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Harris gets personal in media blitz, balks at breaking with Biden on policy

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Harris gets personal in media blitz, balks at breaking with Biden on policy
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Harris gets personal in media blitz, balks at breaking with Biden on policy

2024-10-09 08:22 Last Updated At:08:30

NEW YORK (AP) — Kamala Harris wanted to help voters get to know her better with a cascade of media appearances Tuesday, but the most lasting impression might have been her unwillingness to break with Joe Biden.

Asked on ABC’s “The View” how she would be different from the president she’s served under for four years, Harris said “we’re obviously two different people” and “I will bring those sensibilities to how I lead.”

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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris and Alyssa Farah Griffin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris and Alyssa Farah Griffin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Mich., Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Mich., Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Saturday, October 5, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C., after a briefing on the damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Saturday, October 5, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C., after a briefing on the damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two to depart for New York at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two to depart for New York at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP)

However, she was not able to identify a decision where she would have gone another way. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said.

The exchange encapsulated Harris’ struggle to portray herself as a candidate who can deliver the change voters crave while also remaining loyal to the current administration. Some Harris aides privately winced as gleeful Republicans swiftly circulated clips of her response and Donald Trump swiped at her in a social media post, calling it “her dumbest answer so far.”

It wasn’t until later in the show that Harris named something that she would do differently than Biden — she would put a Republican in her Cabinet.

The Democratic nominee said she would welcome contributions from the other party “because I don’t feel burdened by letting pride get in the way of a good idea.”

The interview was a reminder that friendly media venues — the women of “The View” were nearly rapturous in their embrace of Harris — can be as treacherous for politicians to navigate as hardball journalistic interrogations. And it came at a delicate moment for Harris, whose motorcade whisked her from studio to studio in New York on Tuesday.

She faced a similar question during a taping of CBS' “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, who asked Harris ”what would the major changes be" from Biden. She offered nothing other than saying “I’m obviously not Joe Biden, so that would be one change" — then emphasized that she's also not Trump.

Even though Harris' abbreviated and unexpected bid for the presidency is more than half over, she is still racing to introduce herself to voters who haven’t made up their minds about her or whether to cast ballots in this year’s election. Her interviews Tuesday, which included sitting down with radio host Howard Stern, were an attempt to reach as many people as possible with only four weeks to go until the end of the campaign. She also recently spoke to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which aired Monday night, and Alex Cooper’s podcast “Call Her Daddy,” which was released Sunday.

It's a kaleidoscopic media blitz intended to reach key demographics, from men who are longtime fans of Stern to young women who follow Cooper's frank conversations about sex and relationships.

Harris' decision to open up is a sharp shift after largely avoiding interviews since replacing Biden at the top of the ticket, and it’s an acknowledgment that she needs to do more to defeat Trump.

Getting personal has never been easy for Harris, a lawyer by training whose first job in public life was making opening and closing arguments as a courtroom prosecutor.

“It feels immodest to me to talk about myself,” Harris said to Stern. “A friend of mine actually said, ‘Look, this is not a time to worry about modesty, because obviously you gotta let people know who you are.’”

By the time she was finished with the interview, Harris had, by her standards, bared her soul. Some examples:

She ate a family sized bag of Doritos after Trump beat Hillary Clinton. She works out on an elliptical every day. Her first job was cleaning test tubes at her mother’s laboratory, and she got fired. Her favorite Formula One driver is Lewis Hamilton. She went to see U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and she recommends going with a “clear head,” meaning not high on drugs, because “there’s a lot of visual stimulation.”

Harris also said “I literally lose sleep” over the election because “the stakes are so high.”

Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said Harris has to energize people who have tuned out politics because they believe “all the politicians are the same, they all say the same thing, they don’t know anything about my life, I can’t relate to them at all."

“They want to like and trust you," she said.

As if to drive the point home, Colbert’s show included a very literal riff on the old political adage that Americans want politicians that they could have a beer with, and he pulled out two cans of Miller High Life.

Harris took a sip and said the last time she had drunk beer was at a baseball game with her husband.

Jennifer Harris, the former White House senior director of international economics, said Harris has a steeper hill to climb because of the way she became the Democratic nominee.

“We did not have a good long primary to meet Kamala Harris in the way most voters are accustomed to,” she said. Harris has to find a way to demonstrate the instincts and principles that ”will be guiding any number of hundreds of specific policy questions that will come up in the course of the presidency.”

