Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) have not given a full press conference or media interview since entering the presidential campaign, but they did sit down and interview each other in Detroit.
In the 10-minute spot, the pair discussed music, football, and “white guy tacos” at Aretha’s Jazz Cafe. The engagement was edited into a video, which the Harris campaign released Thursday.
“Like, I have white guy tacos,” Walz said at the beginning.
“What is that, like mayonnaise and tuna?” Harris responded. “What are you doing?”
“Pretty much ground beef and cheese,” Walz asnwered.
Harris then asked if he puts any flavor on them, and Walz said he was told to let Harris know that black pepper is at the top of the spice level in Minnesota.
The video comes as the Trump campaign amps up pressure on Harris to speak to the media in an unscripted format and release more policy details about her plans if elected. GOP vice presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), has started using the tagline, “Kamala Harris isn’t running a presidential campaign. She’s producing a movie.”
In the video, the two Democrats joke about how the Minnesota governor missed the call from Harris when she asked him to be her running mate. They also talked about their mostly divergent tastes in music.
Walz is a big fan of Bruce Springsteen’s 1980 album The River along with Bob Seger’s 1976 effort Night Moves. Harris said she grew up on Detroit legend Aretha Franklin, along with Stevie Wonder and jazz legends Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In her younger days, Harris was a fan of Minnesota-based artist Prince, though Walz did not seem to perk up at the name.
Harris asked Walz about his father, a Korean war veteran who died when Walz was just 19 years old. That left Walz’s mother collecting Social Security survivor benefits, which he described as “the boots” on which he pulled himself up by his bootstraps.
“We’ve got to help people get through a hard time,” Harris said after hearing the story. “We can’t have a country and policies that let people fall through the cracks.”
However, detailed policy discussions or governing details were not part of the clip, which also included tales of Walz’s days as a football coach and Harris’s decision to become an attorney.
She said some of the biggest heroes of the civil rights movement were lawyers such as Thurgood Marshall, who “understood how to translate the passion from the streets to the courtrooms of our country” and “believed in the Constitution of the United States and the principles upon which it was founded.”
Walz said he and Harris represent the underdog campaign, though they are actually leading in the RealClearPolitics polling average by a narrow margin.
“With our joy, we also have to understand that we’re still up against some forces that are trying to divide our country,” Harris said. “It pains me the kind of division and the stoking of divisions that has taken place, right? And when we can remind people and create a space for everyone to come where they see each other and say, ‘hey, we’re all in this together.’”
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Walz described the phenomenon as similar to people coming out of their houses for the first time after a Minnesota blizzard.
“I talk about it being halftime in America,” Walz said. “We’re a touchdown down because for a lot of folks, it’s easier to tear things down, it’s easier to divide than it is to build. But once you start that momentum, once we come out where we’re at right now, people want to be part of something that’s winning.”