Smart strategy or "weak sauce"? Or both? 

Kamala Harris finally committed to doing a sit-down interview with a major media outlet, choosing CNN's Dana Bash as her questioner. As John noted yesterday, though, she's bringing her "dad" along -- running mate Tim Walz. The aspirational VP hasn't done a media interview or press conference either since joining the ticket, but Politico explained yesterday that Walz has no idea what Harris' agenda is and worries about contradicting her later positions ... assuming she takes any. 

Hence, it might be a smart strategy to put them together in the first major interview. There's another more important strategic reason to do so too. By pairing them together, the campaign hopes that Bash and CNN will focus on their relationship a lot more than on issues and policies, turning this into a human-interest interview rather than a hard-hitting political interrogatory.

CNN's own analyst Scott Jennings sees through both strategies, calling it "incredibly weak" to assign a wingman to a major-party nominee. He told Anderson Cooper last night on the air that this betrays a lack of confidence in Harris by her handlers and strategists:

Weak sauce for Kamala Harris to demand an emotional support animal for her first interview. Shows an extreme lack of confidence for Thursday night event on @cnn pic.twitter.com/ZrjGF2nNLz

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) August 28, 2024

COOPER: Scott, it's the first time the vice president going to be sitting down for an interview. She's doing it with her vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz. Do you think that blunts attacks from Republicans or is the line now going to be, well, why isn't she doing it by yourself?

JENNINGS: Look, I have great confidence and Dana and CNN to do this. I think it's incredibly weak, weak sauce to show up with your running mate. The fact that they don't have enough confidence in her to let her sit herself the actual top of the ticket and do a single interview.

In fact, I think the handwringing and the gyrations over this over the last month show troubling lack of confidence in her political ability, which also makes you wonder as a voter, well, what kind of president would you be if this kind of a small time decision can we do an interview or not -- what does that look like for your decision-making process and so on?

So yes, I think Republicans are going to think it's pretty weak to show up with effectively someone to take up half the time.

Or more, unless Bash strategizes around it. That poses some risks for Harris, too. If Walz starts responding to questions that Bash asks Harris, it will be tough for audiences to ignore the "mansplaining." It will also make it tougher to play the victim in the September 10 presidential debate, the strategy Team Kamala desperately wants to enable with their demand to change the microphone rule. That won't exactly make Harris look strong either.

Amusingly, in the sequence after this clip, Maria Cardona tried to argue that having a wingman for this interview doesn't matter. Harris will have to fly solo at some point, she argues:

CARDONA: You know, Scott's assertions are just incredibly weak, speaking about weak and just not true. But look, Republicans are going to continue to try to throw everything at her because nothing has stuck and she will do interviews by herself, Anderson. Let's remember that she is the nominee for all of maybe a month and some days.

Er ... what? She's been the presumptive or official nominee for five weeks now, and there are only eleven weeks left in the election. Harris has also been the sitting Vice President for over three and a half years, and Joe Biden's presumptive running mate since the primaries began. How much lead time does she need before the training wheels can come off?

And if after all this time Harris still needs a wingman and minder when doing an interview on CNN ... why should we have any confidence in her ability to deal with Russia, China, or Iran as the head of state?

Jennings is correct -- this is a show of weakness, even if one credits this as a strategic or tactical move. The point of either is to shore up Harris' weaknesses, not project strength or confidence. And just as surely, we can expect the Protection Racket Media to amplify Cardona rather than Jennings despite Harris' refusal to engage with them in the middle of an election.