Vice President Kamala Harris is facing criticism for dodging questions and avoiding specifics in recent interviews, as media pundits demand more direct answers from her. “This week, she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer a single question straight, and people could see it. She is an artless dodger,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, suggesting that voters now face a choice between “awful and empty.”
Harris spoke to journalists this week in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NAJB) and sat down with Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed her for president at the Democratic National Convention. However, she has yet to hold a formal press conference since becoming the nominee. “She owes us these answers. It is wrong that she can’t or won’t address them. It is disrespectful to the electorate,” Noonan continued, calling her avoidance of questions on illegal immigration “political malpractice.”
The New York Times’ Todd Purdum, a former White House correspondent, argued that Harris cannot afford to be vague. “In a campaign where Donald Trump fills our days with arrant nonsense and dominates the national discussion—and polls show a tight race with Ms. Harris trailing behind Joe Biden’s 2020 support with some groups—the vice president can’t rely solely on rehearsed answers and stump speeches that may not resonate with voters or influence the national conversation,” Purdum wrote.
He added that clear, direct responses from Harris would resonate with the electorate. “Decades of covering politicians have convinced me that direct, succinct answers and explanations from Ms. Harris would go a long way—perhaps further than she realizes—toward convincing voters that they know enough about her and her plans.”
Contrarily, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that Harris doesn’t need to be overly specific about her policies. Clinton noted that despite her extensive policy proposals during her 2016 run against Trump, it wasn’t the deciding factor for voters. “I gave speeches about it. It was on our website. I wrote a book with Tim Kaine about it. We had lots of policy.
At the end of the day, that’s not what caused people to vote for me or against me, and I think the Harris campaign knows that,” Clinton said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “They know that you’ve got to cross a threshold, which they have more than done, in terms of what kind of governance you’re promising.”
