Kamala Harris may have sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash for her first major interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee last month, but that doesn’t mean she was willing to play the network’s game.
Since receiving the nomination, Harris and running mate Tim Walz have mostly connected with voters by holding rallies and working with content creators, while ignoring conversations with traditional outlets like The New York Times, CNN and others.
The policy has some merit from a strategic perspective, as many of these outlets have a bad habit of treating their presidential reporting as a “horse race.”
That means that while mainstream journalists may think Harris should answer their questions about what she would do as president, that is not what they ask when they get a chance to talk to her.
Instead, reporters mainly want her to respond to crazy things Trump said.
But it doesn’t look like Harris will do that in the future, judging by the way she responded to one of Bash’s questions formulated by Trump during the interview.
Bash asked Harris to comment on Trump’s comments at last month’s National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago about her racial identity.
During his question-and-answer about the train wreck at the event, Trump attacked Harris’ biracial identity.
“I didn’t know she was black until a few years ago, when she happened to turn black,” he said. “And now she wants to be known as Black, so I don’t know – is she Indian or is she Black?”
During Thursday’s CNN interview, Bash asked Harris to comment on Trump’s questions about her racial identity.
Harris had a succinct answer: “The same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”
Harris’ refusal to answer a question that has nothing to do with her ability to lead the country drew praise from people on X, formerly Twitter.
Many people felt that if the media asked questions like these, Harris had a good reason for previously avoiding reporters.