Vice President Kamala Harris is being skewered online for choosing to do her first formal interview as a 2024 presidential candidate with running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Bash will interview the duo together on Thursday during their campaign stop in Georgia.
It will be days from now before Harris formalizes that status — although this does represent the first time she has for a guest appearance submitted to questions by the press since President Joe Biden sheriff’s himself in, after 38 hours previously having sat behind walls.
But the news that Harris would sit down for an interview with Walz — and be questioned by a sympathetic host on a friendly network— sparked drudgeoning about her not being “ready” or able to do any media appearance solo.
Josh Hawley’s communications director Abigail Jackson wrote, “Kamala needs to do a live, unedited, solo press conference. She wants to be commander-in-chief and she’s too scared to do an interview without Tim Walz by her side? Girl power, amirite.”
“Joe Biden can’t get into a car or up a flight of stairs without a handler, and apparently Kamala Harris can’t even talk to a CNN reporter by herself. Embarrassing,” The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis commented.
Mediaite writer Caleb Howe joked that the ticket would be asked, “WHAT WOULD YOU SAY HAS MUTUALLY ENCHANTED YOU BOTH ABOUT BEING THE NOMINEES.”
“LOL, a joint interview. She simply cannot be left unattended,” National Review writer Jeff Behar wrote before adding, “To quote a colleague at NR: Tim Walz is apparently Kamala Harris’s ‘emotional support midwesterner.’”
The Spectator contributing editor Stephen Miller asked why Walz even needed to be there while conservative commentator Steve Guest advocated for the entire interview to be published in full.
Harris has not spoken publicly since being picked by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and she had yet to hold a press conference or do an interview before the CNN event.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Dan Schneider, the vice president of MRC Free Speech America called Huffpost’s touted interview “utterly superficial,” without making an attempt to grill Harris. Dana Bash, who’s known to frequently toss out warm-up questions to politicians that share her partisan beliefs.”
MRC Free Speech America vice president Dan Schneider criticized the announcement, arguing Harris would never have “a real interview with a real journalist” on real policy issues.
“Kamala Harris is still avoiding the press. She’s going to be interviewing with Dana Bash. Dana Bash, who is sort of notorious for repeating softball questions to candidates who agree with her political worldview and then, of course, being very harsh and asking a lot of questions to people on the right who have different points of view. But we all knew that Kamala Harris was eventually going to do essentially a fake interview with a very sympathetic interviewer. And so, Dana Bash got the nod,” Schneider said.
