News/Commentary

Klobuchar amused by Kamala Harris ducking media: ‘She did tons of interviews’ before coronation

August 11, 2024 | | Print Article

The Democratic Party’s recycling of the 2020 basement strategy saw one prominent senator dismissing calls for greater access to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite promises from President Joe Biden’s administration to “bring transparency and truth back to government,” he had dropped off the radar before dropping out of his re-election campaign only to pass the torch to his equally press-averse running mate.

Now, three weeks after Harris was coronated as the presumptive nominee wherein communications with the press have been largely turned over to staff and surrogates, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) came out in defense of a cloistered campaign.

“Kamala Harris has yet to hold a press conference. She’s been in this now for 21 days. She has yet to do a single interview. Why is that and is that gonna change?” posited ABC News’ Jonathan Karl during a Sunday interview for “This Week.”

Stifling laughter, Klobuchar responded, “21 days, Jonathan, she started running for president. Before that, she did tons of interviews. She’s done interviews with you. She’s done interviews — I’m sure she’s gonna do interviews.”

Having accomplished something the vice president hadn’t by winning seven delegates in the 2020 Democratic primary before suspending her campaign at the beginning of March, months after then-California Sen. Kamala Harris had dropped, the Minnesota lawmaker went on, “If you look at what’s happening with the momentum and the polls and what’s happening in swing states like Wisconsin, with the numbers changing, what’s happening in Michigan, what’s happening in Pennsylvania, it is incredible.”

“The people of this country, independents, moderate Republicans, as well as, of course, Democrats, are saying, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to go back to this world of Donald Trump; I want to move forward and get someone that’s gonna work on things that matter to me and not just matter to himself,” she argued.

To Klobuchar’s suggestion that Harris would likely do more interviews, during the vice president’s first interaction with the press since supplanting Biden at the top of the ticket, she had told reporters in Michigan Thursday, “I’ve talked to my team. I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month.”

The proposed timing would mean a premiere interview for the 2024 Harris for President campaign wouldn’t come until after she had secured the nomination from her party at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois beginning Aug. 19.

It was also likely to mean more pressure from those in corporate media who’ve seemingly grown tired of carrying all the water for the vice president who thus far had remained noncommittal on key issues to voting blocs — like how she planned to handle the conflict in the Middle East.

New Yorker writer Jay Caspian Kang had lamented over the press not challenging Harris with more questions, “A generic candidate who promises nothing on the campaign trail and is unburdened by any past might be the dream of electoral-politics nerds, but it’s the job of the press in a healthy democracy to make sure that voters know whom they’re supporting. An unexamined candidate can become anything, and can work under the influence of anyone when they assume power.”

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who has repeatedly called out Harris over her radio silence, did so again during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash when he asserted, “I believe that Kamala Harris is whatever she says she is, but I believe, importantly, that President Trump is right that she’s a chameleon. She pretends to be one thing in front of one audience; she pretends to be something different in front of another audience.”

“Look, Dana, she’s not running a political campaign,” the GOP vice presidential nominee went on. “She’s running a movie. She only speaks to voters behind a teleprompter. Everything is scripted. She doesn’t have her policy positions out there. She hasn’t answered why she wanted to ban fracking but now she doesn’t; she wanted to defund police but now she doesn’t; she wanted to open the border but now she doesn’t.”

“She should have to answer for why she presents a different set of policies to one audience and a different set of policies to another audience,” he said. “And I think that’s what President Trump is getting at. This is a fundamentally fake person; she’s different depending on who she’s in front of.”

Kevin Haggerty
Latest posts by Kevin Haggerty (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles