CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is defending himself against frustrated social media users accusing him of grilling Vice President Kamala Harris during Wednesday’s town hall, and is rejecting the notion that difficult questions for political candidates are taboo.
“I believe in asking questions and probing people’s arguments and trying to reveal people’s arguments, what’s true and what’s not,” he told his guest, “Breakfast Club” co-host Charlamagne tha God, on Thursday, before adding: “I’m not on MSNBC for a reason.” The suggestion there, of course, is that the competing network is merely an echo chamber.
Cooper expectedly asked serious policy questions Wednesday and doubled down when Harris voiced support for building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, which she previously called “stupid.” Social media users felt Cooper was too hard on the nominee.
“I was looking up some comments about my grief podcast, and I came across this whole inundation from people who are Harris supporters saying to me online today, ‘How dare you? What a betrayal that you would ask her these questions,’” Cooper said Thursday.
“And I’m like, you misunderstand what my job is,” he added. “I’m not on MSNBC, and no disrespect … they’re very talented, but I don’t watch it. I’m not interested in watching what these overpaid, blow-dried anchors think … I’m not interested in the anchor’s opinion.”
This on-air discussion about his standards and practices was ultimately sparked by Charlamagne himself, who argued CNN spends too much time questioning Harris and her track record than continuously reiterating that her GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump, is a fascist.
Cooper noted that this digression wasn’t even the point of their interview and exclaimed that he doesn’t “know why I’m talking about myself,” but defended his credibility by stating that he’s “not a pundit.”
“I’m not on some other network for a reason,” he told Charlamagne. “I’m on CNN, because I want to talk to Republicans, I want to talk to Democrats, and I want to learn from them. I don’t think I have the answers. I’m willing to change my mind.”
Harris was criticized on social media herself, meanwhile, after bringing up grocery prices when asked by Cooper what she’d say to people who don’t want to vote for her based on the Biden administration’s response to the war in Gaza.
While even former White House advisers David Axelrod and Van Jones respectively decried her “word salad” answers, ardent Harris supporters on social media are calling for CNN to fire Cooper — who they believe “showed his true colors.”
