Kamala Harris is facing pushback from Republican strategists over her decision to bring along fellow Republican Tim Walz for her first one-on-one interview since her surprise decision to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
“I think it’s incredibly lazy to show up with your running mate,” said Scott Jennings, a former George W. Bush White House official. He told CNNwhere he works as a commentator. He said the move showed a “worrying lack of confidence in his political ability.”
“The fact that they don’t have enough confidence in her to let her sit in the front row herself and do a single interview,” he continued, speaking on Anderson Cooper’s evening show on the network. “In fact, I think the moaning and the hemming and hawing about this over the last month shows a worrying lack of confidence in her political ability.”
“I think Republicans are going to think it’s pretty weak to run someone who’s effectively taking up half the time,” he said.
Harris had been under increasing pressure to answer sustained questions about her plans since President Joe Biden disassociated himself from his own reelection bid on July 21. Then, as weeks passed without such an event, she faced demands that she do so with an outlet that would subject her to rigorous questioning.
Teamwork: Vice President Kamala Harris is under fire for bringing her running mate Tim Walz to her CNN interview, her first since Joe Biden ended his campaign.
After promising to do an interview later this month, Harris’ campaign decided to hold an interview that will air Thursday night on CNN with the network’s chief political correspondent and anchor, Dana Bash.
While some commentators have called the spot rosy territory, former President Donald Trump has praised the questioning by moderators Jake Tapper and Bash during the June debate that helped knock Biden out of the race.
Trump told his supporters that they should not criticize the network because “they treated me very fairly” in the debate. “They were both very professional,” he added.
Conservative commentators who had been pushing Harris to appear on camera pounced on the format. “LOL, a joint interview. She simply cannot be left unattended,” wrote Jeff Behar of National Review.
Jennings’ co-panelist Maria Cardona questioned his analysis, saying the selection reflected a “compressed time frame” and said viewers wanted to hear from Walz.
“Doing an interview with her and her vice presidential candidate will give voters the opportunity that they want, I think, to not only hear from her but also to hear from the vice presidential candidate and hear what they will do as a team,” he said.
Harris is conducting the interview as she enjoys a jump in the polls since replacing Biden as the nominee. She has a slight lead in a number of national polls, but it remains to be seen what kind of “bounce” she got from her convention and whether it will hold.
She has also picked up small leads in some of the battleground states and left others in the “to-score” zone. On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report placed North Carolina in the “to-score” zone, the latest indication of how Harris has widened the battleground compared to Biden.
Republican strategist Scott Jennings called the measure “weak sauce” in his own appearance on CNN.
Host Anderson Cooper grilled commentators, including Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, about the move, which has not ended calls for Harris to conduct a solo interview.
Some of the leading forecasters are already… predicting That bounce will fade in a matter of weeks.
In that environment, Harris risks upending what has been a successful strategy and a gain for her convention if she deviates from the script, as she did in her 2021 interview while answering questions from NBC’s Lester Holt about whether she would go to the border.
“We’ve been to the border,” she told him under pressure, adding, “And I haven’t been to Europe.”
It’s not just Harris who can use Walz as a shield. Walz faces potential questions about how he has described his 24-year stint in the National Guard and his decision to retire to run for Congress months before his unit was deployed to Iraq. And while he spent a dozen years in Congress, he hasn’t been immersed in all of Harris’s domestic political fights and still-evolving agenda.
The two traveled together ahead of the Democratic convention in Chicago and are back on the campaign trail today in Savannah, Georgia, another state Democrats believe is back in play with Harris and Walz on the ticket.
DailyMail.com has contacted Harris’ team to ask about the format and whether she will do a solo interview in the future.