Bakari Sellers Hits Back At Abby Phillip Claim Kamala Harris Is ‘Not Engaged’ With The Press

Pre-Democratic National Convention analysis on CNN’s NewsNight was derailed Sunday in discussion over Vice President Kamala Harris as panelist Bakari Sellers pushed back on host Abby Phillip’s claim the nominee was “not engaged” with the media.

The brief pivot in topic came as Sellers discussed former President Donald Trump’s polling figures with co-panelist Scott Jennings, who said that the Republican “has a higher approval rating than Joe Biden.”

As he has done before on previous appearances, Sellers denied the point, saying that if this were the case, Trump would be leading in the polls against Harris, and continued: “What I was going to say is that Kamala Harris has stuff to prove in the debate too.”

Phillip agreed: “Sure. And before the debate. I mean, frankly, she is not engaged yet.”

“She has engaged,” Sellers shot back.

The host returned: “No. No, she’s not. She has not.”

“She has only been on the trail for three weeks,” former 2020 Biden campaign adviser Alencia Johnson said.

Phillip repeated: “She’s not engaged.”

“She just became our nominee,” Johnson added.

“How long is she going to take?” asked CNN contributor Shermichael Singleton, backing Phillip.

The host continued: “She has not engaged in pressing interactions on anything, really. So that’s going to be an issue.”

Sellers, however, denied the host’s take again: “That’s not true. First of all that’s not an issue. I believe that the fact that the mainstream media and many people in DC are consumed with the fact that she won’t sit down with them or do media interviews has posed a problem for them.”

He continued: “What we’ve seen, poll after poll, individual at the individual, voter after voter, is that when she’s out in Wisconsin, when she’s out in Arizona, she’s out in Pennsylvania. And, actually, talking to the voters – that matters a lot more. And I think that we’re seeing the inherent value of that.”

Watch above on CNN.

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