MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with CNN for her first major interview as the Democratic presidential nominee.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Harris said she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet if elected, and she responded to questions about her policy shifts over the years.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: The most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed.
INSKEEP: With Dana Bash, she worked through some of the policy changes. Running for president in 2019, she said she would ban fracking. But in the interview, she insisted she had changed her mind by a little bit later in that same campaign in 2020, that she's been in favor of fracking for years and would not ban it now. Republicans had criticized Harris for avoiding interviews up to now, which raised the stakes on this one.
MARTIN: NPR's Asma Khalid watched the interview, and she is with us now. Good morning, Asma.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: And I want to mention here that you've also interviewed Kamala Harris a number of times, and you've been covering her. What was your major takeaway?
KHALID: Well, I think you see in this interview that she has grown. I mean, she is certainly more practiced in how to interview - how to answer, I'm sorry, reporter questions than when I first interviewed her. But this was also a different format. It was a joint interview with her running mate Tim Walz. You know, broadly, Michel, this was not an earth-shattering interview. Republicans and Democrats will take from it whatever they want that reinforces their own pre-existing perceptions of her. To some she is seen as pragmatic and to others she's long-winded. And I think they could take whatever they want either way in that interpretation from last night's interview.
You know, she was largely offering a continuation of President Biden's policies. One area that caught my attention was the economy because it is one of the Democrats' biggest vulnerabilities. Many voters remain frustrated with high prices. She acknowledged that but also championed the work that the Biden administration has done on things like lowering Medicare drug prices and creating manufacturing jobs.
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HARRIS: What we have done to improve the supply chain so we're not relying on foreign governments to supply American families with their basic needs, I'll say that that's good work. There's more to do, but that's good work.
MARTIN: Did she offer any, say, new proposals that one could point to as her own?
KHALID: Not much. I mean, she was asked to spell out about what she would do on Day 1 as president, and she talked in vague terms about strengthening the middle class. But, you know, I'd also say that detailed policy proposals are not central to how she's campaigning. She talks about herself as being a new way forward and turning the page on an era of negative politics that has dominated our culture this last decade.
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HARRIS: Where there is some suggestion - warped, I believe it to be - that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down, instead of where I believe most Americans are, which is to believe that the true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up. That's what's at stake as much as any other detail that we could discuss in this election.
KHALID: So as you hear there, I mean, she sees this campaign about character.
MARTIN: And it sounds, obviously, like she was alluding to former President Trump. Did she have more to say about her Republican opponent?
KHALID: Well, she critiqued his time in office and said that he mismanaged the COVID crisis. But when she was asked to respond to disparaging comments about her racial identity, she brushed off the question, saying, quote, "same old tired playbook - next question, please." You know, it strikes me that in this race to define her, she does not want to play on Trump's terms. What's interesting is that she and Trump have never really interacted in person before. They're expected to meet on the debate stage September 10. And that will perhaps be, I think, one of the most important moments of this truncated campaign, a chance to see how they respond to questions face-to-face in front of one another and to one another.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Asma Khalid. Asma, thank you.
KHALID: Good to speak with you.
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MARTIN: Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, meanwhile, worked to counterprogram the vice president and her running mate Tim Walz at that interview on CNN that we just talked about. The former president held a town hall in the key battleground state of Wisconsin.
INSKEEP: In two events Thursday, in fact, Trump tried out some new material, mixed in with his usual talking points about immigration and inflation. He traveled to Michigan as well as Wisconsin.
MARTIN: Minnesota Public Radio's Clay Masters was at that event in La Crosse and he's with us now. Good morning, Clay.
CLAY MASTERS, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So Trump started his town hall with a question about IVF - in vitro fertilization - a bit of a different topic for him. This came after he told a reporter earlier in the day that he wanted IVF to be covered by the federal government or mandated with private insurance. Did he talk about this later Thursday?
MASTERS: Yeah, the question at this - what the campaign called a town hall came from former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who was the moderator of this event put on by the campaign. She told a story about how she and her husband tried for years to get pregnant with IVF and were unsuccessful. Of course, IVF is a surprise political issue in the post-Roe reproductive rights landscape. Trump reiterated what he said earlier in the day to an NBC news reporter in Michigan that he supports IVF and wants it to be widely available.
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DONALD TRUMP: Government is going to pay for it, or we're going to get or mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great.
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MASTERS: And I should note, Trump did not provide any specific details whatsoever.
