Table of Contents
After spending the last three weeks (and much of her vice presidency) avoiding press conferences and interviews that might require her to actually answer tough questions, Kamala Harris is saying she might poke her head out from under her rock . . . a little bit, eventually.
That is, the veep said Thursday that she wants to “get an interview scheduled before the end of the month.” It is the beginning of August…
One interview, if she can fit it in, and so can . . . who?
Rachel Maddow?
Mika Brzezinski?
Does she dare try Lester Holt again after she embarrassed herself with him last time?
Fine, she’s busy campaigning, but it’s not like she has a real day job: President Biden (or whoever actually runs the country) has that covered.
Meanwhile, she hasn’t suffered the examination of serious, potentially adversarial campaign press since she dropped out of the Democratic primaries in 2019.
She simply parachuted into the 2024 nomination after Nancy Pelosi & Co. muscled Biden into dropping.
Since then, he’s done more interviews than she has: It airs Sunday.
She can’t match the pace of an 81-year-old man who’s also technically busy being leader of the free world?
You have to think Donald Trump had it right the other day at his take-all-comers press conference: “She won’t even do interviews with friendly people, because she can’t do better than Biden.”
Unlike Harris, who has the Dem-allied press eating out of the palm of her hand, Trump would actually have an excuse to avoid live press Q&As: The national media is overwhelmingly, and openly, hostile toward him, his supporters and the rest of the GOP (except, of course, for any Republican willing to dump on Trump).
On top of his presser this week, Trump’s sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Time in April and another with Bloomberg Businessweek in July.
He took fire from multiple directions at the July 31 National Association for Black Journalists convention.
That’s how a democracy is supposed to work: Candidates face tough questions on their policies, record and vision for the country from watchdogs in the press, so come election time, Americans know what they’re getting.
Yet Harris won’t even get near a media lapdog.
J.D. Vance joined his ticket less than a month before she moved to the top of hers; Vance’s wife has since done more interviews than Harris.
The veep won’t even flip-flop in her own voice: All her disclaimers of past radical positions have come via campaign flacks and press releases.
Plainly, she’s afraid to try explaining why she held her looniest positions, let alone why she’s switched (at least until November).
Let alone having to explain why, now that she’s promised to bring grocery prices down on her first day as prez, she can’t do anything about it now.
Is Joe standing in the way?
Democrats and their media pals have been talking up “saving democracy” for years now, yet they’re colluding in the least democratic presidential contest our lifetimes, and our parents’, too.
Vance has taken to posting a count of how many days since Kamala faced the press; we don’t expect that to shame her into action, but we have some hope our colleagues will wake up and realize how badly they’re damaging their own brands, and the nation.
Voters will start to wonder, too: If she can’t face down, say, Britt Hume or Peter Doocy, how will she possibly face Vladimir Putin?
Seriously, and sincerely, Kam: You can do this, and you’re going to have to; putting it off too long only risks a disastrous performance too late in the game to recover.
