Katie Couric mocked Kamala Harris‘ inability to give a straight answer in the lead up to the election and said voters just wanted to hear her ‘answer the god damn question.’
The broadcaster slated Harris’ candidacy on her podcast this week ‘Next Question with Katie Couric’, and told former Biden administration spokeswoman Jen Psaki she was left disappointed by the vice president’s election interviews.
‘If you are giving (Harris) these almost weird, like, amorphous softballs, it’s really hard to kind of hone your message and be succinct and say what you really need to say,’ Couric said.
‘I also felt that, and again, I think [Harris] really did well in so many areas, but I was frustrated by her inability to really succinctly answer questions at times.’
Couric pointed to Harris’ tendency to meander from point to point during her campaign events, and said voters would have wanted to see her give a more forceful argument on key issues.
‘Like, if she was asked about changing the Supreme Court at that CNN town hall, she had an opportunity to talk about ethics and what, you know, (Supreme Court Justices Samuel) Alito and Clarence Thomas were doing,’ Couric continued.
‘And she answered, like, in one sentence, and then went on to something that had nothing to do with the question – You know, people notice that, and it’s like, ‘Answer the god damn question, please!”
Katie Couric mocked Kamala Harris’ inability to give a straight answer on her podcast this week ‘Next Question with Katie Couric, opposite former Biden administration spokeswoman Jen Psaki (right)
Couric criticized Harris’ struggles on the campaign trail and said voters just wanted to hear her ‘answer the god damn question’
Couric has joined a number of liberal figures and journalists who dramatically changed their tune on Harris after she lost the election, with Charlamagne tha God coming under scrutiny in recent weeks for his very public U-turn.
She said Harris’ candidacy was sunk by her early avoidance of tough interviews on the campaign trail, and argued that one of her ‘better’ moments was a contentious interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.
‘I always find that people do better when they’re asked really challenging, pointed questions. I always felt that way about Hillary Clinton,’ Couric said.
‘If you are giving them these almost weird, like, amorphous softballs, it’s really hard to kind of hone your message and be succinct and say what you really need to say.’
Couric compared that interview with Harris’ infamous moment on The View, where she said ‘nothing comes to mind’ when asked what she would do differently to President Biden if elected.
‘(The View interview) was one of the most damaging things,’ Couric said.
She questioned her guest: ‘Ok, Jen, you’re an insider. Why didn’t Joe Biden say, ‘Listen, I know you’re going to have to separate yourself from this administration. Let’s talk about areas where you can, where they’re legitimate, and God speed.’
‘Because I think somebody wrote that it was almost as if they were more afraid of hurting Joe Biden’s feelings than winning the election.’
Couric slammed Harris’ campaign managers and said the decisions they took made it seem ‘as if they were more afraid of hurting Joe Biden’s feelings than winning the election’
Psaki, the former White House Press Secretary who now hosts on MSNBC, responded to Couric’s questioning by noting it was a ‘unique and painful summer’ for Biden.
The president was forced out of the campaign in July following a disastrous debate performance opposite Donald Trump that led many to believe he was too old to serve a second term.
Psaki said there ‘was a fragility’ about Biden’s exit that hurt Harris’ campaign, and argued that the vice president ‘navigated the politics of that in a very tricky way.’
But Couric countered that Harris’ campaign managers clearly failed to prepare her for tough questions, and said it was ‘crazy’ how she appeared flummoxed by questioning that she should have expected.
‘It seems to me, if I were running for president, Jen, I would sit down with my braintrust, and I’d be like, ‘Okay, let’s play out these questions. What am I gonna say?’ Couric said.
‘And I would have had a template that I would have carried around with me in every interview, and I would have reviewed them and said, you know, ‘This is what I believe, and this is how I’m going to handle a question like that.’ Now, why didn’t they- it just didn’t seem like that was done. Am I crazy?’
