It has been 39 days since President Joe Biden abdicated and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democrat nominee for president. From that day until Thursday, Harris has refused to be interviewed—a comprehensive media blackout for the entire 39 days—but Thursday she sits down for her first interview with anyone, having chosen CNN’s Dana Bash as her interlocutor. Harris will be accompanied by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
No doubt Walz is there as a blankie of sorts, a hand-holding helpmate to steady the notoriously nervous-on-camera Vice President who is prone to word salad answers, every one of which, if uttered, will greatly damage her campaign. It will thus be important for Bash to establish early on that she has a set of questions for Harris, one for Walz, and one for both of them and that they respect the audience’s right to hear answers from the person the questions is directed to.
Harris has a right to be nervous. Bash is a professional and will not ask questions about the importance of abortion rights or an assault weapons ban as we know what Harris thinks on these issues. The electorate needs to learn things about Harris that we do not currently know.
Harris has never struck many people as being up to the job of vice president much less president. As former President Trump is fond of reminding people, Harris was a risible figure as recently as the day before Biden’s incapacity became obvious at his debate with former President Trump and the subsequent crashing poll numbers obliged him to leave the race. Since that moment, Democrats and their colleagues in legacy media have been going 24/7 to turn Harris from a subject of derision into a brand new and highly polished candidate, one with no connection to Biden or the past three-and-a-half years.
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Bash’s job is to explore in fair fashion whether Harris is ready to be president. Bash is a fine broadcast journalist, the equal of any I have worked with and I have worked with almost all of the major networks’ major names. Bash and I helped moderate four GOP presidential primary debates in 2015-2016, and I recommended her to the Republican National Committee this past spring as a trustworthy professional for the debates it was then awarding.
But CNN is, as a whole, very left wing and very much part of legacy media which has been complicit in helping Harris hide thus far. This one interview will define Bash’s career much like Candy Crowley’s career was defined by her intervention into, and helping hand wrongfully extended to, then President Obama in his second debate with Mitt Romney. Bash does not want to enter the Hall of Shame for Journalists. She doesn’t have to be a bulldog or an ambush artist. She just needs to ask the simple and very direct questions the electorate needs answered.
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Here are questions which Bash should pose to Harris:
1. President Biden named you as the lead in the effort to stem the flow of migrants across our southern border in March of 2021. That did not happen. Why?
2. How many people entered the country without invitation since you and Joe Biden took over?
3. What was your role in the withdrawal from Afghanistan?
4. In your acceptance speech you noted the horrors that occurred in Israel on 10/7 as well as the loss of innocent life in Gaza. Was it your intent to in any way equate the massacre on 10/7 with Israel’s actions in Gaza since then?
5. Did Israel have the right this past weekend to strike Hezbollah in a preemptive attack on the terrorists’ missile force?
6. Does Israel have the right to strike Iran to preempt another attack from Iran?
7. If Israel is attacked by Iran, would it be legitimate for Israel to destroy the oil export facilities on Kharg Island?
8. If China attempts to invade Taiwan, will American military force be used to defend the island nation?
9. Should the Supreme Court be expanded in its size?
10. How much of GDP should be spent on the Pentagon?
11. How do you fix the recruitment crisis our military is experiencing?
12. America’s ability to lead and indeed dominate in AI and supercomputing requires at least a doubling of our total domestic energy output. That is easiest to accomplish with new nuclear power plants. Do you support building them?
13. You were absolutely against fracking in your 2019 presidential campaign. What is your policy on fracking now?
14. What is the highest marginal tax rate you want to see enacted into law and at what level of adjusted gross income should that rate apply?
15. What is the most significant issue on which you have disagreed with President Biden?
Note that these are all direct, simple questions. A rule of serious journalists is not to pose multiple questions at the same time and only the last question above includes a request for two answers as those answers are inextricably connected. One question at a time obliges the guest to focus and respond to that question. Bash is very good at her business. If she stays true to the mission of informing the public, an already excellent reputation will grow even stronger.
Hugh Hewitt is host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
