If you haven't yet read Duane's terrific fisking of the Kamala Harris interview last night on MSNBC, do it now. He hits the big issues, and exposes the whole exercise as a sham -- a campaign event disguised as a news interview. Oprah Winfrey almost looks like Morley Safer in comparison to Stephanie Ruhle, especially in the post-infomercial analysis.

Can you imagine Morley Safer declaring it "okay" that a presidential candidate engaged in word salad rather than offer specific answers to his interview questions? Or even Oprah? And yet, here we have campaign spokeswoman Ruhle excusing Harris, via Twitchy:

It’s ok that Kamala is stupid because we expect her to be stupid is not the win Ruhle thinks it is. pic.twitter.com/4rWI6UtX0W

— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) September 26, 2024

Ahem. If we didn't talk about clear and direct issues, isn't that a failure on the part of the interviewer? Even Chris Hayes seems a little flummoxed by Ruhle's declaration, because inflation and prices actually are clear and direct issues to most voters. And although Hayes doesn't mention it in this brief clip, Harris has had three-plus years to address and develop clear and specific plans to handle those and other issues. 

Believe it or not, that's not the dumbest thing Ruhle said on the air last night. This is:

RUHLE: ... You have laid out policy in great detail.

Say what? No, Harris has not offered policy in "great detail." Harris hasn't provided any detail at all. Ruhle argued on Friday night that Harris didn't need to provide policy answers at all, and then turned around immediately after to argue to Hayes that she still didn't need to offer detail. 

And on the only policy that Harris has actually offered in public -- to go after "price gouging," or as Harris put it, "price gauging" -- Harris still offered no details. Ruhle did ask in this clip, and asked specifically how Harris could go after alleged price gouging without the federal government imposing price controls. Harris never answered the question:

Watch this clip in its entirety.

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle is a good 30 IQ points higher than presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

This should scare the sh*t out of you. pic.twitter.com/lo4k0tuRvt

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) September 25, 2024

Harris might impose sweeping federal price controls, or maybe she won't. Shouldn't we expect an answer on that, given that Harris herself is the one alleging that price gouging is the real source of inflation? Apparently not! Ruhle says it's "okay" because "we're not talking about clear or direct issues," like ... price controls.

Riiiiight. 

Ruhle didn't bother to follow up for details. Instead, she shifted to the border, which gave Harris an opening to proclaim her support for another clear and direct issue -- mass amnesty for illegal immigrants, one of the few policy answers Harris actually provided:

And that’s part of what needs to be addressed. And my pledge is that, when elected president, if the American people will have me, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law. And we need a comprehensive plan that includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border, but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship.

Did Ruhle follow up on that? Nope. She talked about McDonald's instead. 

Nor did Ruhle follow up on the word salad of the night, in which Harris demonstrated that she'd learned a new word to avoid answering a question. Ruhle asked Harris about another clear and direct issue that Harris herself has brought up as part of her economic package: shelter prices and inflation. Harris cribbed Joe Biden's proposal from earlier in the year, upping the promise of building 2 million more housing units to 3 million. Again, the Biden-Harris administration had three-plus years to get specific policy proposals in place to accomplish this, and yet have done nothing. 

When Ruhle asks Harris what steps she will take to accomplish this, suddenly Harris gets the needle stuck on "holistically":

NEW: Vice President Kamala Harris says "holistic" three times in a 15-second period.

The VP proudly showed off the word during an interview with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle.

"Looking holistically at the connection between that and housing and looking holistically at the… pic.twitter.com/Z9DMdR97Qj

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 25, 2024

Here's the entire question and answer from MSNBC's transcript. Ruhle asks for specifics on a clear and direct issue -- and on Harris' own expressed agenda. Harris simply can't answer the question:

RUHLE: And one of the main problems are regulations and rules, strict, strict rules at a local level. How does the federal government cut through all that red tape and get down to, I don’t know, the suburbs of Pittsburgh and say, we’re going to have to build some affordable housing here? How do you connect the two?

HARRIS: So, you’re absolutely right. So, across our country, people rightly are concerned about the cost of housing. So it’s homeownership, to your point. We need more supply. That is, without any question, part of the solution. Creating more supply under my plan includes creating tax incentives to work with the private sector and homebuilders. Part of my goal and the plan would be to create three million new housing units for rent and for ownership by the end of my first term. It includes also what we must do to cut red tape. You’re absolutely right.

It takes far too long and there’s too much bureaucracy associated with homebuilding. And I say that as a devout public servant. I know that we have to reduce the red tape and speed up what we need to do around building. And that is going to require working from the federal level with state and local governments.And it’s going to be different in different places, depending on the needs of that community, the needs of that local government, that municipality, but working in consultation and coordination and also around incentives that we can create.

For example, some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in a holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people. 

The word-fog of Kamala saying "holistically" is still circling the planet at sub-orbital levels. It might actually affect the ozone layer. Harris essentially restated Ruhle's question repeatedly without answering it, using "holistically" as a talisman to avoid offering the specific steps Ruhle asked to hear.

And on this question, that's because the policy is nonsensical. Offering incentives to buyers increases demand, which will hike prices on a supply-deficient market even further. The problems creating the shortage has little or nothing to do with the federal government, and everything to do with progressive policies at state and local levels, especially in urban areas. Land-use restrictions, long permit processes, and taxes and other regulations disincentivize the building of new residential units, especially in wealthier areas. The best Harris could do as president would be to name-and-shame her own party's governors and mayors into reducing the obstacles to new unit development, but Harris never even mentions those issues. Instead, she chalks it up to "red tape" -- and only because she's parroting Ruhle.

Contra Ruhle, all of these are clear and direct issues. Voters deserve to know what Harris plans to do about them, specifically. Ruhle made it clear that she wants Harris to win and that voters don't deserve answers to policy questions on Friday, and she and NBC News proceeded to craft a propaganda event to let Harris off the hook. And Harris couldn't even competently pull that off.

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By the way, Adam Baldwin and I previewed this a little for Monday's Amiable Skeptics episode, although we knew it would be old news by that time. I predicted that the interview would last less than 20 minutes, and Adam thought it would go 30 -- even though MSNBC had blocked out two hours for the event. The actual time for the interview? Twenty-four minutes, edited. I set that up as an over-under, so Adam won the gentlemen's wager, but this is emblematic of a substanceless empty suit swimming far out of her depth, to mix a couple of metaphors. 

Kamala Harris simply can't do this job. And her team knows it.