Last Updated on 04/09/2024 by Arun jain
Dana Bash has hit back at critics of her interview with the vice president Kamala HarrisSays she knows it was “only right” because she “p**sed” both left and right.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, CNNThe chief political correspondent of the admitted that a primetime meeting with Harris and Running Mate last Thursday Tim Walz From Bash’s opening line about what he would achieve on his first day in office to not asking follow-up questions at key moments – Harris was bricked over everything, including letting Trump close the question. attacks on her ethnic identity.
“The fact that nobody was happy in their captive camps made me think I was probably almost in the right place,” Bash told The Daily Beast. “With everything I do, I think of 2,000 things I would have said or done differently.
“My job wasn’t to nail her,” Bash added. “My job was to illuminate and gain an understanding of her position, her sensibilities, her approach and her goals.
“The right wing was very down on me because they said I was too soft on him, and the left wing was very down because they thought I was too hard on him, or used Trump’s talking points, Which I don’t really understand, because the questions to ask her are the questions to ask her. Whether Trump uses them or not – they are what they are.
interview drew 6.3 million viewers according to Nielsen’s final same-day ratings. It was CNN’s best 9pm hour since the June 27 presidential debate co-hosted by Bash, averaging more than 9.5 million viewers on the network.
Besh elaborated on the interview and what she had to say about the racism faced by female news anchors in an interview to promote her new book, America’s Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History (HarperCollins).
Bash’s book, co-authored with David Fisher (who has also co-authored books with Bill O’Reilly and Dan Abrams), describes the violence and political chaos that led to the 1872 gubernatorial election in Louisiana – election interference and Political violence that resonates today – told through the lens of Louisiana Governor Henry Warmoth.
The book’s release comes as Bash himself is under scrutiny for an interview with Harris, in which Bash chose not to press Harris further after the vice president refused to respond to Trump’s attacks on her racial identity.
“The same old, tired playbook,” Harris said. “Next question, please.”
“His non-response was an answer that spoke volumes that I really didn’t think there was a need for further follow-up,” Bash said.
Bash acknowledged why she needed to ask Harris the question—the vice president hasn’t done an interview since becoming a presidential candidate, and at the National Association of Black Journalists convention “it was a weird thing that Trump did” when he suggested to Harris that “being black happened .”
Bash said Harris’ decision to engage with Trump’s smear shows a glimpse into her personality and how she intends to deal with such attacks.
“How she handles it — because unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse because of the nature of politics, and it already is — she has such a window; it’s not a window of her gender, it’s not a window of her race, it’s a window that How he approaches the attack, the challenge, how he approaches these things as a leader,” Bash said.
Bash admits that not asking to follow up with the interview was “an example of 700 things I could have done differently”. “But, to me, the way I took it was that she was trying to minimize it by not engaging with it, which I understand.”
quite moderate State of the Union—on alternate weeks with Jake Tapper — and hosts CNN’s Daily Show Within politics. She is one of five women who sit in the Sunday show anchor chair. But the most traditionally prestigious anchor position, the networks’ nightly newscasts, will be all-male when Norah O’Donnell departs after the election. CBS Evening News. Bash suggested that O’Donnell was a victim of sexism, saying she worked harder than her consistently high-rated NBC and ABC rivals.
“I think Lester Holt and David Muir are fantastic reporters and great anchors on the evening news,” Bash said. “However, I defy you to compare the way Norah worked her tail off with any other anchor, not only who has been around, but perhaps historically.”
O’Donnell “works so hard, she always goes the extra mile — and she’s a mother of three teenagers,” Bash said. “She does it all because she loves it. That’s her journalism.”
Women in news “have to work 10 times harder than men to prove themselves,” Bash said, and O’Donnell is “like that Ginger Rogers, backwards and in heels.”
The achievements of anchors such as Katie Couric, O’Donnell, Jane Pauley and Bash themselves have shown how far female anchors have come in the fight for equality with their male counterparts, Bash said. “Of course we have, but we’re not there yet, and not even close, and I look forward to the day when that happens.”
“I think men can last forever on TV or in any job. It’s gotten better for women, but we’re not there yet.”
– Dana Bash
Ageism on screen for women has improved somewhat – and there was now a “sisterhood” among women in the news industry, Bash claimed.
“It’s crazy. It’s changed,” Bash said. “You can age as a woman on television now — not all, not perfect, but old, though still not like men. I think men can last forever on TV or in any job. It has gotten better for women, but we’re not there yet. Also, women have sisterhood. my mom [Francie Weinman Schwartz] Studied journalism at Northwestern, and then was in local news. She was one of the first women in the newsroom, and she was fierce. The women were brutal towards each other as they competed for that one slot. Right now, there are so many of us, and we have so much in common with what we do—especially now that so many of us have kids and families, and we’re balancing it all. We definitely connect with each other, which is great. (Bash has a 13-year-old son with her ex-husband John King, who is CNN’s chief national correspondent.)
Besh declined to address Megyn Kelly’s attacks on her CNN colleague Kaitlan Collins. Callie attacked Collins appeared on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast last week after defending CNN as “boring” and a “cold-hearted b***h.” (Kelly admitted that she did not know Collins personally.)
“I’ll give you the Kamala Harris answer on this one and say it’s clickbait,” Bash said firmly. “Next question.”
Writing about Henry Warmoth for his new book, “The love and hate for him, the passion that people feel both for and against, is very similar to what we see for Donald Trump,” Bash said.
“I think the answer to the question of whether Donald Trump is a threat to democracy is what happened on January 6, 2021, and the months leading up to it,” Bash added. “And what it was a threat to, we witnessed at the time, and what it was part of preventing, was the peaceful transfer of power. Whether you call it a threat to democracy or to the democratic process in a broader democratic system – that’s for you to decide.
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