Before she became vice president, Kamala Harris had a bad habit of ignoring prepared briefing materials.
She does not appear to have kicked this habit, even after making it all the way to the White House.
“Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared,” the Washington Post reports.
One former staffer told the paper, “It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work. With Kamala, you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully, and it’s not really clear why.”
Naturally, the vice president’s office denies the Washington Post report, attributing the recent exodus of Harris staffers to purely innocent and definitely not dysfunctional reasons.
But it’s all true, or at least plausible, because Harris is routinely unprepared to answer even basic questions. Consider, for example, Harris’s appearance this week on the Today show.
Journalist Craig Melvin asked the vice president whether it’s time for the White House to change up its strategy for battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is Harris’s verbatim response: “It is time for us to do what we have been doing and that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down.”
What possible excuse is there for this comical, nonsensical answer?
Harris has held public office for nearly 17 years. She’s a former district attorney, attorney general, and senator. How does she know so little about how to speak to the press?
Earlier, CBS News’s Margaret Brennan asked Harris, “Was it wrong to consider inflation transitory? I mean, these price spikes seem like they’re going to be with us for a while.”
The vice president’s answer was typically meandering and senseless.
“We have to address the fact that we have got to deal with the fact that folks are paying for gas, paying for groceries, and are — [they] need solutions to it. So let’s talk about that,” said Harris. “Short-term solution includes what we need to do around the supply chain, right? So, we went to the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Savannah, Georgia, and said, ‘Hey, guys, no more five days a week, eight hours a day; 24/7, let’s move the products because people need their product — they need what they need.’ We’re dealing with it in terms of the long term. And that’s about what we need to do to pass Build Back Better. It strengthens our economy. What do we need to do in terms of bringing down the cost of living, right?”
It’s really like an episode of Veep. At least she didn’t misspell “potato” — then we’d have a real crisis of credibility on our hands.
It’s rare that someone can say so much and so little simultaneously. Harris apparently believes the best strategy for responding to a question for which she obviously has not prepared is to keep talking, regardless of the words that come out of her mouth. It’s as if she believes a series of non sequiturs and disjointed inside thoughts will lead her eventually to a coherent response. Unfortunately, for Harris, this strategy rarely works. Rather than allowing the vice president to fake her way to a somewhat competent and intelligent answer, the strategy usually results in the vice president giving a deer-in-headlights response, completely baffled and terrified.
In December, radio host Charlamagne tha God asked Harris a simple rhetorical question: Who is really the president? Joe Biden or Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia?
Before the vice president had a chance to answer, her aides interrupted. They claimed the interview was over, adding later that Harris didn’t hear the question. The host didn’t buy it, remarking with some amusement they were pulling the old I’m-in-a-tunnel-you’re-breaking-up routine. Harris then responded to the question, making liars of her aides.
“Come on, Charlamagne. It’s Joe Biden,” the vice president said. “No, no, no, no. No. No. No. No. It’s Joe Biden. And don’t start talking like a Republican about asking whether or not he’s president.”
She added, “And it’s Joe B-, Joe B-, it’s Joe Biden, and I’m vice president, and my name is Kamala Harris.”
Harris then did her thing, launching into a long-winded response containing no substance whatsoever.
“And the reality is because we are in office, we do the things like the child tax credit, which is going to reduce black child poverty by 50%,” she said. “On track to do that. We do things that are about saying that our Department of Justice is going to do these investigations and require that we end chokeholds and have body cameras. It is the work of saying we’re going to get lead out of pipes and paint because our babies are suffering because of that. It is the work of saying people who ride public transit deserve the same kind of dignity that anybody else does. So, let’s improve that system. It is the work of saying that we have got to bring down prescription drug costs.”
I dare you to make any sense of this response. As best I can tell, she is crediting the Biden administration for doing the hard work of saying some things should change. Congratulations, I guess.
Lastly, let’s not forget Harris’s appearance last year after she had been tasked with handling the border crisis. NBC News’s Lester Holt asked her, “Do you have any plans to visit the border?”
This was not a trick question or a trap, but she fell right into it and still hasn’t freed herself.
“I, at some point, you know. We are going to the border,” she said. “We’ve been to the border. So, this whole, this whole, this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”
“You haven’t been to the border,” Holt clarified.
“And I haven’t been to Europe,” responded the White House official responsible for tackling the U.S. immigration crisis, adding nervously, “I don’t understand the point that you’re making.”
Harris’s aides deny she ignores her prepared briefing materials. But who do they think they’re fooling?
