Anderson Cooper’s Softball Interview With Nancy Pelosi Turned AC360 Into a Democratic Ad

It’s good to be a Democrat, as Anderson Cooper reminded Nancy Pelosi and his audience on Monday night.

If you’re a Republican, Fox News might throw a few pitches down the center of the plate, but every other major outlet presents a challenge. Follow-ups are asked, contrary perspectives are provided, and a generally adversarial tone is taken — and when that’s done fairly, that’s the right approach. Interviews should be tough.

And yet the moment a Democrat agrees to appear on a “mainstream” show, their hosts transform into shrinking wallflowers willing to turn their program into an extended campaign ad.

Which brings us to Cooper’s performance on Monday night.

He opened with a question about the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“Two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, reproductive rights have been a motivating factor for voters in state elections and ballot initiatives since then. Do you think that will still be the case in November?” he asked.

The long, winding soliloquy about Republicans “controlling women,” Obamacare, and Herbert Hoover Cooper received in response was the logical consequence of his unfocused question, which elided polling demonstrating that a wide range of issues — from inflation, to the border crisis, to crime — are bigger priorities to American voters and subtly adopted Democratic framing (note the use of the term “reproductive rights”).

Imagine, for a moment, that Cooper had instead asked: “How much should Democrats emphasize abortion this election cycle given voters’ prioritization of other issues?”

Wouldn’t this have given viewers more context about the political realities shaping the election? Wouldn’t it have prompted Pelosi to shed light on Democratic thinking, rather than empowering her to give an anodyne stump speech?

Later, Cooper enumerated Donald Trump’s sympathetic descriptions of January 6 rioters before asking Pelosi: “Do you think if he’s reelected, he will try to pardon January 6 defendants? But when you hear him use those terms as somebody who was there and had to flee, I mean, what does that, what do you think of that?”

The Capitol riot was a national disgrace and the ultimate proof that Trump is unfit for office; there’s nothing wrong with a question that assumes as much. But what is the usefulness, to the audience, of a question directed at Trump’s political opponent about how his words now make her feel? What are we supposed to learn from her answer?

Again, imagine if instead he had asked: “Donald Trump’s incitement of the January 6 Capitol riot and subsequent praise of rioters raises real questions over what he might do in office again. Why haven’t Democrats governed from the center to reduce the chances of his retaking the White House?”

Wouldn’t it be more informative to acknowledge that Trump is, according to the polls, primed to prevail over Joe Biden in November? Wouldn’t it have prompted Pelosi to defend the status quo voters are so plainly fed up with?

Next came the coup de grâce.

“Do you have confidence in the Supreme Court? I mean, they have yet to rule on this immunity thing, all this thing about [Sam] Alito and the flags and Clarence Thomas and his wife. I mean, do you have confidence in the Supreme Court?” inquired Cooper.

Cooper could teach a class in crafting innuendo-laden, leading questions. This one elicited the kind of uninformative, borderline slanderous answer that it was designed to.

“No, I think they’ve gone rogue. It’s most unfortunate, but it’s unfortunate further to see what the other justice, what happened to the Chief Justice? Did he go weak or did he go rogue? I don’t know,” began Pelosi.

She continued:

So, no, I don’t have confidence in the Supreme Court. I think that some of the decisions they, see, I respect their point of view. If they have a point of view about a woman’s right to choose, okay. But that’s not what they’re there to do, to advocate for point of view, run for Congress. They’re there to uphold the Constitution of the United States. And many of them said in their hearings for confirmation, they said that they supported, they supported the precedents of the court, the precedents of the court supported the privacy in the Constitution. And what do they do? They vote their opinion on policy rather than the oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Never mind that that the immunity case has been moving at “lightning speed” according to CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Never mind that the Court has ruled in ways that have pleased progressives on abortion pill (unanimously) and gun (8-1) cases this very term. Never mind that there is little evidence to suggest Alito had anything to do with the flags flown over his homes, or that they were flown in support of nefarious causes. And never mind that Roe represented a judicial power grab dictating policy from the bench while Dobbs restored policy questions over abortion to the people and their legislatures.

Cooper’s question elided all of this necessary context to imply some kind of vacuous, unexplained wrongdoing on the part of the justices.

Would it not serve the audience to note that a body constantly smeared as partisan and corrupt has reached decisions that contradict this narrative multiple times over the last month? Should Pelosi not be confronted with the opposing view on Roe and Dobbs, or at the very least forced to explain her assertions?

Conservatives are the first to lament lazy interviews like the one Cooper churned out on Monday, but they shouldn’t be the only ones to do so. It may be pleasant for Pelosi and others to use friendly airwaves to spout off, but its CNN’s overwhelmingly liberal audience that ultimately suffers when its talent fails to ask tough questions of those in power.

Watch above via CNN.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.