Democratic strategist David Axelrod weighed in on Vice President Harris’s latest city corridor with CNN, calling it a “mixed night.”
“I think it was a mixed night. I think she was very strong coming out of the gate and she obviously came with a purpose,” Axelrod, who’s a CNN contributor, stated throughout a panel interview following the occasion.
Harris fielded questions from CNN’s Anderson Cooper and voters on the city corridor within the battleground state of Pennsylvania. She largely struck to her script, taking questions on the economic system, immigration, the struggle within the Center East and her views on her Republican challenger former President Trump.
Axelrod, in feedback highlighted by Mediaite, admitted that Harris was “obviously well prepared” to reply questions on a latest declare from Trump’s former White Home chief of employees John Kelly that the previous president is a fascist who praised Adolf Hitler’s generals for his or her loyalty.
“She was very strong, as she has been, on abortion rights because she feels passionately about it. She can be clinical on some of these economic issues,” Axelrod stated. “She was great on the long-term care for the elderly, to help people.”
Nonetheless, the strategist took difficulty with among the vice chairman’s responses.
“The factor that will concern me is when she doesn’t need to reply a query, her behavior is to sort of go to phrase salad metropolis, and he or she did that on a few solutions,” he advised the panel.
“One was on Israel. Anderson requested a direct query, ‘would you be stronger on Israel than Trump?’ And there was a seven-minute reply, however none of it associated to the query he was asking,” Axelrod added.
Harris largely relied on her typical speaking factors from previous interviews and speeches when it got here to points just like the Israel-Hamas struggle, immigration and the economic system. She known as for an finish to the struggle in Gaza and for safety for each Palestinians and Israelis — factors she has made earlier than.
Axelrod stated Harris didn’t handle any of the issues concerning the Biden administration’s immigration insurance policies.
“That’s a mistake. Sometimes you have to concede things, and she didn’t concede much,” he stated, including that the vice chairman may have accomplished a greater job relating and interacting with the voters within the crowd.
He additionally argued that the Harris marketing campaign’s basic purpose with lower than two weeks to Election Day must be driving residence one message from the city corridor, the place Harris stated Trump can have an enemies listing, however she can have a to-do listing.
“What are their respective motivations and whose going to actually work on the stuff that is going to impact positively on your life?” he stated.
