CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers pushed back against former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller on Tuesday for calling California Sen. Kamala Harris “hysterical” during her questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper about Sessions’ performance at the Senate intelligence committee hearing, Miller said the attorney general “knocked away some of the hysteria from Kamala Harris and some of the Democrats who wanted to make this a big partisan show.”
Powers fired back at Miller, asking him, “How was Sen. Kamala Harris hysterical?”
“It didn’t seem like there was any effort to try to get to a real question or to the bottom of things,” Miller responded.
“I think she asked a lot of questions,” Powers said. “She was very dogged. I wouldn’t say she was any more dogged than Sen. Ron Wyden was, would you say that?”
“I think she was hysterical,” Miller said. “I don’t think Sen. Wyden was trying to get to the bottom of answers either.”
“But he wasn’t hysterical, she was,” Powers said.
“She was trying to shout down Attorney General Sessions and I thought it was way out of bounds,” Miller replied. “This is the second hearing in a row.”
While asking Sessions about his refusal to answer questions Tuesday concerning conversations he may have had with President Donald Trump, Harris, a California Democrat, was interrupted by Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
The exchange was an almost exact repeat of last week, when McCain cut in on her intense questioning of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and committee Chairman Richard Burr told her to stop and let Rosenstein answer.
CNN contributor and Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord added to the fiery exchange between Powers and Miller, saying, “Hysteria is a neutral quality.”
“And yet, it’s just women that usually are called hysterical,” Powers said.
