Liberal pundits who assured the public that Kamala Harris’ lack of engagement with the press was fine, are now claiming she should do more interviews.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes agreed with colleague Stephanie Ruhle, fresh off her September interview with Harris, that Harris should do more interviews. Hayes gushed over the pair’s “great interview” during an episode of his show “All In with Chris Hayes.”
The two bandied about the idea that Harris, who has notoriously participated in few one-on-one interviews, should do more press.
“I feel like the times I’ve seen the Vice President on her feet … since she became the nominee, which would be the interview she did at CNN, some of the local interviews she’s done, the thing she did with Oprah, the debate, the interview with you … she’s obviously quite adept, she’s quite deft, she’s quite fluid,” Hayes said. “It does seem to me like it would benefit them, and benefit the public just at a deep, substantiative level, to talk more about this stuff. Like I feel like I learned something,” Hayes continued.
“I think that one hundred percent,” Ruhle agreed.
“The more she sits down … I mean, she’s a great interviewer. I sat down with her for 25 minutes, you might not have liked all of her answers but she had one for every single question,” Ruhle continued.
The admission was seemingly a stark change in tune for Ruhle, who previously indicated it did not matter that Harris hadn’t elucidated many policy positions.
“Kamala Harris is not running for perfect, she is running against Trump,” Ruhle said during a September appearance on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
“We have two choices, and so there are some things that you might not know her answer to, and in 2024, unlike 2016 for a lot of the American people, we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and the kind of threat he is to democracy,” Ruhle said.
Hayes and Ruhle are not the only liberal media darlings to call for more Kamala, either. (RELATED: ‘It’s Not Going To Continue To Work’: Stephen A. Smith Sounds Alarm On Harris Copying Biden’s Basement Strategy)
Ezra Klein, a New York Times columnist and co-founder of the popular left-wing news site Vox, said the Harris-Walz media strategy backfired during Walz’s debate against JD Vance on Tuesday.
“Harris does almost no interviews, no tough interviews. And they have put Tim Walz on the same diet,” Klein said during a Thursday episode of his podcast “The Ezra Klein Show.”
“Unlike JD Vance who’s doing all these tough interviews and getting into fights constantly with the media and sharpening his rhetorical blades and realizing how he can answer these questions and testing and testing and testing his lines, not only is Harris not doing that, but Walz is really good at it, that’s why they picked him on some level,” Klein continued.
David Axelrod, another influential left wing media figure who served as a Senior Advisor to President Obama, echoed similar sentiments.
“People keep peeling layers, they want to know more about you,” Axelrod said during a September conversation at the Atlantic Festival.
“One way you reveal that is through interviews and town halls and unscripted interactions. And I think she needs to do more of that between now and the election to give people comfort,” Axelrod continued.
.@davidaxelrod says Kamala Harris needs to do more interviews and town halls “to give people comfort.”
“The country is ready to vote against Trump but they want to know that [Kamala Harris] is an acceptable alternative.” https://t.co/XPwy2P3V5D #TAF24 pic.twitter.com/RxECPvntwb
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) September 20, 2024
Harris and Walz have participated in remarkably few interviews since President Biden bowed out and endorsed Harris in July. Combined the pair sat for just seven interviews between then and Sept. 19 compared to the over 70 former President Trump and Vance did in the same span, according to a Daily Caller review.