MARTIN: And, of course, this is part of a bigger change in rhetoric around reproductive rights that Trump has been trying out, you know, abortion being a primary issue here. Did he talk about that?
MASTERS: Well, in that same NBC News interview earlier Thursday, Trump indicated he would vote in favor of abortion rights in Florida's ballot measure. The campaign was quick to push back after the interview saying President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida. He simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short. Florida has a six-week abortion ban in effect right now. But abortion is clearly still an issue Trump is wrestling with. He didn't last night, but he regularly touts being the one who, you know, appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe V. Wade. In Wisconsin last night, he used the issue to criticize Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. He accused Walz of supporting abortions into the third trimester of pregnancy, though he did not back that up with any evidence.
MARTIN: So you just said that he's been using abortion as a way or he's trying out this attack line against Tim Walz. With Walz new to the ticket, what are his storylines? Like, how are his attacks shaping up?
MASTERS: Yeah, La Crosse, Wis., right across the Mississippi River from Minnesota, so there were a lot of people in the audience from the neighboring state. A woman from Minnesota got up to ask a question about crime. And just mentioning the home of Harris' running mate just riled up Trump, pivoting quickly to a label that Walz has given Trump and his running mate JD Vance. Trump is kind of working to flip the script.
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TRUMP: He's not weird and I'm not weird. I mean, we're a lot of things - we're not weird, I will tell you. But that guy is weird, don't you think?
MASTERS: So Trump went on to talk about a bill Walz signed in Minnesota that made tampons available in school bathrooms. Walz is giving Trump a lot to work with, but Trump is clearly still unsure what his line of attack is going to be against the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
MARTIN: That is Minnesota Public Radio's Clay Masters. Clay, thank you.
MASTERS: You're welcome.
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MARTIN: We're in the middle of the worst listeria outbreak since 2011.
INSKEEP: Yeah, nine people have died from this food-borne bacteria and more have gotten sick or been hospitalized, all of which stems from contamination traced to a Boar's Head factory that recalled millions of pounds of deli meats.
MARTIN: Joining us to tell us more about this is NPR consumer health correspondent Yuki Noguchi. Yuki, welcome. Thanks for joining us.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Thank you.
MARTIN: So some of these products that were already recalled earlier this month were made back in June or early July, so why are we still seeing this get worse?
NOGUCHI: Yeah, several reasons. The products themselves have long shelf lives. You know, they might still be in people's refrigerators. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says some of the recalled meats have sell-by dates into October. Also, as we mentioned, it's a massive amount of potentially infected meat, you know, over 7 million pounds. Barbara Kowalcyk is at George Washington University. She directs the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security there.
BARBARA KOWALCYK: The size of the recall is also concerning because it suggests that there was an ongoing problem. And we're still seeing cases.
NOGUCHI: Also, the incubation period for listeria is long, meaning it can take up to 10 weeks for someone who ate the bad meat to get sick in some cases. So that's why we're seeing hospitalizations still increasing and now at about 57 patients.
MARTIN: So how can this be contained?
NOGUCHI: You know, it's difficult because listeria is hard to get rid of and spreads really easily. You know, just think about the specifics of this case. The original contamination has been traced back to a liverwurst product made at a Boar's Head factory in Jarratt, Va. But that factory also made 70 other meat products that process through some of the same machines. Then those were sent to groceries in every corner of the country. And, in fact, the recent deaths have been in New York, Florida, Tennessee, New Mexico, you know, very, very widespread. And once it's in those communities, it can spread through hands or countertops or meat slicers themselves, or within people's refrigerators.
MARTIN: So as you mentioned, some of these products are probably still around, meaning this outbreak could continue to sicken people for months. So what should people do?
NOGUCHI: You know, first, check your refrigerator. You're looking for a specific number,12612, on the inspection label. And that information is also on the CDC's food safety recall list. If your food was recalled, then clean your refrigerator, you know, kitchen, countertops, anything that might have come into contact with it. But if you're pregnant or over age 65, then the precautions are stronger. Avoid even eating the deli meats at all. You know, don't buy items at groceries where those meats have been handled.
MARTIN: OK, I'm going to say that again, A specific number, 12612 on the inspection label. That's important.
NOGUCHI: That's right.
MARTIN: OK, so finally, what are some of the symptoms that people could be watching for?
NOGUCHI: Well, fever, aching muscles, tiredness that can then turn into stiff neck and seizures, or for severe cases, the treatment will be antibiotics.
MARTIN: OK, that is NPR's Yuki Noguchi. Yuki, thank you so much.
NOGUCHI: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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