Harris used her Tuesday appearance on “The View” to discuss her proposal to have Medicare cover in-home care for the elderly, helping to relieve the burden faced by an increasing number of families.

She spoke about taking care of her own mother when she was dying of cancer, including cooking for her and picking out soft clothing that wouldn't irritate her. And she criticized Trump as selfish and uninterested in helping Americans. If you watch his grievance-filled rallies, she said, “he does not talk about what your parents need, what your children need.”

Instead, Harris said, “he talks about his needs.”

It was a moment that Harris' campaign would much rather get noticed than her answer about Biden. They believe that a small yet pivotal numbers of undecided voters want to know more about Harris before making up their minds, and that the more those voters see Harris, the more they like her.

Republican communications strategist Kevin Madden said defining Harris in voters' eyes is the central challenge of the campaign.

“This race is actually pretty simple in the sense that the next few weeks are about who’s going to fill in the blanks on who Harris is,” he said.

Harris' name recognition grew when she became vice president, but 1 out of 10 people still said they didn't know enough about her to have an opinion, according to AP-NORC polling. Recent shifts in her favorability numbers suggest that views on Harris may still be somewhat malleable.

Other polls have similar results. One-quarter of likely voters said they still feel like they need to learn more about Harris, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted after her debate against Trump, while about three-quarters say they pretty much already know what they need to know about her.

Near the end of Harris' interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Cooper confronted the vice president with one of the central questions of this campaign.

So many people, Cooper said, are “frustrated and just exhausted with politics in general," so "why should we trust you?”

Harris answered by saying “you can look at my career to know what I care about.”

“I care about making sure that people are entitled to and receive the freedoms that they are due," she said. "I care about lifting people up and making sure that you are protected from harm.”

Megerian reported from Washington. AP writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. Seated from left are Ana Navarro, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris and Alyssa Farah Griffin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris and Alyssa Farah Griffin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with the hosts during a commercial break at The View, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New York. From left are Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Mich., Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Mich., Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Saturday, October 5, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C., after a briefing on the damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Saturday, October 5, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C., after a briefing on the damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two to depart for New York at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two to depart for New York at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Welcome toBeyoncé country. When it comes to the 2025 Grammy Award nominations, “Cowboy Carter” rules the nation. She leads the nods with 11, bringing her career total to 99 nominations. That makes her the most nominated artist in Grammy history.

“Cowboy Carter” is up for album and country album of the year, and “Texas Hold ’Em” is nominated for record, song and country song of the year. She also received nominations in a wide swath of genres, including pop, country, Americana and melodic rap performance categories.

This is her first time receiving nominations in the country and Americana categories. Previously, she and her husband Jay-Z were tied for most career nominations, at 88.

If Beyoncé wins the album of the year, she’ll become the first Black woman to do so in the 21st century. Lauryn Hill last won in 1999 for “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” joining Natalie Cole and Whitney Houston as the only Black women to take home the Grammys’ top prize.

Post Malone also received his first ever nominations in the country categories this year, having released his debut country album “F-1 Trillion" in August. That one is up for country album and “I Had Some Help,” his collaboration with Morgan Wallen, is nominated for country song and country duo/group performance. They are Wallen’s first ever Grammy nominations.

Malone is just behind Beyoncé, with seven nominations, tied with Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Charli XCX, who earned her first nominations as a solo artist.

Lamar’s ubiquitous diss track released during his feud with Drake, “Not Like Us,” is nominated for record and song of the year, rap song, music video as well as best rap performance. He has two simultaneous entries in the latter category, a career first: Future & Metro Boomin featuring Lamar, “Like That” is up for best rap performance and best rap song.

This is his third time receiving two simultaneous nominations for best rap song.

Taylor Swift and first-time nominees Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan boast of six nominations each.

Last year, women artists dominated the major categories. This year, that continues somewhat, but the main trend seems to be a variance of genre. In the album of the year category, alongside “Cowboy Carter” is André 3000’s new age, alt-jazz “New Blue Sun” and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier’s “Djesse Vol. 4.” Rising pop stars Carpenter and Roan round it out, with “Short n’ Sweet” and “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” respectively, as well as Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” and Charli XCX’s rave-ready “BRAT.”

