Vice President Kamala Harris has been criticized Avoiding specific information And in the multiple interviews she’s given this week, she’s appeared to dodge questions, as media pundits demand that she actually answer questions from the press.
Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal wrote, “She hasn’t been able to, or wanted to, answer a single question directly this week, and people can see it. She’s an artless dodger.” She suggested that voters now have a choice between “terrifying and empty”.
Harris spoke to reporters this week during an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NAJB) and sat down with Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed her for president at the DNC. Harris has not yet made a decision Held a formal press conference after emerging as the candidate.
“She must answer these questions for us. It is wrong that she cannot or will not answer these questions. It is disrespectful to the voters,” Noonan wrote, arguing that avoiding questions on illegal immigration is “political malpractice.”
Numerous columnists and pundits have accused Vice President Kamala Harris of dodging questions and lacking clarity in her answers. (Main: (Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images), Paper cutout: Screenshot/WallStreetJournal)
Harris adviser denies lack of interviews: ‘She’s a very busy person’
Todd Purdum, a former New York Times White House correspondent, wrote on Thursday that Harris couldn’t stand it get confused.
Purdum said, “In a campaign in which Donald Trump fills our days with nonsense and dominates the national conversation (and polls suggest a tight race where Ms. Harris is trailing with some groups by the level of support Joe Biden had in 2020), the vice president simply cannot afford to stick to rehearsed answers and stump speeches that may not be able to persuade voters or shape the way they talk about America.”
Purdum suggested that a direct answer from the vice president would have a greater impact on voters.
“Decades of writing about politicians have convinced me that Ms. Harris’s direct, concise answers and explanations will go a long way in convincing voters — perhaps more than she realizes — that they know enough about her and her plans,” the journalist wrote.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris (L) joins American television producer Oprah Winfrey at a ‘Unite for America’ live-streaming rally in Farmington Hills, Michigan on September 19, 2024. ((Photo Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images))
Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC And former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has suggested the opposite, arguing that Harris didn’t need to do so. Provided specific information about its policies.
Clinton argued that when she ran against Trump in 2016, she had more policies in place than anyone else.
“I gave speeches about it. It was on our website. I wrote a book about it with Tim Kaine. We had a lot of policies. At the end of the day, it wasn’t the reason people voted for me or against me, and I think the Harris campaign knows that. They know you have to cross a line, which they’ve crossed in terms of the kind of governing that you’re promising,” Clinton said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Ruhle suggested Harris didn’t need to provide specifics because she was running against Trump.
During an appearance on Bill Maher’s show, Ruhle stressed, “Kamala Harris is not running to be perfect. She’s running against Trump. We have two choices. And so there are some things you may not know the answer to. And in 2024, unlike 2016, which was the case for a lot of the American people, we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and what kind of threat he poses to democracy.”
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Anti-Trump New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who has called on Harris to answer questions more directly, told Ruhle, “I don’t think it’s too much to ask her to sit down for a real interview, rather than an article in which she describes her feelings about growing up in Oakland with a beautiful lawn.”
Stephens asks Harris to answer more tough questions In a recent NYT column.
He wrote, “It shouldn’t be hard for Harris to show that she can provide detailed answers to pressing policy questions. Or to express, beyond a few prepared phrases, a sense of how she sees the American interest in a darkening world. Or to articulate a politics of genuine inclusion that reaches millions of distrustful voters. Or to prove that she is more than just another factory-setting liberal Democrat whose greatest virtue, like her greatest fault, is that she doesn’t stray very far from the conventional wisdom.”
Some reports and pundits suggested that Harris “lacked specifics” and stuck to her script throughout her tenure. NABJ Interview.
ABC’s Selina Wang, referring to a question about the Israel-Hamas war, said Harris “did not directly answer the question or provide any policy details.”
Wang further added, “However, there were several times during this interview when Vice President Harris did not give a specific answer. Instead, she returned to the topic she wanted to talk about.”
CNN’s Abby Phillip played a clip of Harris answering a question about whether voters are better off than they were four years ago.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, September 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Axelrod encourages Harris to do more interviews: ‘Flood the zone’
“We came in during the worst public health pandemic in centuries. We came in after the worst assault on our democracy since the Civil War and a big part of that was the mismanagement by the former president as it relates to COVID and obviously January 6th. And then we had a lot of work to do to clean up that mess. To date, we’ve created over 16 million new jobs, over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. We have the lowest Black unemployment rate in generations,” Harris said during the interview.
Phillip argued that Harris should have something “quick” and “understandable” ready to say in response to the question of whether voters were better off four years ago, adding, “And they really weren’t.”
CNN political commentator Scott Jennings argued that Harris should simply “answer the question” and pointed to some of Harris’s answers during the debate.
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“She completely ignored every policy question asked of her in the debate and never answered it. Why is it that she believes she doesn’t need to respond to reporters who are asking a presidential candidate very basic questions?”
After the interview, Politico reported On Wednesday, the report said Harris “refused to go off script.” The report said Harris dodged questions on key issues, adding that she “did not discuss much or stray too far from her points.”
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
