Even CNN's shameless hour of Kamala Harris propaganda couldn't save this flip-flopping lightweight from primetime humiliation... But, says ANDREW NEIL, some Trump confidants fear he STILL can't stop her

CNN gave a masterclass on Thursday night in how not to hold politicians to account.

Kamala Harris turned up for her first proper broadcast interview in the 39 days since she became the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate with her emotional-support dog, running mate Tim Walz, in tow — lest interviewer Dana Bash turned a bit probing or even robust.

But there was never any danger of that.

The fact CNN had agreed to Walz's presence showed the network had effectively thrown in the towel before the interview even started.

As president, Harris would have to deal with the world's most powerful dictators, like Russia's Putin and China's Xi. Yet she doesn't feel up to facing a middling broadcast journalist like Bash on her own? It was all a bit pathetic.

The protective guardrails round Harris didn't stop there.

The interview was pre-recorded, Harris's people (probably rightly) concluding that 'live' was too risky. It was shot round a table in a Savannah coffee shop in the swing state of Georgia, to make it look folksy. In the event it just looked messy.

CNN billed the interview as an hour-long primetime extravaganza. But the interrogation (which is probably a misuse of the word) lasted only 27 minutes. The rest of the 60 minutes was padded out with footage and soundbites that would not have been out of place in a Harris-Walz campaign commercial, during which Bash was far too cosy and friendly with the pair for a supposedly independent journalist.

Bash had her moments — but not nearly enough of them. At crucial points when Harris vacillated or obfuscated, she failed to force her to clarify with proper follow up questions designed to pin her down. Clearly rehearsed answers revealing nothing went without challenge. Harris emerged from it all largely unscathed.

But not quite. For all CNN's kid gloves, some of the recent Harris luster peeled off in the exchanges.

Though we learned nothing new and Harris made no serious gaffes, the interview reminded us of what has largely been forgotten in her recent reinvention: that in essence Harris remains a mediocre lightweight given to glib answers with no substance.

Bash kicked off by asking her what she would do on day one in the White House. A predictable enough question yet Harris was curiously unprepared.

She waffled on listing various action points in her policy agenda. Bash rightly repeated the question (one of the few attempts to pin Harris down). More waffle.

As a prime example of her many flip-flops, Bash raised her opposition to fracking for oil and gas in 2019 and, now, her support for it. Harris replied that by 2020 she'd made clear she was in favour of fracking and had not resiled from that position since.

Bash was unprepared for this Harris dance on the head of a pin.

During her failed bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate in 2019, she was unequivocal during a CNN town hall: 'There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking.'

She even implied the ban would happen on her first day in office because 'the residual impact of fracking is enormous in terms of the health and safety of communities.'

Harris claimed on Thursday that she'd changed her position by the time she was Joe Biden's running mate and debating Mike Pence (Trump's then-running mate). She did not explain why, even though Bash helpfully and inexplicably offered possible explanations (it really isn't the job of an interviewer to help politicians with the answers).

But the record shows Harris in 2020 merely said: 'Joe Biden will not end fracking. He has been very clear about that.' She said nothing about her own views.

Bash was not properly briefed about this and so did not press her.

Nor were Harris's feet held to the fire over what she knew about Biden's obvious cognitive decline even as she blithely assured the world he was right as rain and sharp as a tack. Harris clearly misled us. She needs to be held to account for it.

At least we were spared Harris's infamous word salads. Well, largely, if not quite. 

As she wriggled over fracking she came up with this doozy: 'I have always believed, and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.'

Hands up anyone who can think of a deadline that doesn't involve time.

Harris was not pushed on any of other flip-flops from her more radical days, from defunding the police to decriminalising the act of entering America illegally.

To any suggestion she was not consistent she countered with a prepared, catchall line: 'my values have not changed', which is as meaningless as it is vague.

She was never pressed to explain what she meant.

She flourished her $100 billion plan to give a $25,000 federal grant to first-time home buyers. Bash failed to point out this was a sure-fire recipe for raising house prices, putting home ownership out of reach for young folk of modest means. She paraded platitudes about 'turning the page on the last decade', without being properly challenged that these years included the last two of the Obama administration and almost four years of the Biden-Harris administration.

Was she turning her back on the Biden years? Oh no, she said, they were an 'extraordinary success', 'transformative'. If so, why does she want to 'turn the page' on them? The question was not asked.

Walz didn't say much and Bash was right largely to ignore him. But when he did have his minutes in the sun, he showed he was up there with Harris when it came to dissembling.

Pressed on his claim that he wanted to ban the ownership of 'weapons of war' like the ones he'd carried into battle — he was never deployed to a war zone in the 24 years he was in the Army National Guard — he merely mumbled about 'my grammar is not always correct'.

But this is nothing to do with grammar — it's about facts and honesty. He was equally slippery when it came to his false claims about his wife's fertility treatment and his arrest for driving under the influence.

The interview ended with a piece of fluff about the iconic picture of the back of Harris's young niece's head as she listened to her aunt address the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week. Fine if you're part of the Harris propaganda machine. Not so fine when you've failed to hold Harris robustly to account — and are running out of time to do so.

Harris might not give another major interview between now and November 5. She got away with this one so why chance your luck?

But for all its problems the CNN interview reminded us that she is a weak candidate and eminently beatable. The polls are still close enough, nationally and in the swing states, to make this a tight race.

Whether Donald Trump is the opponent to beat her is another matter.

As Labor Day approaches and the election proper gets under way, his campaign still lacks focus, direction, purpose (other than his greater glory). The Harris-Trump debate on September 10 will be his chance to exploit all the weaknesses Harris displayed on Thursday but which CNN failed to exploit.

The fear among Republican strategists is that Trump is still not doing the heavy lifting required to get across Harris's weak record of almost zero achievements, her previous hard-left positions and her proclivity to flip-flop. He's more at home with personal vituperation, which merely reminds moderates and independents why they didn't vote for him. If he stoops to that on September 10 Harris could be cruising to victory.

What if he does live up to your worst expectations, I asked a veteran Trump confidant. What's the Plan B? 'Call 911. Or the Holy Spirit,' he replied. I'm not sure he was joking.