Why don't politicians during a hearing let the person they are questioning actually answer questions and speak?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨DarkMayhemXIII@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I’ve seen a few congressional hearings, and they are so annoying. To a point, I question why the people being questioned just don’t leave.

The two I’ve seen were one with Mark Zuckerberg, where he was being questioned by a Republican named Hawley. He kept asking Mark questions, and when Mark started to answer, Hawley kept interrupting him. I don’t even like Mark Zuckerberg, but during this “interview,” I just said, “Dude, shut the fuck up and let him answer.” Even if he gave a bullshit answer, let him answer and then ask another question. But whenever he opened his mouth, Hawley just kept talking over him. Why? What’s the point of this?

It’s the same thing with the TikTok hearing with the TikTok CEO. They asked questions, and when he started to answer, they interrupted him. Like, why??? If I was talking to the TikTok CEO or Mark Zuckerberg and I had a chance to grill them, I would want to hear their answers and then ask again—not just interrupt them for 5+ hours.

I don’t even like these guys, but goddamn, what’s the point? They’re wasting everyone’s time. And why even go to these hearings if you can’t speak? Whether you’re a billionaire CEO or just some other politician, I’d leave if I couldn’t answer.

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Hello_there@fedia.io ⁨55⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
The structure of the hearings is designed for soundbites.

Each rep or senator gets x minutes, and then it switches to the other party.

For a hostile senator, the panelist is incentivized to waste as much time as possible. Qualify every statement, have drawn out answers, try not to outright lie but get as close as you can to get by the question.

The splitting between parties means there's no coordination among the senators. Each one asks the same questions. There's no followup on bad answers. Each rep wants the soundbites for their YouTube channel.

It's really bad for oversight or actually doing any governing.

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cattywampas@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
A lot of times it’s because they’re asking yes/no questions or questions that should have simple, factual answers but the other party refuses and instead uses a lot of words to dance around giving a direct answer.

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- DarkMayhemXIII@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  
  should have simple, factual answers but the other party refuses and instead uses a lot of words to dance around giving a direct answer.
  
  Yes, but some questions aren’t simple “yes or no” questions. For example, one Republican asked, “Do you support it being legal to abort an unborn child up to the moment of birth?” That’s not really a yes-or-no question, and I think it’s a poorly framed one.
  
  Even where abortion is legal, there are generally legal limits, often somewhere between 4 and 24 weeks, depending on the jurisdiction. If a woman chooses to continue the pregnancy, she’s not going to reach her due date and suddenly decide, for absolutely no reason, “I’m going to have an abortion.” If she decided she didn’t want to raise the baby, she would give birth and place the child for adoption. The only situations where an abortion that late in a pregnancy occurs are severe medical emergencies, where doctors are trying to save the mother’s life or address a catastrophic pregnancy complication.
  
  So, that question is, in my opinion, misleading and doesn’t have a simple “yes or no” answer. If you watch the hearing, the witness starts to answer the question, and then the politician interrupts them. How can you know what their answer was if they aren’t allowed to finish?
  
  The mature thing to do in a conversation is to let someone answer the question. If they dance around the answer, then say, “Okay, I hear you, but you didn’t actually answer my question, so let me ask it again.” But if I start to answer and only get half a word out before you interrupt me, that’s not how you have a conversation. They don’t even have time to dodge the question.
  
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  - Steve@communick.news ⁨7⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    You seem to think these are interviews or conversations intended to foster understanding. They aren’t.
    
    “Do you support it being legal to abort an unborn child up to the moment of birth?” That’s not really a yes-or-no question
    
    You’re right, it’s not. It’s a trick question. The senator wants a “yes” or “no” that can be used in a good clip or sound byte. Any more complicated answer is useless to them. Since they aren’t interested in a real informative answer they just steamroll on to the next potently clip-able question, because they only have a couple min for their turn to ask questions.
    
    On the other side, sometimes it’s the one answering who’s being disingenuous. They can give a long rambling response meant to run out the clock, rather than honestly answer. In that case the senator asking questions might want to move on because they recognize a non-answer, and again only have a couple min for their questions.
    
    The primary problem in both cases is the time limit of the questioning. It’s the very reason most of these senate testimony hearings are such a farce. A real hearing can take days or weeks to interview a single person. But that’s too much to ask of congress apparently.
    
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  - SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    They also have a limited amount of time to make their point, so some of them choose to do it in rude and cruel ways… mostly Republicans.
    
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Dookieman12@piefed.social ⁨34⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
Because these hearings are televised, many of the questions are not designed to elicit an informed response that can be used to carefully weigh the issue at hand; they’re designed to produce a sound byte that be played on the evening news to drive a certain narrative.

While the idea of television the hearings on the basis of transparency seems admirable on paper, the reality is that these hearings have been turned into an opportunity to ambush people with loaded questions to get free media points and farm twitter clips

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RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨27⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
Maybe the humiliation George Galloway gave them when they let him answer still haunts them.

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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
Because hearing are about grandstanding not finding actual information. They have staffers and business contacts for the actionable information.

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IWW4@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
No one pays attention to congressional hearings. So the members use their allotted time to get a soundbite in that will hopefully make it into the 24 hour news cycle.

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ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
They do that in regular court hearings too. The one asking questions has a story they want to present and details tend to make that more difficult.

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Pika@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
because they don’t actually want the person to respond. they want to paint a picture of what they are trying to push across. The more they let the other person talk, the less detailed their picture becomes.

It’s all of politics now a days, you don’t actually ask the question for the answer, you ask the question to push the narrative.

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TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world ⁨54⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
if you start to spew categoric BS they’ll shut you down. Usually they already know the answer, but you are there to say it yourself so it’s on the record.

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dhork@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
It’s a power trip, pure and simple. They pull people into those hearings just so everyone knows how important Congresspeople are, and how the rest of the world has to bend to their will. And the questions aren’t asked so that they can generate meaningful responses, they are asked so the congressperson can look like they’re doing something.

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