PHILADELPHIA — In stark contrast to a tense and combative discussion between her opponent for president and the same affinity organization, Vice President Kamala Harris engaged in a calm and measured discussion with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at WHYY, a Philadelphia public media station in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, with less than 50 days until the November election.
For about 45 minutes, Harris fielded questions from three Black moderators, touching on topics ranging from the national economy to challenges facing Black males, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, American gun violence, and more from the Grio’s Gerron Keith Gaynor, Politico’s Eugene Daniels, and NPR’s Tonya Mosley. The event was live-streamed on YouTube and Facebook, and primarily available to NABJ professional and student member journalists.
The event was announced last week after a back-and-forth between NABJ and Harris when the Democratic nominee for president was unable to appear at the organization’s annual convention in Chicago in July, where former President Trump’s appearance drew significant backlash. That conversation, which drew criticism immediately after it was announced, quickly went off-course with its three moderators, with the former president continuing to spread falsehoods, attacking the press and one of the moderators, and drawing frequent boos and gasps from the crowd.
It is routine for NABJ to invite presidential candidates to its convention if it falls during an election year, but there was already steady controversy heading into Trump’s interview as NABJ members expressed frustration on social media with boththe decision to give the former president a platform despite routinely lying and attacking the media. The event’s announcement even led to the resignation by convention co-chair Karen Attiah, a columnist and editor at the Washington Post.
Members at the time also questioned whether Democratic candidate Harris had been afforded the same opportunity to appear. The NABJ said there was a scheduling conflict for Harris, who had only recently become the Democratic frontrunner after President Biden stepped aside.
Tuesday’s interview gave more insight into policy solutions for the vice president, who has faced growing questions about her policies — and access to the press — despite a strong debate performance last week and a raucous reception at the Democratic National Convention.
‘You have to earn the vote’
Mosley opened with questions about the economy, to which Harris emphasized her “opportunity economy” plan, including policies to help families, such as extending the child tax credit to $6,000 as she highlighted the administration having reduced Black child poverty by half in 2021.
“No working family should pay more than 7% in childcare,” Harris declared.
When asked about appealing to young Black male voters, a group Harris has notably not been as strong with, she spoke about the importance of supporting young Black businessowners and other racial equity issues affecting the community.
“Black men are like every other voting group: You have to earn the vote, so I’m working to earn the vote,” Harris said
Harris said her “economic opportunity tour,” launched in the spring before she became the nominee, focuses on supporting Black male entrepreneurs and bridging the gap with banks to provide the capital needed, including funding community banks and expanding the tax deduction for startup businesses from $5,000 to $50,000.
“We have so many entrepreneurs in the community who do not have access to capital, but they’ve got great ideas, an incredible work ethic, the ambition, the aspiration, the dream, but don’t have the relationships necessarily,” Harris said. “Our Black men, just like any group of people — our small businesses — are really the backbone of our economy overall and when they do better, we all do better.”
Harris talked about eliminating racial inequities, including the administration’s pushback in June to remove medical debt on credit scores. She further pointed out that such debt has had a disproportionate impact on Black families and their ability to secure loans and other economic opportunities.
“Part of my approach is understanding the obstacles that traditionally and currently exist to allow anyone, including Black men, to be able to achieve economic wealth,” she said.
When asked about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, and the broader Israel-Palestine conflict, a significant issue among Muslim communities, as well as many young voters who have been critical of the administration’s level of support for Israel, Harris gestured toward being open to halting distribution of weapons, referencing her support of the decision in July to stop the shipment of bombs to Israel. Many on the left have called for an arms embargo, something the Biden administration has not formally adopted. But in talking about leverage the U.S. holds, Harris said: “We are doing the work of putting the pressure on all parties involved to get the deal done.”
Harris affirmed both support of Israel’s right to defend itself and Palestinians to have “dignity” and “self-determination” in achieving a two-state solution. “But right now the thing we need to get done is this hostage deal and a ceasefire deal,” she said.
A particularly somber moment came in Harris’s response when asked about attacks against Haitian immigrants in Springfield after incidents of bomb threats in two schools in the town due to Trump’s unsubstantiated claims — since confirmed as phony — that Haitian immigrants were stealing neighbors’ cats and dogs and eating them.
“It’s a crying shame,” Harris said about what is happening to families in the community. Harris also called out the fact that law enforcement resources are “being put into this because of serious threats that are being issued against a community that [was] living a productive and good life before this happened.”
