“Word salad city.” That is how Democratic strategist and senior CNN political commentator David Axelrod described the responses of his party’s presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, to tough questions at her Pennsylvania town hall last Wednesday evening.
“There was a seven-minute answer”—Axelrod observed of Harris’ response to moderator Anderson Cooper‘s question on Israel—”but none of it related to the question [Cooper] was asking.” Nor was Axelrod impressed with Harris’ verbose response on immigration, a vital issue on which the vice president has performed abysmally despite “border czar” being one of her few assignments as Joe Biden‘s vice president. “That’s a mistake,” Axelrod continued in his critique, “sometimes you have to concede things, and she didn’t concede much.”
Axelrod was not alone in his criticism. His fellow CNN commentator, former Barack Obama White House adviser Van Jones, admitted that “the word salad stuff gets on my nerves. I think that some of [Harris’] evasions are not necessary.” While both Jones and Axelrod found some bright points in the vice president’s performance, their critical comments less than two weeks before the November 5 election suggest that the mainstream media is hedging on her prospects.
Perhaps it should. Over the past several weeks, momentum in the presidential race has shifted toward Republican nominee and former president Donald J. Trump, who according to most polls has reversed the slight leads Harris took after assuming the Democratic nomination. Figures published by RealClearPolitics, which compiles daily averages of polling data, now show Trump leading in the seven biggest swing states and matching or even surpassing Harris in the national popular vote. If he should be reelected, the media establishment will demand answers. Its corporate owners are already starting to show a reluctance to antagonize a possible new Trump administration. In recent days, media coverage has become ever readier both to see and present Harris through a critical lens that might have been spared a better Democratic candidate.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks as she replies to a question from an attendee during a CNN Town Hall moderated by television host Anderson Cooper (R) at Sun Center studios in Aston, Pennsylvania, on October 23, 2024.
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP/Getty Images
Indeed, CNN’s town hall went poorly for the vice president. Cooper and various studio guests asked tough questions, including about the number of migrants who have crossed the southern border—a topic Fox News host Bret Baier pressed Harris on at the start of her tense interview with him the previous week. Cooper’s insistence on getting a firm answer was so determined that the CNN anchor was accused of racism across social media and faced allegations that he would never have been as tough on Trump. CNN’s post-town hall “fact checking” column found that nearly all of Harris’ claims were either false or required “context” that she did not provide.
Other left-leaning outlets have joined in the critique. In California, Harris’ home state, the Los Angeles Times fell into an uproar over the paper’s decision not to endorse any candidate, a decision that provoked the resignation of its editorial editor, among others. For the first time in a generation, the Washington Post has also refused to make an endorsement, provoking anger and resignations from its staff, mass resentment from its liberal readership, and thousands of subscription cancellations.
After Harris’ town hall, Washington Post columnists Matt Bai, Shadi Hamid, and Jim Geraghty all agreed that her “Trump = Bad” message might be too tired and too simplistic to succeed. Hamid found the town hall “frustrating to watch” and accused Harris of “completely punting on tough questions.” Politico approvingly reported a sign across from Harris’ Philadelphia hotel that admonished her to give “shorter answers” and “get to the point.” Even at the New York Times, which has not only endorsed Harris but described Trump as “unfit to lead,” one columnist editorialized that her decision to label her opponent a “fascist” in the town hall was “politically ill judged” and “tired and meaningless.” Elsewhere, the paper criticized Harris for avoiding any substantive policy discussion during the event.
Anything can happen in the dwindling days before the election, but as Harris underperforms and her campaign weakens, the old certainties of legacy media may no longer hold.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
