Katie Couric criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for her “inability to really succinctly answer questions at times” that left her and other voters “frustrated” to the point where people were saying, “Answer the goddamn question, please!”
“I always find that people do better when they’re asked really challenging, pointed questions. I always felt that way about Hillary Clinton,” Couric, the former NBC “Today” co-anchor, said Thursday on her podcast, “Next Question with Katie Couric.”
“If you are giving them these almost weird, like, amorphous softballs, it’s really hard to kind of hone your message and be succinct and say what you really need to say.”
Couric’s guest on the podcast was Jen Psaki, the MSNBC host and former White House press secretary under President Biden. The two discussed the fallout from the election, which was won decisively by former President Donald Trump.
Psaki nodded as Couric described how Harris would not provide clear answers to questions.
“I also felt that, and again, I think [Harris] really did well in so many areas, but I was frustrated by her inability to really succinctly answer questions at times, Jen,” Couric continued.
“Like, if she was asked about changing the Supreme Court at that CNN town hall, she had an opportunity to talk about ethics and what, you know, [Supreme Court Justices Samuel] Alito and Clarence Thomas were doing, and she answered, like, in one sentence, and then went on to something that had nothing to do with the question,” Couric said.
“You know, people notice that, and it’s like, ‘Answer the goddamn question, please!’”
Couric was also critical of Harris for refusing to do any interviews for several weeks after she was picked to succeed Biden as the nominee, saying it was “making me crazy as a consumer.”
“What was that?” the former “Today” host asked.
“I don’t know,” Psaki responded before speculating that the Harris campaign was prepping for the debate.
“She should’ve been everywhere,” Couric later added.
Couric also asked Psaki about the infamous segment on “The View” during which Harris told co-host Sunny Hostin that “not a thing comes to mind” after she was asked a relatively easy question about what she would do differently from Biden.
“Why didn’t Joe Biden say, ‘Listen, I know you’re going to have to separate yourself from this administration. Let’s talk about areas where you can, where they’re legitimate, and Godspeed,’” Couric wondered.
“Because it — I think somebody wrote that it was almost as if they were more afraid of hurting Joe Biden’s feelings than winning the election.”
Psaki answered by saying it was a “unique and painful summer” for Biden after he quit his re-election efforts.
The former White House press secretary said there was a “fragility” around Biden due to him being pressured to quit the race by Democratic Party power brokers such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Psaki said Biden was “beloved” by the party and that Harris had “navigated the politics of that in a very tricky way.”
“It seems to me, if I were running for president, Jen, I would sit down with my brain trust, and I’d be like, ‘Okay, let’s play out these questions. What am I gonna say?’” Couric said.
“And I would have had a template that I would have carried around with me in every interview, and I would have reviewed them and said, you know, ‘This is what I believe, and this is how I’m going to handle a question like that.’ Now, why didn’t they — it just didn’t seem like that was done. Am I crazy?” she wondered.
