris for her lack of interaction with the media and about-face on policy issues. Zeldin told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show in a special to be aired on Labor Day that Harris “didn't have any policy positions at all on her website for so long, she's continuing to flip-flop on so many of her greatest or worst hits of policy positions that obviously are out of touch, out of step with the electorate, a refusal to do tough press conferences, tough sit-down, live, unedited interviews, she has to bring Tim Walz to an interview in order to help get through questions. And I think that now is the time to be telling voters exactly where you stand, and what you're going to do.”

Harris has flipped on multiple policy issues, even embracing policies put forward by the Trump-Vance campaign.

During her DNC speech, Harris said that she “will bring back the bipartisan border security bill” that died in the Senate last year, which included hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the border wall. Harris has repeatedly criticized the border wall, saying in 2017 that it was a “stupid use of money,” promising to “block any funding for it,” the New York Post reported. In 2019, she called it a “medieval vanity project” and said she was “not going to vote for a wall under any circumstances.”

Earlier this month, Harris said that as president, she will “eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.” However, Trump has been pushing the “no taxes on tips” policy for months. Harris had previously voted for legislation to permit the IRS to track tips for the purpose of taxation.

Also, Harris supports a $6,000 child tax credit for lower and middle-income families with children under one-years-old. Vance had proposed a $5,000 child tax credit days earlier.

Trump posted earlier this month on Truth Social, "Kamala Harris has flip-flopped on virtually every policy she has supported and lived by for her entire career, from the Border to Tips, and the Fake News Media isn’t reporting it."

"She sounds more like Trump than Trump, copying almost everything. She is conning the American public, and will flip right back. I will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! There will be no flipping!!!"

Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) spokesperson and former Assistant Secretary of State Bobby Charles also blasted Harris for her flip-flopping on policy issues.

“I think the average person watching that kind of chameleon-like behavior says, you know, yeah, I don't think so. I don't think she's committed to a wall. I don't think she's committed to giving the average American tax breaks,” Charles told the “John Solomon Reports” podcast on Wednesday.

“In fact, everything she's talking about – wage and price controls, which means rationing of things, more policies that push high inflation, which in turn push high interest rates – all of these things are what people are groaning under right now.”

Harris has also been blasted by the mainstream media for her lack of substance and extreme policy proposals.

The New York Times’ deputy opinion editor, Patrick Healy, wrote a piece last Friday titled, “Joy Is Not a Strategy,” in which he criticized Harris’ campaign’s repeated term, arguing that the word ‘joy’ “​​has gone from being a nice descriptor of Democratic energy to being a rhetorical two-by-four thumped on voters’ heads.”

“Ultimately, she needs more voters in the swing states to trust her to handle the economy better than her opponent,” Healy later added. “Barack Obama earned that trust through nearly two hard years of campaigning; he didn’t coast on ‘hope and change.’ Harris can’t coast on ‘joy.’”

An opinion columnist for The Washington Post wrote a piece earlier this month criticizing Harris’ price control policy proposal. The column, written by Catherine Rampell, noted that Harris’ campaign said that her presidency’s first 100 days would include the “first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries — setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.”

“What are these ‘clear rules of the road’ or the thresholds that determine when a price or profit level becomes ‘excessive’?” Rampell asked. “The memo doesn’t say, and the campaign did not answer questions I sent seeking clarification.”

She later added in her column, “If your opponent claims you’re a ‘communist,’ maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.”

Harris’ campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.