Fear. If you are afraid to engage the media, how can you be expected to engage with Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Jinping Xi, Iran's leaders, or North Korea's Kim Jong Un?
Vice President Kamala Harris has been reluctant and has refused to hold a news conference in more than 66 days or give any one-on-one interviews with members of the national press, even before becoming the Democratic nominee for president.
President Joe Biden is Harris's role model. He is another person who did not fully engage the media. Biden held the fewest news conferences than any modern-day president; facetiously, he ran his campaign in 2020 from his basement allegedly due to COVID.
So, why change? It has worked thus far. The liberal media is "OK" with that, apparently.
You can count on one hand in four years (and have fingers left over) the times Biden has had one-on-one meetings with Putin, Xi, Kim or any other American adversary. And how has that worked out? The world is in chaos.
In contrast, former President John F. Kennedy went eyeball to eyeball with Russia's President Nikita Khrushchev over 60 years ago. Kennedy had news conferences and interviews with the press regularly. He forced Russia to remove its missiles from Cuba. Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and H.W. Bush met with Russian leaders and won the Cold War. Peace through strength.
Biden-Harris? Well, no. Either they do not like being challenged by adversaries (even the press), or they cannot respond to questions with their true feelings. Former President Donald Trump has never had that problem.
The media's job is to inform and help educate the more than 345 million Americans. That is hard to do if the leader of the free world is reluctant to be questioned. Socialist and communist leaders also did not and still dislike being questioned. Harris advocates "one-party rule" (she seeks to eliminate the Senate filibuster, which forces bipartisanship). In this sense, she has much in common with Putin, Xi, and Kim. That is no coincidence, as her voting record as a Senator was similar to that of Socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. But we are America.
There is a reason why Harris must stop being afraid of doing interviews with reporters. When you are asked questions, it is a test. It is a way of evaluating your abilities, just like in eighth grade. Avoiding tests is not realistic. Sooner or later, it would show that you have not done your homework or may be incapable of doing it. Harris refuses to allow us to test her via news conferences or one-on-one interviews with leading political journalists.
Let's look at the mess Biden-Harris is leaving us.
We have two wars we are financing. Both are escalating rapidly, with scores of hostages being held captive. Not since 1945 has America been engaged financially and militarily in two parts of the world simultaneously like Biden-Harris has mismanaged us into today.
China and Russia recently held joint military exercises near the coast of Alaska. That is bad enough for the Alaska senators to cry for a more forceful military response from the White House.
And I am sure you remember the liberal media telling us about the 170 times Iran-backed proxies have bombed U.S. military bases in the Middle East over the past 12 months, injuring dozens of Americans. These incidents would have happened just once under Trump before our enemies would have paid a hefty price.
Even our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere have taken advantage of the weakness of Biden-Harris by sending millions of their most unwanted folks to the U.S.-Mexican border to invade America to drain America's financial resources and increase our crime rate.
What about the war in Ukraine? This is not the first time a larger country (Russia) has invaded a smaller nation (Ukraine). We recall 1990 when Iraq (not as strong as Russia) invaded Kuwait (much smaller and far more defenseless than Ukraine). In little over two months, former President George H.W. Bush and General Colin Powell devised and implemented a plan that pushed Iraq out of Kuwait with minimal deaths of American soldiers and those of our allies. We know what success looks like, and the Democrats failed us; Republicans have not.
Trump met with all world leaders - friends and foes alike. Biden-Harris have not. Trump-Vance does interviews with the press. Harris-Walz does not. The former are fearless, and the latter seem scared.
The result? Russia has deployed military ships 90 miles from Miami - the first such Russian incursion close to our waters since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. China has flown a spy balloon across America before it was shot down. China and Russia have never been closer allies. North Korea and Iran are closer allies to Russia than ever before.
As President James Buchanan's presidency led the nation to the Civil War, Biden and Harris have united America's adversaries like no other time in our history. What will that lead to?
Ukraine is attacking deeper and deeper into Russia, with strikes into Moscow. Israel is heavily bombing Lebanon. Both are rightly defending their nations, but both allies are engaged in these conflicts at least partially due to the incompetence of the Biden-Harris administration.
The administration has lifted key sanctions against Iran that have enriched the Islamic Republic. And its use of sanctions against Russia has proven ineffective two and a half years after being implemented.
On a much smaller scale, I faced the "interview issue" years ago. Soon after my first election to Congress in 1991, I was thought of as an aberration - a Black guy elected in a 92% white district and a conservative in liberal Connecticut.
I was forced into being "tested" every single week. I was forced to hold weekly press conferences for the members of the State Press Corp, and from time to time, a person from the National Press Corp would attend. I did it until it became boring when they stopped attending. But no one could say I was not on top of my game.
Show us, Madame Vice President, you can handle interviews and press conferences. Reading from a teleprompter does not make you capable of being president of the United States.
Lastly, like the eighth grader, if you refuse to take the test, high school should not be in your future.