Vice President Kamala Harris is the 2024 Democratic nominee. It’s time to do the one thing her campaign has avoided: interviews with the media. It’s part of public life. It’s undoubtedly part of being president of the United States. It’s the medium from which presidents, both past and present, have used the bully pulpit. Okay, maybe not so much in the present since Joe Biden slurs everything and has zero presence behind the seal. Yet, Harris’ team knows her record—it won’t be an easy task. Ms. Harris is now a full-blown supporter of the border wall, which marks another occasion in which the California liberal has tried to steal a policy initiative from Donald J. Trump, the first being ‘no tax on tips.’ The word salads is not some nervous incident—that’s her when she doesn’t have a teleprompter.
Politico reports the internal discussions within the Harris campaign of trying to find someone the vice president can talk to make things more comical. They’ve been asking around, seeking counsel regarding who wouldn’t bring up matters like why she’s done a 180-degree turn on everything that was once on her YouGov page. The publication added that they’re keeping Tim Walz in his stable because the campaign essentially doesn’t know what their agenda is or what their policies are (via Playbook) [emphasis mine]:
Harris campaign staff have been asking reporters who they think she should talk to. Behind the scenes, TV producers from big name anchors have been calling the campaign to pitch their talent as the person she has to do it with.
Harris has had a light schedule since accepting the nomination Thursday in Chicago, and several sources said she has been using the time not just to prepare for her Sept. 10 debate with Trump, but to map out a media strategy for the next few weeks.
Here are some of the questions rattling around about the decision …
— Who should you send your pitch to? One source of intrigue concerns who in Harris world will actually make this decision. BRIAN FALLON, the campaign’s senior adviser for communications, is generally considered the key person. But the interview has to be coordinated with Harris’s official office, where the communications director is KIRSTEN ALLEN. We hear there are some tensions.
Another source with knowledge of the process said that STEPHANIE CUTTER, senior adviser for message and strategy, will have an outsized role, as well. Campaign chair JEN O’MALLEY DILLON and senior advisor DAVID PLOUFFE represent another camp. And MAYA HARRIS and TONY WEST, Harris’s sister and brother-in-law, will weigh in with their own views. The political operatives on this list all have long-term relationships with TV networks and their major talent. But unlike Biden, Harris herself doesn’t have the same deep history with the journalists now wooing her.
— What’s the goal? There has been considerable debate in Harris world about the purpose and timing of the interview. The main narrative in the political press is that Harris needs to do a lengthy serious interview with a brand-name news anchor who will push her on issues.
Harris herself has expressed disagreement with that view, we’re told by two people, telling some Democrats she doesn’t need a big showy interview. In October, Harris did a sitdown with BILL WHITAKER on “60 Minutes” and talked foreign policy. Some of the exchanges were testy and some Harris aides came away unhappy with the experience.
Former Harris comms adviser ASHLEY ETIENNE told Playbook she thought Harris should have three goals for the interview.
“The first goal would be to peel back some layers on the vice president and show some new dimensions to her,” Etienne said. “There are questions about her worldview and ethos and who she is as a leader.” The convention, she noted, dealt mostly with her bio so any interview should aim to add depth in other areas.
The second goal would be policy. “To be honest, a big audience for this is the inside-the-beltway crowd that really cares about this,” Etienne said. “So she should substantively draw some distinctions with Biden on some policy issues.”
“Third, show her visually as commander-in-chief,” she said. “I would want her to do some in her office at the White House, show her on the road, and also take you inside her home” at the Naval Observatory.
Her pick? Sit down with GAYLE KING on CBS.
[...]
— What about Tim? One of the issues that Harris world is currently working to address is how to deploy running mate TIM WALZ in the media. The danger in sending him out to do big solo interviews is that he might not have a full command of where Harris is on every issue. As someone pointed out to us last night, Harris talks about the “opportunity economy,” but if Walz were asked to define it, would he know how?
I could see the many cooks whipping out the butcher’s knives in this operation, ready to stab anyone. There are many egos in that room, including the vice president, who has a penchant for pushing her staff toward the exits with her temperamental attitude. As we've seen in the past, everyone listed as a potential interviewee could twist Harris into a pretzel over softball questions. Also, what “layers” are we missing from Harris? She’s one of the most one-dimensional, vapid, and wholly unqualified candidates to be nominated, and it’s a real coup that it was done in the manner we’ve all witnessed for the past few weeks. Harris could never win the nomination through good old-fashioned campaigning. She needed help from the party bosses to take the mantle for Joe.
It's why you have former Obama advisers, like David Axelrod, saying this candidacy is buoyed by irrational exuberance and media propaganda. Harris is likely to stumble in the debates and this interview—whenever that may be. It’s a guarantee. And there’s no way for the press not to ask her about flip-flopping on the border wall without peering into other policies she’s reversed course on during this election. To do so would be journalistic malpractice.
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UPDATE: And as expected, it's a clown show. As Rebecca wrote earlier today, it's on CNN with Dana Bash with Tim Walz.
The woman who wants to be the first female president of the United States can’t do an interview on her own? Interesting…and embarrassing.
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) August 27, 2024