In an interview in which Harris often stuck to well-rehearsed talking points, her answer about her time at McDonald’s seemed the most authentic and was the best proof that she sees people in need not as abstractions but as real people.

Harris knows how to subtly annoy Trump

Harris won her debate against Trump by driving him into a fit of rage after she described his “big, beautiful” rallies as small, boring events where many attendees were just looking for an escape. So it was amusing to see her incorporate the same point into a response about how she would continue to remind people that Trump is lying about his economic record and when he says he stands with workers.

Harris described the “challenge” she faces in “winning everyone’s vote.” She argued, “Regardless of what anyone says at a small rally somewhere… part of my job in this campaign is to remind people, just like here in Pittsburgh, who stands behind the unions, who stands for American manufacturing, who stands for American jobs.”

The only two words Trump is likely to hear are “small rally.”

The pandemic does not exonerate Trump from his handling of the economy

When the vice president said Trump had left us with “the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression,” Ruhle pointed out that this dramatic downturn occurred at the height of the pandemic.

“Even before the pandemic, he was losing manufacturing jobs,” Harris countered. His raison d’être as president, Harris argued, was essentially to push through “tax cuts for our country’s billionaires and top corporations.”

Harris’ “gut decisions”

When Ruhle asked Harris when she last made a gut decision, she replied, “Probably the biggest gut decision I’ve made recently was choosing my running mate. There were a lot of good, incredible candidates, and ultimately it was a gut decision.”

While Republicans tried to capitalize on the absurd claim that Harris (who is married to a Jewish man) chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro because of anti-Semitism, the choice of Walz proved to be a smart political decision and demonstrated her ability to make smart decisions in a short period of time.

Women have reason to fear a second Trump presidency

Trump recently boasted that he would become a protector of women. Harris, who has made abortion rights a central theme of her campaign, said that was a strong statement from a man who once said women who have abortions should be prosecuted and whose Supreme Court justices helped overturn Roe v. Wade.

But Ruhle’s question about Trump’s statement prompted Harris to make perhaps the best statement of the interview: “I don’t think the women of America need him to say he will protect them. The women of America need him to trust them.”