‘This is why we don’t do these interviews’: Columnist calls Harris’ CNN sit-down a ‘gift’

Donald Trump began pressing Vice President Kamala Harris to do an interview with the press, which then led the press to begin demanding that she do interviews, reporter Molly Jong-Fast said while speaking on an MSNBC panel on Friday. What unfolded, however, was a “gift” for Harris, the panel agreed.

Speaking Friday to host Joy Reid, Jong-Fast said that too often, Trump serves as the “assignment editor” for the media and it works against them.

Meanwhile, “people don’t look at him critically at all in the media, which I think is surprising considering his long list of lies and untruths,” she said.

She said that Harris could shut down any ” unanswerable ” questions.” For example, she said, “If I asked her what she thought about Donald Trump saying nasty things about her identity and being racist, what would she say? I thought she dealt with it really well.” She said, “Next question.”

Reid said she knew CNN’s Dana Bash would ask the question about Trump’s race comments.

“But the idea that we are now simply recycling things Donald Trump says into what the media wants to know, as if that is helpful to any voter,” Reid lamented. “There is a Black person sitting right in front of you, and you’re literally going to ask them to justify, are they Black?”

She said that CNN likely workshopped the questions among the staff, and she couldn’t understand out of the 10 questions, there were four about things Trump said about her.

“There are so many policy questions on the table,” Reid said, citing some that she could ask and admitting she was “depressed.”

David Rothkopf wasn’t as charitable about the interview as Reid.

“The reality is, you’re right, they could have picked any question. They could have talked about the future,” he said. “They could have talked about where the economy is going from here. They could have talked about A.I. They could have talked about how you build on the successes of the Biden administration.”

Even when it comes to Trump’s comments about her, he said that CNN could have asked questions about Trump and J.D. Vance, including some of their more outrageous scandals, like what happened at Arlington Cemetery on Monday.

But it was columnist Charles Blow who said that CNN’s failure was Harris’ benefit.

“This was the best gift that the media and the establishment could have given to her,” Blow said.