For once Trump is right about Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar — but boy did their plan work

Things didn’t go well for US Attorney General William Barr during Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. To be fair, given that reports revealed Special Counsel Robert S Mueller told Barr his four-page letter outlining Barr’s “statement of the principal conclusions” created confusion by failing to “fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his report, it was always going to be an uphill battle.

Three people who did come out looking good were Democratic senators (all presidential hopefuls by the way) Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris. Everyone including the POTUS knew it too. In an interview following the hearing, President Trump told Fox Business Network that Kamala Harris was “probably very nasty”, to Barr — a comment that strongly suggested he hadn’t watched the hearings or been briefed fully on the exchanges. Trump added that the three Senators were “just looking for political points.”

Now, you probably won’t often (if ever) find me agreeing with President Trump, but he has a point: those three presidential candidates were absolutely trying to score political points, and I understand why. They are competing in a crowded field of Democratic candidates, which now stands at 21, with today’s addition of Senator Michael Bennett.

They’re also competing against two political juggernauts; former Vice President Joe Biden and the independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Both men raised the most money in their first 24 hours than other candidates (Biden raised $6.3m while Senator Sanders raised $5.9m in the same time frame). Both men have more name recognition than their competitors and are favourites with some of the white working class electorate who voted (or considered voting) for Trump in 2016.

This week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was likely the best opportunity Booker, Harris and Klobuchar had to stay viable in the race. For the most part they did a good job.

Cory Booker took the opportunity to tell Barr — and those of us watching — that America was at a moral crossroads and that the treatment of Special Counsel Mueller’s report raised concerns in him that the country is “descending into a new normal that is dangerous’ for [our] democracy”. He did fine until he mistakenly used the word “obstruction” when he should have said “collusion”. This mix-up may have cost him badly — especially when WIlliam Barr reminded him that “obstruction” was a legal term, something Booker probably knew. In that moment, Barr had the upper hand, and Booker never really recovered from that.

In contrast, Klobuchar and Harris came out of the gate swinging. Within the first three minutes, Klobuchar established herself as the candidate who would secure voting rights, by talking up her efforts to get the Secure Elections Act passed. She did it artfully — I didn’t see it coming, and I’m not sure Barr did either. She even got him to say — on camera — that he would work with her to enhance the security of the next election. It was a brilliant piece of political maneuvering. Once she got what she wanted, she pivoted to the topic at hand — and did so by pointedly telling Barr his four-page letter was “clearly a summary and that’s why Director Mueller called it a summary”.

The clear winner was Kamala Harris, though. She was a prosecutor in a previous life, and yesterday her years of training and expertise paid off. She left Attorney General WIlliam Barr stammering with just one question during her first minute of testimony: “Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?” For anyone who hasn’t seen the footage, the visuals are powerful. Harris, with her hand on her chin, eyelids slightly lowered, waited for an answer that, shifting around in his seat, searching around the room looking for help, Barr could not give. Her performance was so powerful that Vanity Fair wrote the following headline about the exchange: “Kamala Harris Guts Barr Like A Fish, Leaves Him Flopping on the Deck”. ‘Nuff said.

Today we’re seeing the fruits of that labour. News networks want to talk to Harris about her performance and her calls for Attorney General Barr’s resignation. Commentators are wondering out loud if she really could beat Trump in 2020.

And with every show appearance and quote, she’s letting everyone know that she’s not afraid to pursue justice and right any wrongs. I’m not sure that will be enough to win her the Democratic nomination — or even the presidency — but don’t rule out seeing her name on a presidential ticket just yet.