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Vice President Kamala Harris offered an awkward response to a question about President Donald Trump during her CNN interview on Thursday.
Harris also sought to quickly skip to the next question when asked about her opponent by CNN’s Dana Bash.
“Speaking of Republicans, I want to ask you about your opponent, Donald Trump. I was a little bit surprised, people might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face to face,” Bash began.
“That’s going to change soon, but what I want to ask you about is what he said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity,” she continued.
“Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please,” Harris replied, laughing.
“That’s it?” Bash asked.
“That’s it,” Harris offered.
The answer was part of only approximately 16 minutes that Harris spoke during the hour-long interview. Running mate Tim Walz consumed approximately one-fourth of the speaking time.
The interview was also pre-recorded, with Harris appearing to look down to use notes in many of her responses. The interview also included traditional broadcast commercial breaks.
The interview featured several segments from the campaign trails with Harris, consuming more of the interview time in what was expected as the first major sit-down conversation with the vice president.
Critics quickly attacked the performance as weak, including comments from Trump’s campaign.
“After 39 days of silence, Kamala Harris (and her safety blanket, Timothy Walz) finally sat down with CNN — and it was so bad, her handlers will never let her do another interview again,” one Team Trump post on X stated.
Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds also criticized Harris over her interview performance during a Friday morning interview on Fox News.
“Go back and watch her body language. When she talked about her niece, she looked at Dana Bash, she’s smiling, she looks relaxed. But when you ask her about her policies… she’s looking down, she’s looking small,” Donalds stated.
“She doesn’t look like she has confidence in what she’s saying, because she doesn’t believe it. She’s trying to remember what they coached her to say. That is not the leadership our country needs in this pressing hour. We need Donald J. Trump,” he continued.