As Vice President Kamala Harris continues to embrace President Joe Biden’s “basement strategy,” a CNBC reporter cornered a Harris campaign surrogate — pressing him to defend Harris’ refusal to answer tough questions from the media.
Harris has consistently avoided unscripted events, interviews, and press conferences, likely out of fear that her penchant for gaffes and awkward “word salads” would turn off voters. According to a side-by-side comparison from Axios, the Harris-Walz campaign has given significantly fewer interviews than the Trump-Vance campaign — with the outlet reporting that the “Harris-Walz ticket is on pace to do fewer interviews and press conferences than any major party’s presidential pairing in modern U.S. history.”
At the time of Axios’ report, former President Donald Trump had done seven local interviews, his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) had done 15, Harris had done only one, and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) had done three. Looking at national TV interviews, Trump had done two, Vance had done 24, and Harris and Walz had done one joint interview with CNN. Harris and Walz had also done zero official press conferences at that time, while Trump did three and Vance did 12.
Spot the difference pic.twitter.com/gpMYVSvbh7
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 19, 2024
Harris’ refusal to speak to the American people unscripted has become such a major issue that even mainstream media outlets like CNBC are finally calling her out.
During a Tuesday morning interview, CNBC host Joe Kernen cornered Harris campaign surrogate Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) about Harris hiding from the media.
“If she would come on, we could get answers to a lot of these things,” Kernen said, adding that he would also like to have a chance to speak with Trump.
“And I’m just wondering, as a campaign surrogate who advises the campaign, there is an effort to rope-a-dope this thing right until the election, in my view, and the other side’s done 40 or 50 interviews with JD Vance,” he continued. “I don’t think I have to take my shoes off to count on my fingers and toes how many interviews she’s done, along with Governor Walz, and that looks like a deliberate effort just not to face the hard questions.”
Coons, a Harris campaign co-chair, responded by deflecting.
“We just had Vice President Harris say ‘Yes, let’s do another presidential debate.’ And Donald Trump said no, and you have to agree that a nationally televised hour-long debate is one way to answer a lot of direct questions—” he began.
“So is just sitting down in an interview with anyone,” Kernen interrupted.
Coons immediately tried to deflect the question by discussing events that Harris is supposedly slated to attend and attacking Trump, but Kernen refused to let him get away with avoiding the question.
“But the answer is that she’s too busy?” the CNBC host asked, pointing out that being “transparent” about policy would be one of his top concerns if he was a presidential candidate.
Coons ultimately refused to answer the question, once again deflecting by attacking Trump and Vance, this time because he had “a hard time tracking” their statements during interviews.
CNBC's Joe Kernen grilled Harris surrogate Chris Coons on Harris' lack of interviews this am
Harris and Walz have participated in 7 interviews, while Trump and Vance have done over 70 interviews and press conferences@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/zkAOIOKle4
— Nicole Silverio (@NicoleMSilverio) September 24, 2024
