NBC Night News anchor Lester Holt returned from vacation and immediately turned around and flew to Guatemala to cover Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to the country. It’s one of Holt’s first major international trips since being largely grounded by pandemic restrictions—and the investment paid off with an exclusive interview and a key exchange that’s already trending on social media.
Harris, in the country to meet with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and to talk about the root causes of migration to the United States, has faced criticism—largely from Republicans—for not making a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The question that has come up and you heard it here and you’ll hear it again I’m sure, is, ‘why not visit the border? Why not see what Americans are seeing in this crisis,’” Holt asked the Vice President.
Harris responded that “we have to deal with what’s happening at the border, there’s no question about that. That’s not a debatable point. But we have to understand that there’s a reason people are arriving at our border and ask what is that reason and then identify the problem so we can fix it.”
Pressing the topic, Holt asked if Harris had any plans to visit the border, and she said “at some point, you know, we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border, we’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”
“You haven’t been to the border,” Holt said.
“And I haven’t been to Europe, Harris said. “And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”
That one moment may have lasting impact for Harris—and will certainly make NBC’s decision to dispatch Holt to Guatemala look like a strategic success as Nightly News continues to battle its ratings rival ABC’s World News Tonight.
