CNN’s Acosta Asks If ‘Word Salad’ Slam On Kamala Harris ‘Coconut Tree’ Quote Is Just ‘Older Folks Not Getting’ It

CNN anchor Jim Acosta examined the “Kamala IS Brat” phenomenon and took on the slam from critics that Vice President Kamala Harris’s “coconut tree” quote is “word salad.”

There’s a viral phenomenon befuddling the olds in the media that has to do with singer Charli XCX and her album “brat” and the VP-turned-presumptive Democratic nominee. After President Joe Biden announced he would no longer be seeking a second term and threw his support behind his veep., Ms. XCX tweeted “kamala IS brat,” an encomium that many found confusing.

Fellow kids know that the “Kamala Is Brat” trend features chartreuse-tinted fan edits of Harris that include her viral “coconut tree” quote:

My mother used to—she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’ (LAUGHS) You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

On Friday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, Acosta and his panel talked about the energy around Harris, and Acosta pushed back on Harris detractors who called her quote “word salad”:

JIM ACOSTA: And Charlotte, a new poll shows Harris, pretty much just vastly outperforming Biden right now with young voters by 16 percentage points. That’s according to this latest New York Times-Siena College poll.

What is stirring this, excitement? I mean, I think I remember at the time when she made that comment about “the context in which we all live.”.

And so, I mean, people were, you know, criticizing that as being a bit of a word salad. But, you know, I’ve heard from a lot of younger folks over the last several days who just love that comment.

So, I mean, is it just like the older folks not getting what the younger folks are thinking these days? What do you think?

CHARLOTTE ALTER: So I don’t, it’s it’s a great question, and I don’t actually think it has very much to do with that comment at all.

I think we’ve seen since 2016, in the, in the, 2018 midterms, in the 2020 election and then in the 2022 midterms as well. Young voters do not like Trumpism. Millennials and Gen Z are not very attracted to MAGA at all.

Instead, the problem for this administration in this race has been that these younger voters weren’t particularly attracted to Joe Biden, either. And you would see in the polling over the course of this whole year, younger voters saying over and over again, we want somebody else, we want somebody else. We don’t want these same old, got two old white guys over and over again, not just any old white guys, the same two old white guys who ran last time. You’d see that over and over in the polling.

And I think, I think that what this polling shift signifies is that, these young voters just wanted somebody else. They wanted somebody new, somebody fresh, somebody who could credibly claim to, to help, to be speaking to some of their issues. And I think the Harris campaign is, is attempting to provide that to these voters.

JIM ACOSTA: Yeah. I mean, they’re really, exploiting this moment, no question about it. And see me after seeing all of these videos, Kamala Harris herself just joined TikTok. Here’s her first post.

VP KAMALA HARRIS: (Madam Vice President, are you on TikTok?) Well, I’ve heard that recently. I’ve been on the For You page, so I thought I’d get on here myself.

Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.