Democrats appear overjoyed about the establishment media’s failure to secure even one unscripted interview of Vice President Kamala Harris for 22 straight days since she joined the presidential race.
Media outlets typically rush to interview newly nominated presidential candidates, but Harris appears to be an exception to the rule.
The media have not interviewed Harris on television since June 24, 2024. The last time the press reportedly questioned her at a solo news conference was eight months ago on December 2, 2023.
Only a few reports on Monday recount Harris’s lack of unscripted interviews, much less any headlines that openly ripped her for failing to sit for a primetime interview after receiving the nomination.
Democrats openly admit they are pleased with the media’s lack of apparent interest in interviewing Harris about her policy positions.“Most Democratic insiders we spoke to, however, are totally fine keeping things vague,” Politico Playbook reported on Monday. “There’s a sense that Harris should continue to ride the wave of enthusiasm rather than change the conversation by offering up specifics.”
“There are dangers to taking tough questions,” the Hill’s Amie Parnes argued. “Since becoming the likely Democratic nominee following Biden’s departure from the race, Harris has narrowed the gap with Trump in polls and has even taken the lead in some surveys.”
Democrats told the media that their failure to interview Harris about policy benefits her.
“Why would we start talking about policy?” a Democrat lawmaker asked Playbook. “We’re actually better off just running on this real wave of enthusiasm and energy. … It’s the best thing [Harris] can do.”
“Values unite and specific policies divide,” a senior Democrat aide also told the outlet. “So I don’t think there is a desire to spend the next 80 days litigating Medicare for All, for example.”
“Where is it written that you have to sit down for a press interview?” James Carville, a Democrat political pundit asked. “They’ve had to pick a vice president, plan a convention, move around, do this, do that, and she’s already agreed to a debate.”
Harris pledged last week to schedule only one interview “before the end of the month,” though it is unclear whether the interview will take place in the last three weeks of August or the interview’s scheduling will take place before August ends.
Harris might not be partial to unscripted events for two reasons. First, she has a habit of delivering silly word salads. Second, she appears to be trying to navigate policy debates within her own party. Anonymous campaign aides reportedly flip-flopped on five of her radical-left policies.
More is here on Harris’s radical record.
RELATED — Dem Sen. Padilla: Harris Has Done Tons of Interviews over the Years; ‘Cut Her a Little Bit of Slack’
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
