Follow-ups: Critical in Politics and The Case of Katie Porter

California’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter may have lost next year’s gubernatorial race through her resistance to a simple follow-up and her cocky, profane demeanor when she ended an interview by testily objecting to her interviewer’s insistence on asking follow-up questions.

The importance of follow-up questions in any interview situation cannot be overstated.

I taught a university course on political rhetoric at several institutions of higher learning for over a half-century. When I taught Interviewing, there was no sub-topic I emphasized more than the necessity of an interviewer asking good, probing follow-up questions.

Political figures wish to give soliloquies without some questioner raising contrary points.  Let’s say a politician is asked why they voted against a budget that would end a government shutdown when earlier this year they voted to end the shutdown in just such an impasse.

The candidate may say, “The Democratic insistence on keeping health care changes is critical.”

The interviewer may then follow up and ask, “But why would you insist now on keeping changes that pay for illegal immigrants when you could just put it off seven weeks and end the pain of a shutdown now?”

The political aspirant could answer the follow-up question, or address the issue of why keeping the additional expenses is so critical, or segue to a different issue. Segueing argues for a fiercer follow-up.

If the politician won’t answer at all, they look irresponsible.

An interview without follow-ups is not worth its time. The late columnist William Safire would have called them “love fests.”

An interview without serious follow-ups is akin to the infamous interviews Bud Wilkinson conducted with candidate Richard M. Nixon over a half-century ago — love fests, nothing more.  It doesn’t mean you lose your race, but in a close contest, it can count.

The first time I believe I publicly cited follow-ups as crucial was a letter to The New York Times, in which I had critiqued Barbara Walters publicly: “I recall her saying that the follow-up question is her specialty in interviewing. And George Bush’s specialty is precise speech.”

Follow-ups are critical, as are their absence.

On June 29, 2025 on “Meet the Press” — once the paragon of interview shows with great questioners like Lawrence Spivak and Tim Russert — the show treated progressive and conservative guests quite differently. As always, the panel comprised three progressives and one timid conservative. The political analysis show has fallen, largely due to its lack of equal follow-up questions to progressive and conservative guests.

Virtually each week, Kristen Welker asks probing questions of the show’s Republican guests, while largely passing on follow-up questions to Democratic guests. Illustrative of this point was her giving rhetorical passes to reputed anti-Semite and far-left progressive New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (no mention of his reputed anti-Semitism and just one meek follow-up). However, Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin was pilloried with skepticism by Welker.

Back to Katie Porter’s embarrassment:  According to Politico, “After more follow-up questions, Porter grew visibly frustrated. She said the interview was getting ‘unnecessarily argumentative,’ before appearing to reach for her mic: ‘I don’t want to keep doing this. … Not like this, I’m not. Not with seven follow-ups to every single question you ask.’”

She ended the interview when she was asked how she would handle the conservative members of the California electorate who gave Donald Trump 40% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election.

Now, there’s a tough question. She could say she is the type of candidate whom they would support, or that she knows many Republican voters who identify with her policies, or quasi-dodge the question in a variety of other ways.

Instead, she said she would not sit for so many (again, seven per question, she hyperbolized) follow-ups and so much unfriendliness.

To handle follow-up questions, an office-seeker should be better on their feet or more deft rhetorically or — this is the rarity — answer the question honestly.