CNN’s Jennings slammed for calling Walz Harris’ 'emotional support animal' over interview

28 August 2024

Right-wing CNN pundit Scott Jennings is among the members of the media being scolded – and schooled – for alleging Vice President Kamala Harris’s first interview after accepting the Democratic presidential nomination should be solo, after she gave the highly-coveted confab to CNN. Both Harris and her vice-presidential running mate, Governor Tim Walz, will share the screen Thursday night. Critics say a joint-ticket interview after a vice-presidential running mate announcement or after their party’s nominating convention is generally the rule and not the exception.

“Should CNN have insisted on a one-on-one interview with Harris and turned down a joint interview with Harris and Walz?” asked former CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller. “Too tough to walk away from. But first question to Harris ought to be why should couldn’t appear solo.”

Scott Jennings, a former Karl Rove protégé and veteran of the George W. Bush presidential campaigns and White House, went far further Tuesday night (video below), after CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked, “Is the line now going to be, ‘well, why isn’t she doing it by herself?'”

“I think it’s incredibly weak – weak sauce – to show up with your running mate,” Jennings told Cooper (video below), before suggesting the Vice President didn’t have to power to make the decision.

“The fact that they don’t have enough confidence in her to let her sit, herself, 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 troubling lack of confidence in her political ability. Which also makes you wonder, as a voter, 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? So yes, I think Republicans are going to think it’s pretty weak to show up with effectively someone to take up half the time.”

The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, a longtime political strategist and former Republican, responded on social media, asking Jennings, when Republican Mitt Romney and his 2012 vice-presidential running mate, Paul Ryan gave their “first interview together, was Ryan the support animal for Romney? Or is that @KamalaHarris is a woman & that makes it different?”

At the close of the Republican National Convention in July, Fox News host Jesse Watters announced he would be the first to interview Donald Trump on-camera post-convention, in a joint interview with his running mate, JD Vance.

Talking Points Memo’s award-winning founder and publisher Josh Marshall remarked, “It’s actually almost a rule that the first sit-down after a Veep selection is a joint interview with the ticket.”

Social media users are posting photos of Romney and Ryan, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, all apparently from their first joint sit-down interviews.

There appear to be two recent exceptions. In 2016, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton gave her first post-convention interview, solo, to Fox News’ Chris Wallace. And in 2000, Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore gave his first post-convention interview, solo, to ABC News. Both candidates lost their election bids.

Watch Jennings below or at this link.

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