Journalist Mark Halperin shook his head in disbelief on Monday when Democratic strategist Tim Hogan asserted Vice President Kamala Harris performed well in her first solo TV interview on Friday.
Harris, during the interview with 6ABC Philadelphia’s Action News, rambled about her middle-class upbringing when anchor Brian Taff questioned her about “specific” strategies to improve affordability for Americans. Halperin, during a livestream on his platform 2WAY, suggested Hogan would lose “credibility” if he did not amend his answer, but the Democratic strategist doubled down on his opinion. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Used To Think Border Wall Was ‘Un-American.’ Now She Supports It.)
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“I think by any objective measure it was a disaster … I heard from tons of Democrats who said, ‘Thank goodness no one’s going to watch this,’” Halperin said to begin the segment. “It barely was played over the weekend on the Sunday shows and elsewhere.”
Halperin later asked Hogan if he thought “her answers were good,” to which the Democratic strategist answered, “Yeah, I did.” The journalist shook his head at the answer and repeated Hogan’s first name three times, but allowed him to continue.
“She talked about people’s lawns as part of the end of an answer, and it was about the pride that middle class,” Hogan said before Halperin interrupted to correct him that “it was actually the beginning of her answer was about the lawns before she named a single specific.”
Taff first asked Harris to list “one or two specific things” she intends to do to reduce costs for Americans during the interview.
“I’ll start with this. I grew up a middle-class kid. My mother raised my sister and me. She worked very hard, she was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager,” she responded. “I grew up in a community of hardworking people, you know, construction workers and nurses and teachers.”
“I tried to explain to some people who may not have had the same experience, you know, a lot of people will relate to this. You know, I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn, you know,” Harris added. “And I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity. And that we as Americans have a beautiful character.”
The vice president eventually named some of her economic policy plans, such as tax credits for housing developers, down payment assistance for home buyers and a tax deduction for small business start-ups.
“I’m gonna help you out for credibility. You cannot think that those were good answers,” Halperin said. “I was flooded with Democrats, including Democrats who work for her who said it wasn’t good.”
Hogan doubled down on his belief that Harris did well and asserted her interview answers were not a substantial deviation from her previous policy statements.
Radio host Charlamagne Tha God, who is a Harris supporter, criticized the vice president on Monday for seemingly delivering pre-prepared lines rather than just answering Taff’s question.
“There’s no need for you to be that on-script in a conversation … The guy said, ‘Name two things for me that y’all are going to do for the economy’ or something like that,” Charlamagne said. “That was not the time to go into the script about being raised in the middle class. Just tell the two things.”
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