This week, Vice President Kamala Harris faced quite the loss against President-Elect Donald Trump. It's a loss for Democrats overall, as well, given that Republicans won back control of the Senate and will likely hold onto control of the House as well. There was so much that Harris and her campaign did wrong, though those involved don't appear to be willing to acknowledge such mistakes, which means they'll likely keep losing. Harris had a major authenticity problem and putting herself out there, which Democratic allies in the mainstream media certainly took note of. While her campaign took steps to heed that warning in some ways, it ultimately wasn't enough, especially with the shows she did not appear on.
Last month, Trump appeared on "The Joe Rogan Experience," the number one podcast in the world. His running mate, Vice President-Elect JD Vance appeared on the program not long after. Harris declined to do so. Even as Rogan made clear he was still hoping for the conversation to work out, her team wouldn't agree to the three hour long program or going to record in studio. Not only did the conversation not end up happening, but Rogan endorsed Trump on Monday night.
As Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media try to make sense of such a loss, Andrew Yang and Van Jones offered some reflection during "Erin Burnett Out Front" on Thursday night.
Jones referenced how Republicans were able to reach voters through podcasts, streaming platforms, and that kind of media outreach. He and host Erin Burnett even lamented how Democrats were "laughing" at Republicans, referring to them as "idiots," also speaking of key supporters of Trump such as Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk and what they brought to the table.
"It turned out we were the idiots. We woke up in a body bag because while we were knocking on doors, they were making these phones into 24-hour a day political weapons for themselves. And so we got outflanked, outplayed, out-beat by people who told us the whole time that they knew what they were doing and people are mad," Jones acknowledged, too little too late.
Yang also chimed in to affirm Burnett's point that the "data" presented to the Harris campaign indeed did "fall on deaf ears." The campaign tried to claim "we've got it," but, as he reminded, "and they didn't have it."
That's where missing out on "The Joe Rogan Experience" comes in, which Yang aptly referred to as "one very obvious missed opportunity."
"One very obvious missed opportunity is that Joe Rogan has the biggest audience in the country. It's disaffected, low propensity men, kind of the audience that the Harris campaign should be trying to reach, it was much more upside than anything else," Yang offered, as Jones could be seen nodding along to concur. "Kamala goes on, Tim Walz goes on and then you have millions of men who are exposed to the Democratic message, and they turned it down because she was too busy?!"
In his shock and dismay over this "obvious missed opportunity," Yang brought up another telling point. "I mean, like that that--that it makes zero sense, except in the context that the team just didn't have confidence in her to do it, which would be its own issue." Her campaign in fact did not appear to have confidence in Harris, and it was indeed "its own issue."
Jones jumped in to double down on such a point. "Unless you think he's being mean. 48 million views for the Rogan-Trump interview on YouTube alone," he reminded, as Burnett asked to confirm that this was the three-hour long form interview. It was, and such a program even made Trump late to a rally, as he quipped during his Monday night rally when reacting to Rogan's endorsement in real time.
Especially with Trump's eventual landslide win, it's even more laughable in hindsight how Harris and her team tried to claim their opponent was too "exhausted" for interviews. Another significant point that Trump emphasized when reacting to the endorsement is that Rogan has supported leftist politicians.
Yang also reminded that the 48 million views earned through YouTube is even more than the 41 million people who watched the debate between Harris and Trump from September 10.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz not going on Joe Rogan was a massive missed opportunity. pic.twitter.com/nMdlHqNlq9
— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) November 8, 2024
The clip of such a segment has been circulating over X, with pollster Frank Luntz bringing up another telling mistake that Harris made. Not only did she skip out on Rogan and the opportunity it presented, she instead appeared on "Saturday Night Live."
Not only does such a program have far fewer viewers, there also looks to have been FCC violations in having her on just days before the election, while not having Trump appear. This happened despite how the program had previously indicated they didn't want to bring the candidates on the show so as to avoid such an issue.
In the final week of the campaign, Kamala Harris turned down Joe Rogan’s podcast (14.5 million listeners) to instead go on SNL (5.3 viewers). https://t.co/OYotajcXjK
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) November 8, 2024
NBC said it wouldn't break the law, but it did. SNL nakedly boosted @KamalaHarris & @timkaine. This is brazen election interference. It was timed to avoid any chance of "equal time" under law. A post-election fine will be too little too late. The FCC should revoke NBC's license. pic.twitter.com/lka2G9L2XJ
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) November 3, 2024
On October 1, 2024, Hollywood Reporter published this article. It said, "In a recent interview ahead of the show’s 50th season, SNL creator and long-running maestro Lorne Michaels revealed that he hadn’t reached out to the real-life candidates, and he didn’t intend to before the… pic.twitter.com/3olU8qMmeT
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) November 3, 2024
Further, there's another point to be made here when it comes to whether or not the Democrats will ever get it. As Bonchie at our sister site of RedState pointed out when sharing a clip of Jones' remarks, it's astounding that the Democrats "really think this was a messaging failure" when it's so much more.
"A femboy Joe Rogan is not going to save Democrats," Bonchie's post added.
My word, they just don't get it. They really think this was a messaging failure.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 8, 2024
A femboy Joe Rogan is not going to save Democrats. https://t.co/ZfrxeTS0T7
Harris was a deeply flawed candidate a candidate with a completely warped sense of priorities. She wouldn't go to Austin for a podcast program, though she did go to Houston to campaign on abortion and with hopes to boost Democratic Rep. Colin Allred in his quest to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate race out of Texas. The campaign appearance certainly not help Allred, as the polls showed, and also as Cruz ended up winning by over 8 points.
Her team also had her campaigning in Wisconsin--where she lost by 1.1 percentage points--instead of appearing in person at the Al Smith dinner in New York City last month to benefit Catholic Charities. She instead submitted a pretaped video that was particularly poorly received and was also booed at the dinner. Trump appeared, just as he had done in 2016. He also appeared virtually in 2020, due to the COVID pandemic. The last candidate to skip out on the dinner was another Democrat, Walter Mondale, who lost 49 states to President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
