A Big, Big Thank You to Dana Bash

Those GOP talking points were exactly the right questions to ask

Following the first major interview of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, I saw a flood of their supporters online attacking Dana Bash of CNN for drawing her questions almost exclusively from Trump-MAGA attack lines. Some typical posts on Threads :

“MSM is certainly in the GOP's hip pocket.”

“I hope Dana Bash apologized to VP Kamala Harris and Gov Tim Walz after that ridiculous interview.”

“If she has any integrity or self-awareness, Dana Bash should be embarrassed this morning for parroting asinine MAGA talking points in front of V.P. Harris as if they were legitimate journalistic queries.”

I don’t agree with complainers. I’ll grant it was not the most incisive hour of journalism. It was far from the kind of interview that, say, Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow, or Chris Hayes might have conducted. Nor was it handled the way David Remnick of The New Yorker, Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic, or Kara Swisher might have done it. But it was fine.

I say that, not in the name of journalism (not my field), but simply as a partisan. The tack Dana Bash took in her questions served the purposes of the campaign as well as I could expect. I’ll give you three reasons why.

1. Target audience

I’m not bothered that the base didn’t like the interview. It wasn’t meant for them. By any metric—donations, volunteers, registrations, enthusiasm—the choir is already singing our hearts out. It would have been a wasted opportunity if the campaign had used the occasion of their first interview simply to talk to their base. If that’s what they wanted, they could have held it on MSNBC or done it online with Brian Tyler Cohen or Meidas Touch Network. Instead, they chose to reach out to undecided voters. Of the three major cable news networks, CNN is the one generally seen as the most mainstream. You want to preach to the choir? Hold a rally. You want to reach people who are still kicking the tires? Go on CNN.

It should have been clear from watching the Convention that the Harris-Walz campaign aims to attract the broadest possible anti-Trump coalition. Yes, they offered plenty of red meat (plus some veggie burgers) to the base. But it was striking to see how far they went to embrace a broader audience. They gave Republican Adam Kinzinger a prime speaking spot on Thursday night, very close to Harris’s acceptance speech. And her acceptance speech itself was constructed sans woke, sans identity politics, and with a robust, almost Reaganite foreign-policy segment (“As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”).

The fact that Harris’s poll numbers continue to climb shows that, despite the country’s calcified political divisions, there are still persuadable voters out there. The needle is moving. The campaign understands that the assignment is, in fact, two assignments: to activate the base and also to grow it.

Anyone who has had any sales training knows that overcoming objections is key to closing. In that vein, answering MAGA attack lines helps to land undecided voters and wavering Republicans.

2. The candidates were unfazed.

For weeks, one question looming over the first interview, was how would the candidates do without the presence of teleprompters and the structure of scripted speeches. Now we know. They did just fine, thank you. Why don’t fans just take the win?

Another looming question: how Harris would justify moving toward the center and away from some of the more progressive positions she took in the 2020 primary campaign.—banning fracking, medicare for all, and reducing unauthorized border crossings to misdemeanors. Those questions needed answers. Call them “gotcha” questions if you must, but the good news is that none of them got her. She had strong, confident answers for them all.

The most obnoxious question of the night was how would Harris respond to Trump’s challenging her racial identity. Not to worry. That question teed up her best answer. A brisk: “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.” And to the followup, “That’s it?” she replied, “That’s it.”

With that, Kamala Harris let Dana Bash—and the rest of us—know that she would not allow Trump to seize control of the conversation and drive it into a racist rat hole. How can anyone resent Dana Bash for setting that up for Harris? I’d score it not as an attack, but as an assist.

3. A free hour of debate prep

Finally, this point: since Bash’s list of questions was drawn almost exclusively from GOP attack lines, the interview amounted to a bonus hour of preparation for Harris’s September 10 debate with Donald Trump. Unlike a private practice session, this prep was done in full view of a national audience. It was done under pressure. It carried risk. It was an actual game that affected her standing and not just a scrimmage. Think of it as an out-of-town tryout before opening on Broadway.

That’s why, as a strong Harris supporter, I want to say, thank you, Dana Bash, for asking the questions you did. It wouldn’t surprise me if we eventually learn that your questions happened to be high on the list of questions that the campaign not only anticipated, but also hoped you would ask. Harris and Walz were certainly prepared to answer them.