It has been greater than two weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris emerged because the Democratic nominee. And through that point, she has not granted any interviews or held press conferences, setting a brand new precedent for candidate entry to the press in an unprecedented election cycle.
Harris has had a honeymoon interval of types. The legacy media has showered her candidacy with glowing protection from quick comparisons of Barack Obama’s political rise to reframing her phrase salads as meme royalty. She has tightened polls in opposition to former President Trump. And the honeymoon will doubtless proceed with the number of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as working mate and the upcoming DNC conference, the place candidates traditionally obtain a bump within the polls.
Maybe most importantly, she has averted scrutiny.
The other had occurred to her ex-running mate, President Biden, notably within the days main as much as his exit from the race. Following his disastrous debate efficiency, the legacy media started scrutinizing the White Home over Biden’s well being, his polling took a success and Democrats launched an intense, unprecedented strain marketing campaign to take away him from the highest of the ticket.
Vice President Kamala Harris has gone greater than two weeks with out granting any interview since launching her presidential marketing campaign. (ALLISON JOYCE/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
Stunningly, Biden was faster to grant an interview throughout a horrible information cycle than Harris has within the far more favorable information cycle she is presently experiencing, talking with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos eight days after his frail debate exhibiting that scrambled the 2024 race. Subsequent interviews and rallies did not undo the injury, and he dropped out of the race on July 21.
Even Harris was much more accessible to the media within the aftermath of Biden’s debate, making appearances on MSNBC, CNN and ABC to push the “bad night” narrative.
Each Harris and Trump have been on the marketing campaign stump throughout their newly-formed match-up, however solely Trump has been doing interviews, most notably on the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists’ annual convention in Chicago the place he sparred with the panelists. Harris did not attend.
As an alternative, the media has heard from a plethora of high-profile Harris supporters. One among her high surrogates, Transportation Secretary and former VP contender Pete Buttigieg, has accomplished not less than 10 interviews hyping her candidacy and attacking the Trump-Vance ticket over the 2 weeks since Harris turned the presumptive nominee.
Republican vice presidential decide JD Vance, who hopes to grow to be the following vice chairman himself, particularly known as out Harris as having a “basement strategy” on Tuesday and urged reporters to carry her extra accountable.
“This is a person who has been a presumptive Democrat nominee for 16 days. She hasn’t taken a single real question from a reporter,” he mentioned. “The American people deserve to get to know the people who want to lead them, and I think it’s shameful for Kamala Harris, but increasingly for the media, that she is taking a basement strategy of running from reporters instead of getting in front of them and answering tough questions about her record and letting the American people know who she is.”
President Biden granted an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos eight days after his disastrous debate efficiency rocked the political panorama whereas Vice President Harris has averted the media regardless of the favorable information cycle. (Picture by ABC by way of Getty Photos)
Why take the chance?
Within the 17 days since she launched her marketing campaign, Harris has not confronted any questions on her information of Biden’s psychological decline, how she would deal with the continued escalation within the Center East, the rising considerations of a recession, her document as “border czar,” the revelations surrounding Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s extramarital affair throughout his first marriage, and the myriad far-left positions she embraced throughout her 2020 presidential bid, a number of of which her marketing campaign has quietly tried addressing by way of reversal statements to the press.
“As long as she is getting so much favorable press coverage, there is no need for her to take the risks associated with doing unscripted press interactions,” DePauw College journalism professor Jeffrey McCall advised Fox Information Digital. “Harris has shown repeatedly over her political career that she’s just not very good at speaking in extemporaneous situations. She is known for her word salads and unserious style.”
“After all, Biden ran an unaccountable basement campaign in 2020, the media went along with it, and he got elected,” he added.
Maybe her crew has concluded the chance of doing interviews is simply too excessive. Many level to her damning 2021 trade with NBC’s Lester Holt when she famously mentioned, “And I haven’t been to Europe,” as she was pressed about not visiting the southern border after being appointed by Biden to handle the foundation causes of the migrant disaster.
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Harris was broadly criticized for feedback she made dismissing requires her to go to the border throughout a June 2021 interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. (Screenshot/NBC Information)
Final week, she raised eyebrows whereas talking on the tarmac following the emotional return of Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, three Individuals free of Russia as a part of a historic prisoner swap.
“This is just extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy, and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy and strengthening alliances,” Harris mentioned within the unscripted second.
‘Do better’
The calls from information organizations for Harris to take their questions are few and much between.
The New York Occasions editorial board urged Harris to “do better” than Biden in participating with reporters, one thing Biden scarcely did compared to his predecessors.
“President Biden has rarely granted the news media permission to ask questions on behalf of the American people, and on the rare occasions he did, his team sometimes sent scripted questions. It left him poorly prepared for the campaign trail and for confronting his opponent. Mr. Trump, too, rarely takes questions. Ms. Harris has the chance to do better,” the Occasions editorial board wrote final month.
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However past the Occasions’ tepid plea, there was nearly no demand by the media for Harris to talk to journalists. Versus Media podcast host Stephen L. Miller suspected it is as a result of no journalist “wants to be the one seen by their colleagues” as finally serving to Trump win the election by creating the media occasion the place Harris falters below strain.
“This is their atonement for what they see were mistakes they made in 2016 with Hillary Clinton and her emails,” Miller advised Fox Information Digital.
The New York Occasions editorial board urged Harris to “do better” than Biden on the subject of taking questions from reporters. (Getty Photos)
On Tuesday, Fox Information anchor Invoice Hemmer prompt different media retailers have to cowl Harris’ refusal to reply questions.
“We can’t be the only media company that talks about it,” Hemmer mentioned on “America’s Newsroom.”
“Sixteen days she has gone without a significant interview,” Hemmer continued. “I mean, is it possible that she runs the clock until Chicago? That’d be extraordinary. And then you’d have to ask yourself, ‘What are you hiding? And what’s your team hiding from?’”
Nonetheless, not everybody thinks Harris must grant interviews. At the very least not now.
“Voters want to pick a winner, and Kamala Harris most looks like a winner when she draws thousands at a rally, not when she’s having an interview with Lester Holt,” mentioned Democratic strategist Christopher Hale.
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Hale, who’s spearheading “Catholics for Kamala,” advised Fox Information Digital there hasn’t been a political setback for her to keep away from interviews, pointing to her rising favorability since her marketing campaign launch.
“The only way it’ll hurt her is if the press corps start writing about how she isn’t doing an interview. It would need to seep into public consciousness that she’s avoiding a sit down,” Hale mentioned. “What she’s doing now is working, so I would keep doing it until it doesn’t.”
The Harris marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.
