Jake Tapper may have “rizz,” but now he wants to exude a brand-new energy — he thinks?
On Monday night, the CNN host tried to explain why people are approvingly calling Vice President Kamala Harris “brat” all over social media.
What does it mean to “be brat”? Tapper and his fellow CNN panelists clearly did not know. But they tried their darndest to explain it!
Tapper, 55, explained he was “tipped off” about the term by a reliable source — his 16-year-old daughter — after English singer Charli XCX gave Harris a momentous endorsement by writing: “kamala IS brat.”
“Brat” is also the name of Charli XCX’s latest album, and the album art includes a distinctive bright green hue swiftly becoming known as “brat green.”
Social media users have debated whether “brat” is a term used more by Gen Z or millennials (Charli XCX herself is 31). But it nevertheless confused much of the CNN panel.
“Kamala Harris appears to be leaning into this,” Tapper observed, explaining that she has “branded her Kamala HQ Twitter page with the same ‘aesthetic’ of the album — that’s another Gen Z word, ‘aesthetic.’”
Tapper then handed off the rest of the explanation to his colleague Jamie Gangel, 69, who was clearly uncomfortable with the assignment.
Gangel began by saying that her younger producer would probably “spit out her coffee” upon hearing her explanation of the term. After flailing a little, she decided to consult her notes and read Charli XCX’s own explanation of what it means to be “brat,” which the singer posted on her TikTok account last month:
“You are just that girl, who is a little messy, and likes to party and maybe says dumb things sometimes.”
“So, is the idea that we’re all kind of ‘brat,’ and Vice President Harris is ‘brat?’ I don’t know,” Tapper said, trying to wrap his head around the term.
“I don’t know if you’re ‘brat,’” panelist Kaitlan Collins, 32, said to Tapper, showing that she had a firmer grasp of the concept. “I think you aspire to be ‘brat.’ You don’t just become ‘brat.’”
“I will aspire to be ‘brat,’” Tapper agreed, still sounding kind of confused.
He cut to the chase by concluding:
“The point is that [Harris] is — whether it’s her or some very clever people who work for her — going right for them in a language of their own that, apparently, nobody at this table speaks.”
And hey, if that’s what Harris is doing, we got to admit the move low-key slaps.