A New York Times report tore into Vice President Kamala Harris’ interview with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday and said the Democratic presidential candidate stuck to her strategy of avoiding answering questions directly.
“Since Ms. Harris began granting more interviews in recent days, her media strategy has been to sit with friendly inquisitors who are not inclined to ask terribly thorny questions or press her when her responses are evasive,” the New York Times’ report on the “takeaways” from Harris’ interview read.
Harris sat for her first solo interview with a major network on Wednesday just days after Ruhle defended the vice president against criticisms that she was dodging questions and avoiding policy specifics during the interviews she has done.
“Ms. Harris responded to the fairly basic and predictable questions with roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer,” the report continued.
The report noted Ruhle’s praise and defense for Harris during her appearance on “Real Time With Bill Maher.” It also referenced an interview Ruhle did with President Biden in May 2023 and said, “Ruhle did not press him after his stumbling answers and praised him throughout the 14-minute discussion.”
The Times added that Ruhle failed to press Harris on whether she knew anything about Biden’s health prior to the June debate that eventually led to him dropping out.
“Ms. Ruhle joined Ms. Harris in attacking Mr. Trump (“His plan is not serious, when you lay it out like that”) and avoided posing tricky questions about positions Ms. Harris supported during her 2020 presidential campaign or what, if anything, she knew about Mr. Biden’s physical condition or mental acuity as his own campaign deteriorated,” the report read.
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The NYT report concluded that this could be “perhaps why Ms. Harris agreed to the interview in the first place.”
During the interview, Ruhle asked where Harris would “get the money” to fund her pricey economic proposals if Republicans on Capitol Hill block her efforts to raise the corporate tax rate.
“Do you still go forward with those plans and borrow?” Ruhle asked.
“But we’re going to have to raise corporate taxes,” Harris responded. “We’re going to have to make sure that the biggest corporations and billionaires pay their fair share. That’s just it. It’s about paying their fair share.”
While discussing the interview on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” Ruhle conceded that Harris “doesn’t answer the question.”
