CNN touted that it grabbed the first interview with Vice President Kamala Harris since the pro-life verdict in the Dobbs case, and anchor Dana Bash repeatedly pressed Harris from the left on Monday about taking all kinds of executive and legislative actions to permit more abortions, including scrapping the filibuster in the Senate.
In the 4 pm hour, Bash asked six questions pressuring Harris from the left on abortion. That was all that was shown. In the 6 pm hour, Bash asked another ten questions pressuring Harris from the left. She ended with two neutral questions about inflation, and a question about whether Donald Trump should be prosecuted for January 6.
Harris liked Bash's first question in the second segment shown:
DANA BASH: There will be women who have babies who don't have the means to support the babies. Will the federal government act at all to increase support there?
KAMALA HARRIS: I'm so glad you raise that point because I am going to say this, and here is the abject, obvious hypocrisy! Those people who say that they do not want to allow a woman to choose, to make the decision with her priest, with her rabbi, with her pastor, that instead the government is going to interfere and make the decision for her, those same people are the ones who voted against the extension of the child tax credit, the same ones who voted against a tax cut for families to pay for child care, the same ones who are voting against paid family leave, the same ones who vote against putting resources into public schools.
Here's how Bash made a list of left-wing pressure questions.
-- Can the president do any of what you just talked about with his pen, without Congress?
-- But what do you say to Democratic voters who argue, wait a minute, we worked really hard to elect a Democratic president and vice president, Democratic-led House, a Democratic-led Senate, do it now?...Well, I'm sorry, when I say, do what, do it now, act legislatively to make abortion rights legal.
-- So, one of the ways you can do it, obviously, one of the only ways that is legislatively, procedurally possible is doing away with the filibuster on this issue. President Biden told my colleague, Anderson Cooper, he would be okay with eliminating the filibuster to pass voting rights and, quote, maybe more. Would you support eliminating the filibuster in order to pass federal legislation for abortion rights?
-- But do you use the bully pulpit to say, yes, I support it?
She couldn't let this go:
BASH: But as the vice president, as the president of the Senate, do you have a position on -- I know you don't have a vote on it but do you have a position on whether the filibuster should be eliminated?
HARRIS: I think the president has spoke, spoken on that issue and --
BASH: Well, he said it more. He kind of left the door open. Is this where he was leaving the door open to?
Like Chuck Todd, Bash wanted to raise the idea of punishing Brett Kavanaugh and other conservative justices for supposedly lying under oath about abortion in their confirmation hearings:
BASH: You were a senator when now-Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh testified about many issues, including obviously Roe at their confirmation hearings. Now, Gorsuch said it had been reaffirmed many times, Kavanaugh called it precedent on precedent. At that particular hearing, you were there. Some senators say that they intentionally misled the public and the Congress. What do you think?
HARRIS: I never believed them. I didn't believe them. That's why I voted against them.
BASH: Do you think that there is anything to be done now? I mean, there is no -- they were under oath.
HARRIS: I think that -- listen, it was clear to me when I was sitting in the chair a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that they were not -- that they were very likely to do what they just did. That was my perspective. That was my opinion. And that's why I voted like I did it.BASH: Big picture, do you worry about two Americas now because of the patchwork of different states having different laws now that Roe v. Wade is no longer law of the land?
HARRIS: I don't believe we have two Americas. I believe that when you look at an issue, for example, like abortion and Roe, a majority of Americans support right of woman to make decisions about her body. When you look at something like the issue of the need for reasonable gun safety laws, the majority of people, including one of the numbers I have seen the majority of gun owners agree we should have reasonable gun safety laws.
So, I don't know buy into the idea that we have two Americas.
This segment of the Wolf Blitzer show was brought to you in part by ServPro.
