CNN host Michael Smerconish questioned “Original Sin” co-author Alex Thompson about a bombshell claim in the book, namely, whether former Vice President Kamala Harris actually referred to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper as a “motherf**ker,” as detailed by Thompson and co-author Jake Tapper.

The comment was allegedly made by the former vice president after Cooper grilled her, following former President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump in June 2024.

“Relative to Vice President Kamala Harris, she has an interview with Anderson Cooper post-debate. You write about this in the book. By the way, I’ve got to do an ‘Eats, Shoots, and Leaves’ if you remember the book, and the importance of punctuation. I’ve gotta do an ‘Eats, Shoots, and Leaves’ analysis of one graph of your book, Alex, and it comes on page 290, and it’s getting a lot of attention today,” Smerconish said on Sunday as he showed the excerpt.

‘This M F-er doesn’t treat me like the damn Vice President of the United States, she said to colleagues, I thought we were better than that,’” the alleged quote said.

“I’m being real persnickety now,” the host said. “But there are not quotation marks around that in the book. Is that a direct quote?”

“I will go back to my copy, but my understanding is that it is, that she was incredibly frustrated with Anderson Cooper asking the same question over and over again. Which Anderson Cooper, this was the night of the debate, Anderson was like, have you ever seen him act that way behind the scenes?” Thompson said.

“Because if the Vice President of the United States had seen the president act that way on, you know, behind the scenes as he acted on the debate stage and said nothing, I think it would have been incredibly indicting. But Kamala Harris, I can tell you, 100% was infuriated after that interview,” he said.