Let she who is without pronunciation sin cast the first KA-ma-la.
At a Turning Point USA event at Ole Miss on Wednesday, JD Vance took unscripted questions from people in attendance, in the tradition of Charlie Kirk.
On today's CNN This Morning, conservative Bradley Devlin of The Daily Signal praised Vance's willingness to engage in free-wheeling exchanges for an hour. Devlin contrasted that with Joe Biden's handlers pre-selecting his questioners. Continued Devlin:
"And Kamala Harris, who, whenever she came to a studio had a bunch of demands, a bunch of writers, it was edited."
Devlin pronounced Harris' first name Ka-MA-la. An unsmiling Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a CNN commentator, NYT podcaster, and NPR alum, interrupted Bradley: "KA-ma-la," she instructed.
Devlin has an engaging, happy-warrior vibe, and shrugged off Garcia-Navarro's interruption with a good-natured, "Kamala, yeah," pronouncing it as per her indication.
There was just one problem -- for Garcia-Navarro. Earlier in the segment, she mispronounced the first name of Usha Vance, wife of JD, pronouncing the first syllable as in a movie usher. The correct pronunciation is OO-shah. If you don't believe the Palm Beach Post, take it from a young TikToker of Indian origin.
Host Audie Cornish committed the same mispronunciation of Usha's name.
So, see you one Kamala, and raise you two Ushas!
Cornish managed to work in a shot at JD over his Ole Miss appearance. Saying, "everybody has different priorities," Audie teased an appearance next week by a Democrat who will say that Vance should be back in DC, "fixing the shutdown."
Note: Devlin undoubtedly has considerable experience shrugging off rude interruptions by liberals: he's the former president of the UC Berkeley College Republicans!
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
10/31/25
6:33 am EDTAUDIE CORNISH: And prove me wrong, that's the late Charlie Kirk's legacy. Now the vice president is trying to take up that mantle, appearing at Turning Point USA campus events, like this one at the University of Mississippi, where Vance found himself in an unexpected moment, when a student confronted the vice president about his focus on the US as a Christian nation, given his marriage to Usha Vance, a practicing Hindu.
And the student also asked about the administration's hardline stance on immigration.
STUDENT: How can you, as a vice president, stand there and say that we have too many of them now and we are going to take them out, to people who are here, rightfully so, by paying the money that you guys asked us. You gave us the path and now how can you stop it and tell us we don't belong here anymore?
JD VANCE: The United States should lower its levels of immigration in the future. Just because one person or 10 people or 100 people came in legally and contributed to the United States of America, does that mean that we're thereby committed to let in a million, or 10 million, or 100 million people a year in the future?
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: The question is, of course, the question that many people have. What is the vision of America that this administration has? And what you hear there JD Vance doing is what he often does.
When I interviewed him about this. He often goes to this, which is, why should we let in 100 million people, 10 million people? He takes the maximalist position. Of course nobody wants open borders. Of course nobody wants 100 million people coming into America. But that's not the question she was asking. She was simply asking, why are you trying to prioritize certain types of people? Why are we now having refugees that are white coming in? Why are you saying that this is a Christian nation only, when you, indeed, JD Vance, are married to someone who's a practicing Hindu? I interviewed him, and it was the first time he really talked about his marriage to Usha Vance.
BRADLEY DEVLIN: One of Charlie's other slogans is, if you disagree, get to the front of the line. And I love how the vice president last night, unscripted, for an hour, asked questions of young voters. He talked about, for quite some time with this young woman, about the issue of immigration. He also talked to a young man who's questioning our relationship to Israel, about the United States' Israel policy, about Trump's Israel policy. And so he covered that for an hour.
And I just can't help but notice the contrast between this administration versus the administration of Joe Biden, who had prepared people he was going to select in the briefing room, and Kamala [pronounced Ka-MA-la] Harris, who, whenever she came to a studio --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: KA-ma-la.
DEVLIN: -- had a bunch of demands. KA-ma-la, yeah. She had a bunch of writers, and it was edited --.
CORNISH: It's also priorities. Yeah, but everybody has different priorities. There's a Democrat who's going to come on next week and tell me that I can't believe vice president was there and not fixing the government shutdown. You know what I mean? And it's just interesting. This is the priority.
