Katie Couric took a swipe at Vice President Kamala Harris for her non-answers in various interviews leading up to the presidential election.
On Thursday’s installment of her podcast “Next Question with Katie Couric,” the veteran broadcaster had a lengthy post-election conversation with MSNBC host and longtime Democratic spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who said she thought one of Harris’ “better interviews” was her Fox News sit-down with 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.”
“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, Jen,” Couric continued.
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Veteran journalist Katie Couric said she was “frustrated” by Vice President Kamala Harris’ “inability to really succinctly answer questions.” (Getty Images)
“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, and she answered, like, in one sentence, and then went on to something that had nothing to do with the question,” Couric said. “You know, people notice that, and it’s like, ‘Answer the g-dd–n question, please!’”
She then pivoted to Harris’ now-infamous comments on “The View” where she was asked about what she would do differently from President Biden, calling it “one of the most damaging things.”
“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,'” Couric wondered. “Because it- I think somebody wrote that it was almost as if they were more afraid of hurting Joe Biden’s feelings than winning the election.”
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Couric called Harris’ exchange with “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin as “one of the most damaging things” that occurred to the vice president’s campaign. (The View / ABC)
Psaki, who served as Biden’s White House press secretary before joining MSNBC, responded by saying it was a “unique and painful summer” for Biden and that there “was a fragility” about him being sidelined by the Democratic Party. She also pointed out that Biden was “beloved” by the party when he stepped aside and that Harris had “navigated the politics of that in a very tricky way.”
“It seems to me, if I were running for president, Jen, I would sit down with my brain trust, 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?” she wondered.
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Couric called out Harris for not having a “template” handy for interviews, something she said she would have had if she ran for president. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)
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Couric also knocked the vice president for going several weeks without doing any interviews when she first emerged as the Democratic nominee, saying it was “making me crazy as a consumer.”
“What was that?” the former “Today” host asked.
“I don’t know,” Psaki responded before speculating that the Harris campaign was prepping for the debate.
“She should’ve been everywhere,” Couric later added.