EJ Haust, a digital marketing expert and former journalist who lived in Minnesota for 12 years before relocating to Tennessee, said Vice President Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview which aired on CBS Monday was noticeably “heavily edited” and is unlikely to move the needle with voters leading up to the November 5 general election.
Haust said Harris’ total screen time during the “60 Minutes” interview was only “a couple of segments” and was “heavily edited,” which Haust said appeared to be a tactic by the show editors to clean up the vice president’s “word salads.”
“They didn’t give her the full 60 minutes. It was just a couple of segments and there was a little Tim Walz sprinkled in the middle. It was very heavily edited…It was so clear that they were cutting off those – everybody likes to say word salads, I think she actually has aphasia, like legitimately has aphasia – they were clearly cutting off those very long, awkward responses that she typically gives,” Haust said on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
In regards to Harris’ performance during the interview, Haust honed in on one answer Harris gave when pressed by CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker about the “historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years” of the Biden-Harris administration.
Harris did not address the influx of migrants caused by her and President Joe Biden’s policies and instead shifted the blame to Congress, saying, “Solutions are at hand…We need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem.”
Haust reacted to Harris’ answer on the border by saying, “She is just hurting herself with every answer. It doesn’t matter the show.”
Aside from Harris’ performance, Haust offered a compliment to Whitaker for attempting to push Harris on the issue of the border, explaining how she believes journalists are beginning to move away from asking Harris softball questions in an attempt to “save their own reputations.”
“The joy is gone. It is dissipating. I think that [journalists] can see the writing on the wall that the softball questions are hurting their journalistic credibility,” Haust said.
“I think that they’re more concerned with their own reputations right now than they are with bringing Kamala over the finish line,” Haust added.
Harris’ CBS interview came one day after she appeared on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, a “sex positivity” show hosted by Alex Cooper, another media interaction that Haust said is unlikely to move the needle toward Harris in the general election.
“Don’t get me wrong, it has a lot of listeners, but I personally think it doesn’t move the needle any more than Taylor Swift did. I don’t think it does anything for the campaign other than maybe energizing a few more women to go out there and register,” Haust said.
In addition, noting how Harris is scheduled to appear on ABC’s “The View,” CBS’ “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert, and The Howard Stern Show this week, Haust added, “She is going on shows where the audience is most likely going to vote for her.”
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Kamala Harris” by 60 Minutes.
