Kamala Harris tried to promote bacon as a "spice" to a Muslim interviewer

Dreams Versus Reality

Two-and-a-half weeks after our initial meeting, I visited Rahma again. He seemed harried and wore a faded T-shirt and relaxed-fit jeans. The interview with Harris hadn’t gone as planned.
What happened was a dispute over Harris’s take. Rahma said he had been told that the vice president would be taking a stand against removing one’s shoes on airplanes. When they sat down, however, Harris had surprised him with a different take: “Bacon is a spice.” (Two senior campaign officials said this topic had been raised in advance. Rahma and his manager dispute this.)

Rahma, who doesn’t eat pork for religious reasons, was taken aback. “I don’t know,” he says, in an unpublished video recording of the interview, his voice rising to an unusually high pitch. Harris elaborates that bits of cooked bacon can be used to enhance a meal like any other seasoning. “Think about it, it’s pure flavor,” she says.

Rahma asks Harris if he can use beef or turkey and what kinds of dishes would benefit from bacon. He then pauses the interview and tells her that he doesn’t eat it. He asks if they can do the airplanes take instead. But, on the advice of a staffer, Harris decides to declare her love of anchovies on pizza — an alternative the campaign had floated earlier in an email. Rahma wraps the discussion one minute later.

“Well,” he says, with an awkward laugh. “I’m 100 percent unsure on both of those.”

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The Walz interview, in which the governor deplored the national decline of home gutter maintenance, went more smoothly. Afterward, Rahma said, he felt unsure of what to make of the sit-down with Harris. He had been apprehensive about potential criticism from other Muslims, and the bacon talk had thrown him off.

“It was so complicated because I’m Muslim and there’s something going on in the world that 100 percent of Muslims care about,” he said. “And then they made it worse by talking about anchovies. Boring!”

The campaign apologized for the bacon take and proposed a reshoot. But, after publishing the Walz interview, Rahma ultimately decided not to move forward with it.