Welcome back in for Al’s Afternoon Tea. Today, where we’re sampling some of the questions we hope CNN will ask Kamala Harris and Tim Walz tonight.  

Kamala Harris Faces the Cameras, At Last

Tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern time, CNN will air its taped interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It’s Harris’s first interview with anyone since the Democratic powers that be shoved Joe Biden to the beach and herself to the top of the party’s ticket.

Will the duo face tough questioning from Dana Bash? Will they be softballs — or worse, tee balls set up right in front of Harris so that even she can smack ’em to the wall? (By which I mean the outfield wall, not the one she now says she wants to build along the southern border.)

A Democratic strategist told the Washington Examiner the two nominees are appearing in tandem, not because Harris can’t handle a major solo interview, but so they can stress their “joyous partnership.”

We can understand why. The “joyous partnership” not only explains away Harris’s odd, inappropriate cackling, but also negates the stories about what a wretched boss she is. “See how much fun she has with her Number Two? She’s not the thin-skinned bully who drove away 92% of her staff her first two years in the White House.”  

One problem with the “joyous partnership” thing: We’re hiring a president and a vice president, not Regis & Kathie Lee. We want to hire the next leader of the free world, not a guide for a wine tour of Sonoma.

One other thing: Given how much razzing Harris is getting for not doing the interview solo, don’t be surprised if it starts out with just her for a short, puffy segment before Walz joins in. “Oh, we always intended for her to answer some questions solo,” the campaign will say.

Here’s a question for you. Meghan McCain posted this yesterday. 

I don’t know if democrats fully realize how damaging the image of the possible first woman president being incapable of giving an interview alone without the presence of a man to help her is.

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) August 28, 2024

Given that male candidates do tend to kick off their post-convention campaign with tandem interviews with their running mates, is it fair to hold Harris to a different standard? Or because she is a female, does she have to go the extra mile to show she can handle the top gig? Or did she throw away the opportunity to be treated like a normal candidate when she fended off interview requests for more than a month? 

Boy, Do I Have Questions for Kamala

The Trump campaign posted in an X thread a list of 10 questions they want to see CNN ask Harris.

Last night, CNN announced that Kamala has mustered up the courage to sit for a *joint* interview — after 39 days of hiding out from reporters.

Here are 10 questions @DanaBashCNN MUST ask Kamala Harris…

🧵

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 28, 2024

And they’re the ones you would expect. Things like:

• Why did you support executive actions like stopping construction of the wall and halting deportations that intentionally unsecured the border?
• You supported the Defund the Police movement, and have said that having more police doesn’t mean having more safety. Why do you want fewer police officers on our streets?
• Trump was the first president in decades to start no new wars. Under your watch, wars are popping up in Europe and the Middle East. Why is that?

But I have a dozen questions of my own.

1. Why did you wait so long to do an interview? We’re so close to November that coffee joints are already selling pumpkin spice drinks.
2. When you were California Attorney General, journalist David Daleiden found proof that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling aborted babies’ organs — but rather than investigate a major donor that was committing heinous acts, you raided Daleiden and tried putting him in jail. Your administration is currently trying to jail your political opponent as we speak. What separates you from previous communist dictators like Castro and Mao?
3. Speaking of Mao, why are you comfortable having as vice president of the United States someone who for decades has expressed an affection for him and the violent Chinese communist regime?
4. In a related question, when and why did you decide that your father, who was a Marxist professor, was wrong in his views?
5. You keep talking about your record as a prosecutor. Yet when you became San Francisco’s district attorney, you dropped a case your predecessor had been building against numerous pedophile priests — right after their lawyer dropped a lot of money into your campaign coffers. What do you have to say to the victims of those priests?
6. You were in D.C. on Monday. Why didn’t you attend the memorial service for the 13 military service members killed during the blown Afghanistan withdrawal that you approved?
7. If you weren’t in charge of the border for the last three years, what the heck have you been doing all that time? 
8. Can you explain why 92% of your staff at the White House quit? You actually have a long  history of staff upheaval in California, in the Senate, and in the White House. What does that say about your ability to run the executive branch of government? 
9. You’ve stolen several policy ideas from Donald Trump recently. Do you think the DOJ should raid your house, too?
10. Please explain why it is now okay for males to actually change in locker rooms with young girls. What do you say to women, particularly those who have experienced sexual assault, about why they’re the problem because they protest being forced to share bathrooms with men?
11. You want to use taxpayer money to pay for health care for illegal immigrants and sex-change surgeries for male prisoners. What the heck?
12. If elected, you would be the first female president. What is a “woman”?

