Harris-Walz Interview Was an 'Extraordinary Waste of an Opportunity' by CNN

but um tell you what I thought um about the interview and I have to be honest uh even though I've known Dana Bash for a long time I thought that with the possible exception of her questions about fracking I thought that the interview uh was very weak in terms of the question asked um a lot of softball questions and even even the questions on on topics that were important to cover I don't think she asked sharp questions to begin with when she did ask follow-ups I don't think the follow-ups yielded anything so my main View this is a non-event because the questions were not the right questions to ask the right way um so we'll talk about the interview for sure and I'm eager to hear what you all thought about it but I I don't think there was much to it um the the basic view I've heard from Democrats which I agree with was she didn't screw up anything but we didn't learn much of anything either and so if the point was to survive the interview without making much news aided and embedded by the weak questions uh she succeeded if the point was to give people a better sense of how she'd govern I don't think she succeeded I want to read you a text I got from a republican who's not a he's a trump supporter but not a huge Trump fan uh and um a very smart experienced person in presidential politics this says what he wrote about the interview this is an hour of hagiography a televised worship service of kamla the Goddess red America will see clips and be energized like the Energizer Bunny um I don't disagree with that I I I really am almost stunned at the degree to which um the uh the uh entire interview was taken over with mostly topics that I don't think were gerain and again when she was on the right topics I don't think the questions yielded very much from a positive point of view the vice president held it together she was not um frazzled or Fluss she didn't laugh inappropriate thing at inappropriately at things she didn't seem to um be uh off knocked off by anything she seemed like she was anticipating every one of the questions uh I thought she she you know maybe most importantly she did have some moments that were less good but there was nothing iconic there was nothing that I think you could show a normal person on social media or on a morning show that people would say was was a memorably bad moment that that was understandable um I thought she was warm uh and given plenty of opportunities to to humanize herself uh did it did it quite well I thought the Walts the presence of Governor Waltz did not you know the sort of the notion that she was going to be overshadowed or he was there to protect her I don't think there were any moments that kind of put that in sharp relief I think that was good for her on the negative side I don't understand why she looked down so much rather than at the interviewer I thought she looked very tired um she you know one one implication of choosing CNN is you got a basic cable level of lighting hair makeup and staging it it didn't look the way it would have if she'd done gone with you know ABC or NBC uh and I think you know that doesn't put her in the best light and that's not great for any candidate in just a reality of the world we live in it's not great for a female candidate in particular so I think that wasn't great and then obviously there's moments of word salad um particularly the first clip they released probably the the most negative thing CNN did for her besides the lighting uh and hair and makeup was was released that clip first because I think the clip they released this afternoon was her worst moment um in talking about fracking and her values um I I didn't make up a big list of questions beforehand that I would have asked I just didn't feel like doing it for a variety of reasons in the wake of this I could come up with 30 off the top of my head that I would find in terms of the subject matter how they phrase them and how to approach follow-ups that I would think would be better than what was there um and uh and terribly disappointed not just because of my sort of journalistic instincts but for the country I don't know how many more interviews she's going to do but to me this is just an extraordinary waste of an opportunity it doesn't have to be hostile or argumentative or um contentious or gotcha but it should have been an opportunity to really make her uh uh give her the opportunity under hard questioning and follow-ups to explain her s the American people in this unprecedented situation um and again even the questions uh to Governor wals about some of the issues where he's been less than truthful or people in his H behalf have been less than truthful I just I found the whole thing to be a waste of time I don't I don't think we've learned anything and um I think she she benefited quite a bit from the soft treatment that she got