NYTimes critique of Harris town hall: She 'gave circular answers' to 'direct questions' from voters

Voters asked Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, "direct questions" at the CNN town hall on Wednesday night and she "gave circular answers," according to a New York Times critique of her performance.

"Harris got one fairly straightforward question from a self-described Jewish independent voter about how she would deal with antisemitism on college campuses," wrote Reid J. Epstein and Lisa Lerer of the Times.

"In an answer that stretched for more than five minutes, she briefly touched on hate crimes but then jumped into a discursive tangent that addressed Mr. Trump’s reported invocations of Hitler, his relationships with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir V. Putin and his actions during the coronavirus pandemic," they wrote.

The authors of the piece said that moment was "illustrative of a pivot Ms. Harris made throughout the night from the short, sharp and pointed questions that were asked of her to the long, winding answers she preferred to give."

The authors also said Harris would have probably performed better in a debate setting. Former President Trump had said he would not do any other debates after the first debate between the two candidates in September. Trump debated President Biden in June before he dropped out of the race.

"Attacking Mr. Trump, it turns out, is more effective when he’s standing right there. Ms. Harris’s strong performance in her first — and only — presidential debate against her rival demonstrated her ability to bait him into a misstep," wrote Epstein and Lerer. "But without him standing nearby, her attacks on him appeared more like dodges of questions about her own plans than crisp responses about what she would do as president."

The authors said that Trump's decision not to participate in further debates "may not be the best for voters eager to size up the candidates" but Harris' "performance Wednesday night showed why it might benefit Mr. Trump."

Their critique echoed commentary from David Axelrod, former advisor to former President Barack Obama, who said Harris often went to "word salad city" in response to direct questions from voters.