‘I Will Aspire to Be Brat’: CNN Panel Cracks Up Trying to Decipher Gen Z ‘Aesthetic’ Embraced by Harris Campaign

CNN anchor Jake Tapper saved his fellow Gen Xers and the rest of us cranky elders from having to Google what a “brat summer” is by leading a discussion regarding its relevance to the nascent Kamala Harris presidential campaign.

(Disclosure: Your friendly neighborhood Mediaite contributing editor is young enough to be fairly well-versed in the various aspects of Swiftie culture and old enough to be annoyed by the deliberate grammatical errors in Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” so this segment was personally helpful.)

The panel on Monday’s episode of The Lead with Jake Tapper cracked up multiple times trying to decipher this Gen Z “aesthetic” inspired by Charli XCX’s new album Brat, with Tapper admitting that it was brought to his attention by his 16-year-old daughter before turning to CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel to explain what the heck was going on and why the Harris campaign was jumping on this trend.

She joked that it was “a natural question to ask me” about a Gen Z trend as Kaitlan Collins joked Gangel was “our biggest brat, yeah.”

Tapper explained that Charli XCX had responded to the news of President Joe Biden dropping out and endorsing Harris with a tweet a few hours later stating, “kamala IS brat,” and the Harris campaign “appears to be leaning into this,” by “branding her @KamalaHQ Twitter page with the same aesthetic of the album,” before turning to Gangel.

Gangel joked that her producer would probably “spit out her coffee” as she quoted the topic that’s been trending on TikTok — “that’s brat” — and explained that it meant “a cool thing,” and noted it was associated with the “chartreuse” green color used on the album and now the Harris campaign social media.

She added more details, reading from notes: “Charli XCX — who I do know — quote, ‘brat: you’re just that girl who is a little messy and likes to party. And maybe says some dumb things, sometimes.’ End quote.”

“So the idea’s that we’re all kinda brat and Vice President Harris is brat?” asked Tapper.

“I don’t know if you’re brat,” joked Collins. “I think you aspire to be brat — you don’t just become brat! You have to try.”

“If you work at it,” said Gangel as the panel laughed.

“Oh, okay. I will aspire to be brat,” Tapper vowed, drawing more laughter.

This strategy by the Harris campaign was “going right for” Gen Z “in a language of their own,” Tapper continued, “that apparently nobody at this table speaks,” except for, he joked, Collins — a Millennial.

Harris was notably younger than former President Donald Trump, Tapper noted, who was now the oldest living presidential nominee in U.S. history since Biden had dropped out before officially getting the Democratic nomination.

Political analyst David Chalian commented that Harris already had “a huge social media presence” with the “K-Hive” during her previous presidential campaign, that he expected would be “turbo-charge now” for the 2024 race.

“Alright, thanks everyone,” said Tapper to wrap the segment, urging them to “stick around, brats!” for Collins’ show, The Source, later that evening.

Shortly after the segment aired, the @KamalaHQ account tweeted a screenshot of Gangel along with an eyes emoji, showing her holding up a printout of the new Twitter image.

Watch the clip above via CNN.