Vice President Kamala Harris downplayed the historic nature of her campaign to become the first female president in U.S. history during an interview with NBC News Tuesday evening.
“The experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone’s gender, they want to know that their president has a plan to lower costs, that their president has a plan to secure America in the context of our position around the world,” Harris told NBC News’s, Hallie Jackson.
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Harris is the second Democratic woman to challenge former President Donald Trump for the White House after he vanquished Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
If elected, Harris, the nation’s first woman vice president, would break the proverbial glass ceiling that Clinton failed to conquer. Harris would also become the second black president after former President Barack Obama.
However, Harris claims that sexism is not of concern to her campaign.
“I don’t think of it that way,” she said. “My challenge is the challenge of making sure I can talk with and listen to as many voters as possible and earn their vote. And I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race. Instead, that leader needs to earn the vote based on substance and what they will do to address challenges and to inspire people.”
The interview reflected a new strategy by the Harris campaign to grant more media access, including a recent Fox News interview, after a closed-off start to her campaign this summer. Pressed on her policy stances, Harris struggled at times to offer clarity.
Harris dodged when repeatedly questioned about whether transgender people deserve access to gender transition treatment first saying the law should be followed.
“I believe that all people should be treated with dignity and respect period, and should not be vilified for who they are,” Harris claimed.
Republicans are pouring at least $65 million into television ads to put Democrats on defense over transgender politics in the final stages of the election. Ads flooding the airwaves highlight Harris’s past support for sex reassignment surgeries for prison inmates.
“Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you,” a narrator says in one version of the ad.
The vice president’s campaign has run on reproductive rights after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, which has helped increase her support among female voters. She declined to say what concessions she would make on the issue if the GOP gains control of Congress.
“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris said. “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals, because we can go on with a variety of scenarios.”
Harris has struggled to appeal to minority male voters, who she will need to secure the White House.
Obama admonished black male voters to put aside their discomfort over a woman president while campaigning for Harris in Pittsburgh earlier this month.
“You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down?” the former president said. “That’s not acceptable.”
“Because part of it makes me think, and I’m speaking to the men directly, part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and reasons for that,” Obama also said.
Harris has notably not emphasized her historic campaign for the presidency and dismissed NBC News’s questioning about the strategy.
“Well, I’m clearly a woman,” Harris said. “The point that most people really care about is, can you do the job, and do you have a plan to actually focus on them?”
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The vice president also declined to say if she would pardon Trump if elected president. “I’m not going to get into those hypotheticals. I’m focused on the next 14 days,” Harris said when asked.
“Let me tell you what’s going to help us move on: I get elected president of the United States,” Harris added.
