Kamala Harris’s ’60 Minutes’ Interview: Seven Takeaways

Pressed repeatedly, Kamala Harris stayed focused on the points she wanted to make. She also spoke about owning a Glock, and Tim Walz revealed she had told him to be a “little more careful” speaking.

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Vice President Kamala Harris is holding a series of interviews and other media appearances this week.

Vice President Kamala Harris sat for an interview with “60 Minutes” that was broadcast on Monday night and, in a departure from some of her recent appearances on cable news and podcasts, she was repeatedly pressed on questions she did not initially answer.

During a sit-down with the show’s correspondent Bill Whitaker, Ms. Harris did not reveal new domestic policy proposals or share how she would pay for some of those she has already put forward. But she did expound on her views about two foreign leaders causing enormous headaches for President Biden’s administration: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president.

Less than a month before Election Day, Ms. Harris’s interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” — the longstanding most-watched news program on television — came at a moment of increased exposure and pressure. She is set to appear on three major shows on Tuesday and at a Univision town-hall event on Thursday that is aimed at Spanish-speaking viewers.

Here are seven takeaways from Ms. Harris’s appearance on “60 Minutes,” which also interviewed her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.

Harris was in control of her message, but avoided repeated pushback.

From the opening seconds, Ms. Harris seemed calm and in command of the points she wanted to make — and she did not stray from them despite repeated follow-up questions. She avoided pushback when asked to detail how to end the yearlong war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. And she declined repeatedly to say whether the Biden-Harris administration should have acted earlier to restrict illegal immigration into the United States.

When Mr. Whitaker asked her if the administration had lost all sway over Mr. Netanyahu, Ms. Harris said, “The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles.”

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