Watch: CNN Contributor Criticizes Kamala Harris Live On-Air, Harshly Critiques Her - 'Incredibly Weak'

At long last.

Kamala Harris is set to participate in an interview. After more than a month as the unofficial Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has finally decided to respond to questions from the national media — who, to be fair, haven’t been overly insistent about it.

But this is something she needs to do, if only to assure voters that we won’t be electing this Kamala Harris president in November:

So, at last, this Thursday, Harris will be interviewed by CNN anchor Dana Bash, as reported by the Washington Examiner. But not just any interview — it’s going to be a one-on-one. Or rather, a one-on-one with a twist.

If that doesn’t quite make sense, it won’t make any more sense when spelled out plainly. Yes, Harris is sitting down for an interview … with her running mate by her side. It seems that a woman aiming to be the leader of the free world might need a man to step in if things get tough. If this were a movie plot, the director would likely be canceled on the spot. But this is reality, and so Harris will have Gov. Walz with her during the interview with Bash.

Aside from hoping that this doesn’t happen on a couch, considering how that particular piece of furniture seems to give Walz some … um, thoughts, this comes off as utterly pathetic, as conservative CNN contributor Scott Jennings highlighted in a segment on Wednesday.

“I think it’s incredibly weak, weak sauce to show up with your running mate,” said Jennings, a former senior adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “The fact that they don’t have enough confidence in her to let her go it alone, the actual top of the ticket, and do a single interview.

“In fact, I think the hand wringing and the gyrations over this, over the last month, show a troubling lack of confidence in her political ability, which also makes you wonder as a voter, ‘Well, what kind of president would you be if this kind of a small-time decision, can we do an interview or not, what does that look like for your decision-making process?’”

There are several takeaways from this, beyond the glaringly obvious — which is that Jennings is spot on.

Maybe it’s just me, but this has a similar tone to CNN’s handling of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. It wasn’t seen as an issue, much less mentioned … until it was, when it became too blatant for even the channel once dubbed the Clinton News Network to overlook.

Suddenly, the questions began. Then the June 27 debate happened, and in the post-debate analysis, Anderson Cooper grilled Kamala Harris while Van Jones, visibly disturbed, essentially suggested Biden should step aside.

We now know that the smoldering controversy ignited during the debate eventually became a full-blown crisis that led to Biden being sidelined. But at the time, for CNN to call for the sitting president to step down immediately after the debate was unprecedented. Yet, after dismissing concerns about Biden’s age for two election cycles, CNN abruptly shifted gears and began covering Biden’s decline obsessively as if making up for lost time.

On the matter of Harris avoiding the press, CNN has largely been silent as well. The woman is busy, after all. She just became the presidential nominee after her boss ended his relationship with America via text message! She’ll answer questions … eventually. Meanwhile, did you see the crowd she drew in Atlanta? Or Phoenix? Or maybe Detroit? And by the way, did you hear J.D. Vance is odd?

So, when Harris promised at the beginning of August that she’d do an interview before Sept. 1 — not a media briefing, just an interview, presumably with a friendly outlet — that was enough for them. Apparently, that’s the kind of leisurely pace we can expect from a woman who wants to lead the free world.

But when she agreed to the interview with her running mate for support, even CNN couldn’t ignore that something was off. When Anderson Cooper is tossing Scott Jennings — one of the network’s token Republicans — a softball like this, it feels like there’s some internal alarm bells going off at a network that’s not known for being tough on Democrats. This setup doesn’t sit right, and Anderson Cooper, among others, recognizes that.

Whether Dana Bash will actually press Harris and Walz harder because of this insistence on a joint appearance remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: Regardless of how well Thursday night goes for team Kamala, it won’t do anything to shake her reputation as a disorganized, flustered, and paralyzed verbal and mental wreck when she faces adversarial questions alone.

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