No matter where they are from, Republicans are used to taking questions from usually hostile reporters. Since most journalists lean left (but not here at the Washington Examiner!), any Republican who has survived at least one election cycle knows how to answer tough questions.
But not Democrats. And especially not Democrats from deep-blue states like California.
“By the way, this is a profile piece, this is not a gotcha piece, right?” former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is heard asking KTLA reporter Annie Rose Ramos.
“Look, I think these questions are fair. It’s in order to learn about you as a candidate,” Ramos replied, adding, “I don’t know how you define profile, but I’d like to begin the interview.”
“The way I describe profile is you talk about all the things that I’ve done, things I want to do, and along with some tough questions. But not only tough questions,” Becerra said.
Ramos thought the beginning of the interview was so strange she played it on KTLA’s broadcast, telling the anchors, “Honestly, I was caught off guard. … To have it start this way before I had even asked a question. I mean, it’s about asking some of the hard questions sometimes but allowing our viewers to get to know each candidate. And so that is why not just myself but our editors and executive producers here at KTLA decided to include that portion in this piece.”
The interview itself turned out to be quite contentious, with Ramos bringing up a New York Times story reporting that Becerra’s HHS “couldn’t find some 85,000″ migrant children it released into the country.
“That’s not accurate,” Becerra responded, adding, “I don’t know if you got those talking points from Donald Trump.”
Ramos then responds, “It’s from a New York Times article.”
Becerra then asserts, “That’s not what the New York Times article said. The New York Times said that children and their sponsors did not respond to calls. They didn’t say we couldn’t find kids.”
In absolutely devastating fashion, as Becerra is saying these words, KTLA puts the New York Times article on screen, highlighting the portion of the article reading, “The agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.”
Ramos then reads from her notes, “Working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories, children as young as 14 years old.”
“That part occurred after these children had left the care of the Department of Health and Human Services,” Becerra responded.
“So you let these children go into these individual sponsors?” Ramos pressed.
Brutal.
But at least Becerra did not end the interview halfway through like former Rep. Katie Porter did back in October to CBS reporter Julie Watts. “I don’t want to keep doing this. I’m going to call it. Thank you,” Porter said, before taking her microphone off and leaving.
Watts’s crime? Asking Porter what she would say to the 40% of California voters who cast a ballot for Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
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“How would I need them in order to win, ma’am?” Porter replied before ending the interview.
If California Democrats wilt this badly under routine questions from local reporters, voters should wonder how they would handle the heat of actually governing.