Here’s a crazy question that woke me up at 4 a.m.: The Trump team wants CNN to ask, “Why did you conceal Joe Biden’s cognitive decline from the American people?” Great question. But I have some more: Biden has been virtually nonexistent ever since his “medical emergency” in Las Vegas the week before he dropped out of the presidential race. First, what really happened? Second, is the real reason you disappeared for a week after your convention and have refused to answer questions for a month is because you have been forced to take on the duties of a totally incapacitated Biden and didn’t want to risk being asked about it? 

Or are you really just that scared of messing up and fumbling an interview in public that you haven’t already had a dry run (or mostly dry run) through in private?

Five More Questions CNN Would Never Dare Ask

Yes, Harris should be thrown fastballs and curves, but also some high and tight heat … and a few knuckleballs. 

1. Did you ever apologize to Willie Brown’s wife for dating him while he was married to her?
2. Would you advise young women that developing sexual relationships with powerful men is a proper path for career advancement?
3. You say you were the “last person in the room” with Joe Biden when he authorized the Afghanistan withdrawal. Did he ever try to sniff your hair? 
4. Is Montel Williams as nice in person as he seemed on TV?
5. Where the heck is Beyonce?

Harris and the High Schoolers

Meanwhile, Harris was out and about yesterday in Georgia, day one of a two-day bus tour with Walz. At one stop she chatted with high schoolers.

Why is Kamala speaking to these high schoolers as if they're toddlers? pic.twitter.com/UqxRm05w4Y

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 28, 2024

How would you have reacted if someone talked to you like this when you were in high school? (I confess my answer might be, “Is it getting me out of biology class? Then fine.”)

Ten Questions for Tim Walz

I’ve also got questions for Tim Walz.

1. So, governor. What would you say Kamala Harris’s biggest accomplishment has been as vice president?
2. Harris now wants to build the border wall. You say you want to buy ladders to help illegal immigrants get over it. Why will you win that argument in the White House?
3. On Tuesday, you told a convention of firefighters, “We will have your back.” Yet as governor of Minnesota, you sat on your hands when rioters burned your biggest city and then-Senator Harris sent money to bail the few who were arrested out of jail. How does creating more work for firefighters, putting their lives in danger from violent anarchists, equate to “having their back”?
4. Besides, given how you abandoned your troops, why should anyone be confident you’ll have their back when the heat is on?
5. Speaking of the 2020 riots, did your wife like the smell of all the cities burning, or was there something particularly appealing about the smell from the fires in Minneapolis? 
6. What is your most poignant memory of your time in combat?
7. Do you think George Washington would like Chairman Mao as much as you do? Why or why not?
8. Kamala Harris seems to have lost track of around 300,000 unaccompanied minors who crossed our border. Why are you okay with that record, knowing a good many of these children are being trafficked for sex or labor? Or do you only care about kids you can abort, take from their parents for sex changes, recruit into your high school clubs for gay children … or drag overseas so you can explain to them the joys of Communist China?
9. Though you were just an assistant high school football coach at one point in your career, you still like being called “Coach.” So, Coach. What do you have to say about a player who is too skittish to take the field and take the hits that come with the game? And when they are in the game they fumble the ball? Is that who you want quarterbacking your team?
10. Finally, how ticked were you that Harris’s team lied about that convention appearance by Beyonce? 

 

On the Stream Menu

Dr. Michael Brown asks and answers, “Can a Vote for Trump Be Morally Justified?”

Patrice Johnson says, “People — Not Corrupt Politician — Should Decide Elections.” 

I would make that living people. But that’s just me. 

 

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.