Connie Chung on Harris’s Election Approach: Walking and Talking Like the Guys ‘Worked for Me’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
MELBER: “Yeah. Let me — let me read from your book because you mentioned that Harris has not leaned heavily into this, there’s a lot going on here. You write about how you want to be treated like your male colleagues when you cover the male-dominated world of politics at the time. Everywhere I looked, there were men. Since I wanted to fit in, I became one of them. In my mind, I could talk like them and be as tough as them. Why should I perceive myself differently? Do you think that has worked and how she’s closed talking more about a country and other people while Trump talks about himself? Different than Obama who very expertly wove his personal story into the progress of the nation, but that was a different time and she’s clearly taking a different approach.”
CHUNG: “Well, I think also Hillary Clinton was pushing the woman thing, was — it was kind of — it didn’t work with certainly a big group of men. They were very anti-Hillary Clinton and I think it’s smart for — well, you know, I always wanted to be treated just like another person, like a Reporter who had just as much credibility as the man and had the moxie, the power, the bravado. I unfortunately found if I had a potty mouth it helped, too, but I — I’m not proud of that, it’s just that if I walked and talked like the guys, I found that it kind of worked for me because I looked like such a lotus blossom, you know, that they didn’t expect me to be so baudy. And when I threw a lob at them that was either racist or sexist before they could throw one at me, it kind of worked. Now, I don’t — I don’t recommend it to anyone, but the fact is that I think most women want to be just treated like another person. And not a woman per se because that has certain stereotypes. It’s the same with being Asian. We’re seen as dutiful and cooperative and we’ll always do the right thing. Well, I didn’t always do the right thing. And there’s nothing wrong with that, in my mind.”