Eilish is the only artist to have her first three albums become nominated for album of the year.

Last year, Swift won album of the year for “Midnights,” breaking the record for most wins in the category with four. This year, she becomes the first ever woman to seven career nominations in the category.

“The breadth and the variety of genres represented in the general field feels new and really exciting,” says the Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. He credits an active and evolving voting body for its success. “We’ve been very intentional in how we looked at and tried to rebalance our membership. So not just gender or people of color, different racial makeup, but also genre equity and trying to make sure that all different types of music in different regions and different locations are being represented in every way possible.”

Only recordings commercially released in the U.S. between Sept. 16, 2023 through Aug. 30, 2024 were eligible for nominations. The final round of Grammy voting, which determines its winners, will take place Dec. 12 through January 3.

In the best new artist category, Carpenter and Roan will go head-to-head, alongside Benson Boone, Doechii, Khruangbin, RAYE, Shaboozey and Teddy Swims.

In the song of the year category, Beyoncé is joined by Eilish with “Birds of a Feather,” Swift and Post Malone with “Fortnight,” Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”, Carpenter’s “Please Please Please,” Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With A Smile,” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”

Shaboozey is also a first-time nominee. His “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is the biggest song of the year, having spent more weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 than any other — it is so popular, a remix of the track is also up for remixed recording.

Elsewhere, Shaboozey is nominated in the melodic rap performance category for his feature on Beyoncé’s “SPAGHETTII.” Linda Martell, the first commercially-successful Black woman musician in country, is also featured on the song, delivering the 83-year-old artist her first Grammy nomination.

For record of the year, “Texas Hold ’Em” will compete against Swift and Post Malone’s “Fortnight,” Eilish’s “Birds of a Father,” Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”, Carpenter’s “Espresso,” Charli XCX’s “360,” and the Beatles last new song, the AI-assisted “Now and Then.”

“We’re trying to make sure we’re keeping up with how music creators and our community are using technology. And in this case, AI enhanced the record and allowed it to be eligible in the categories that it was eligible in,” Mason jr explains.

So, what’s missing? Like last year, there’s a huge dearth of Latin music — the fastest growing streaming genre in the United States — across the board, and no representation in the major categories. There are also only four entries in the best Música Mexicana album category, despite it also being one of the fastest growing genres.

And K-pop, too, seems to be absent. There are no nominations for the BTS members who’ve released solo material this year: RM’s “Right Place, Wrong Person,” J-Hope’s “Hope on the Street, Vol. 1,” and Jimin’s “Muse.” As a boy band, BTS has received five nominations across their career.

“I definitely see room for improvement across many genres and we are continuing to invite people to be a part of the academy,” Mason jr. says. “Without the right representation we don’t get the right results. When I say right, I mean reflective and representative of what’s happening in music today. So, the work continues.”

The 2025 Grammy Awards will air Feb. 2 live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

This combination of photos shows top Grammy Awards nominees, top row from left, Beyonce, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, bottom row from left, Post Malone, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift. (AP Photo)

This combination of photos shows top Grammy Awards nominees, top row from left, Beyonce, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, bottom row from left, Post Malone, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift. (AP Photo)

FILE - Taylor Swift performs during "The Eras Tour," Monday, Aug. 7, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

FILE - Taylor Swift performs during "The Eras Tour," Monday, Aug. 7, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

FILE - Chappell Roan arrives at the MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Chappell Roan arrives at the MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Sabrina Carpenter performs during the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration, Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Sabrina Carpenter performs during the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration, Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Charli XCX appears at the Mugler H&M global launch event in New York on April 19, 2023. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Charli XCX appears at the Mugler H&M global launch event in New York on April 19, 2023. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Post Malone performs a medley at the 57th Annual CMA Awards on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

FILE - Post Malone performs a medley at the 57th Annual CMA Awards on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

FILE - Kendrick Lamar performs during the Festival d'ete de Quebec in Quebec City, Canada on July 7, 2017. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Kendrick Lamar performs during the Festival d'ete de Quebec in Quebec City, Canada on July 7, 2017. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Billie Eilish appears at the 66th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Billie Eilish appears at the 66th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Beyonce appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - Beyonce appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

FILE - Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

FILE - A view of a Grammy statue appears in the press room at the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - A view of a Grammy statue appears in the press room at the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

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