Harris’s Refusal to Submit to Interviews Is Becoming a Liability

By Noah Rothman

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

 

Inside the media bubble, media are the problem. Their parochial fixation with forcing Kamala Harris to submit to their inquiries is a process story about which only reporters care and Republicans care. But while journalists’ interests are professional, Republicans’ desires are purely malign. They want to run Harris through a gauntlet from which she will emerge, they assume, worse for wear. Why should reporters facilitate the GOP’s political objectives?

 

It’s telling that those running block for Harris never entertain the notion that the vice president could adroitly navigate her way through an adversarial setting by promoting sound and popular policy proposals in an articulate and compelling way. The fact that such an outcome is regarded as wildly speculative conveys more to voters than a sit-down interview with Scott Pelley ever could.

 

But there is a risk to both the press and Harris in their respective effort to keep the Democratic nominee muzzled. They risk missing the boat when voters conclude, without media’s assistance, that Harris is avoiding journalistic scrutiny because she can’t handle it.

 

An Echelon Insights poll conducted after the conclusion of the Democratic nominating convention found that nearly nine out of ten voters believe it is either “very” or “somewhat important” that a presidential candidate “regularly do media interviews and answer questions from the press.” Gradually but perceptibly, the media-driven imperative to protect Harris from herself is transitioning into an effort to convince Harris to give voters what they want from her before they demand it of her.

 

Like-think inside the journalistic apparatus can lead the press to miss tectonic shifts beneath their feet. They missed, or didn’t want to acknowledge, the degree to which voters had lost confidence in Joe Biden’s faculties. The same could be said of the border crisis and the liabilities associated with Hunter Biden’s close association with the White House. Voters caught onto all this long before the press, which was only compelled to meet voters where they lived after it became clear the public lost faith in the press to relate the story accurately. The same phenomenon is at work creating the impression in voters’ minds that Harris has something to hide.