“This is not new in terms of these tropes,” Harris said about racist messaging as she once again referenced Trump’s call for the death penalty against the wrongfully imprisoned Black and Latino teenagers in the Central Park Five case in 1989. Four of the men in the case — current New York District 9 City Councilmember Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — also made an appearance during the DNC convention last month and spoke out against the former president.
In addressing gun violence, Harris emphasized the need for an assault weapons ban, stronger background checks, and paid violence intervention programs. “There are very few solutions we haven’t thought of. We need to put the resources into them,” she said.
When asked about reproductive rights and if she would support restrictions on abortion, such as in the third trimester, Harris said the protections of Roe v. Wade have to be codified: “Most people, I think, agree you don’t have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to believe the government should not be telling [a woman] what to do with her body.”
Gaynor asked about the possibility of the HR 40 commission for reparations for Black Americans, as outlined by late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (who was eulogized by Harris at her funeral last month. Harris explained that while not discounting executive action on her part, “any substantial way” of addressing the issue would require Congress.
Harris then mentioned tackling issues such as student loan and medical debt, racism in home appraisals, and Black maternal mortality.
“Part of what we can do right now is, for example, what I’m talking about in building an opportunity economy [that] is addressing explicitly the obstacles that historically and currently exist, and dealing with them,” she said.
Harris also said she had a brief conversation with Trump earlier in the day after the recent apparent second attempt on his life. “I checked on him to see if he was okay,” she said. “I told him what I have said publicly: There is no place for political violence in our country.”
Respect in a Black space
The event’s setting and tone for the discussion with Harris was a cordial affair in comparison to the one with Trump. A limited, first-come/first-seated audience was able to watch and listen to the vice president in person while dozens of the other NABJ member attendees were positioned in a separate room to watch the interview.
Speaking with the AmNews, NABJ President Ken Lemon expressed his delight about being able to host Harris and “close the loop” by getting her to appear after Trump.
In response to the controversial Trump appearance and criticisms of NABJ, Lemon expressed the benefit of getting his statements out on the national level.
“I challenge anyone to go back and listen to that Trump interview and then say ‘I found absolutely no value in that.’ There are things that he said in that space with us that he hadn’t said anywhere else, and there are individuals who said ‘I took something away from that that I never heard — I heard a side of him that I never heard before,’” Lemon said. “What happened on the stage in Chicago was something that was so telling and informing and so enlightening that you had more people watching this time around.”
Many NABJ members were particularly angry about Trump’s combativeness with the hosts, especially ABC’s Rachel Scott, whom he called both “nasty” and “hostile.”
“It was unfortunate to see a Black journalist be disparaged,” said Gaynor, a former AmNews intern and one of the moderators for the Harris interview. “We are here to do a job. It’s not personal. It’s simply about getting to the truth and getting our candidates on the record on the issues that voters care about.”
Gaynor was proud of the interview, saying he believes it was important for Black America to hear from Harris directly and that she explained her economic policies a little better this time around. He commended both Harris and the NABJ for the event.
“I think it’s important to recognize that the vice president kept her word,” Gaynor said. “She said that she would reschedule. She rescheduled and it was not too long after the convention. I think that’s important to lift up.”
For Trinity Webster-Bass, 21, a senior Howard University student who was in the room for both interviews, the distinction in atmosphere was evident. The WHYY session was “quite intimate,” she said. “The energy of the room was completely different.”
Webster-Bass recalled an “emphatic” response to Trump from the NABJ crowd, including shouting out at points. “The people were just reacting to what (Trump) was saying because what he was saying was quite outlandish.”
She said the main difference was the responses of the candidates. “(Trump) was allowed to, in that space, speak freely without being fact-checked, which was very disheartening.”
While Webster-Bass was happy for the opportunity, she did not appreciate the lack of accommodation for many NABJ member guests like herself who had to stand to be able to watch the interview in person, compared to some other non-NABJ members who were seated in the main audience.
“I saw nearly half the crowd with people who weren’t Black, people who weren’t part of the Black press,” Webster-Bass said. “That was something that I was frustrated with.”
Other HBCU student journalists were from Howard University, Morgan State University, Cheney University, Lincoln University, and Clark Atlanta University.
Edward Robinson, 47, a professor of journalism at Morgan State, brought a group of his students to the WHYY event and was glad NABJ was able to put it together in light of what took place in Chicago.
“I’m happy that they could work it out, and, for our organization, that we had a platform with the vice president of the United States in an election cycle so critical,” Robinson said. “We had a platform where real issues were discussed.”