Shamed into ‘media blitz’, Harris interviews boomerang as viral moments draw flak

Vice President Kamala Harris’s ongoing “media blitz” has Republicans jubilant as a series of awkward moments and seemingly ill-timed appearances on some podcasts have provided them with a bevy of material to showcase her struggles in the spotlight and difficulty accounting for her own political record.

“Genuinely loving this Kamala media blitz and hope it never ends,” wrote Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway.

This week, has made appearances on multiple programs, including the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Howard Stern’s radio show, CBS’s “60 Minutes,” and “The View.” The slew of public appearances stands in contrast to her prior evasion of the media and comes amid indications that the race is sliding towards former President Donald Trump. The campaign’s decision to place her in the spotlight -- albeit a narrowly tailored one --  followed frustrations and concerns among Democrats that her emulation of President Joe Biden’s “hiding in the basement” strategy was less likely to work for a lesser known figure such as her.

While the carefully curated array of programs are all generally left-leaning and, what The New York Times characterized as “friendly,” several of these appearances have produced clips in which Harris either struggled to answer questions coherently or stumbled in the face of the slightest pushback or follow up from the interviewer.

“Part of the reason I want Kamala Harris to do some interviews is because every time she opens her mouth, I think Donald Trump and I gain about 100,000 votes,” Vance said at a rally in September.

Republicans have evidently embraced Vance’s sentiment and rushed to distribute some of Harris’s worst moments from her recent appearances in a bid to sway public perception of her. At least some outside figures, such as Piers Morgan, have observed that she appears to be shooting herself in the foot.

“The more interviews Kamala Harris does, the weaker a presidential candidate she seems,” he posted. “Just endless word salad bilge. Democrats must be kicking themselves they didn’t have a proper contest to replace Biden.”

CBS’s “60 Minutes”

Harris appeared on “60 Minutes” for an interview Monday evening that Trump himself roasted as a boon to Republicans.

"The Interview on 60 Minutes with Comrade Kamala Harris is considered by many of those who reviewed it, the WORST Interview they have ever seen," he said. "She literally had no idea what she was talking about, and it was an embarrassment to our Country that a Major Party Candidate would be so completely inept."

“This is good news because November 5th is the Most Important Day in the History of our Country, and we cannot bear four more years of Incompetence,” he added.

His campaign subsequently shared a number of excerpts from that interview in which the interviewer pressed her on immigration policy, the prospect of war with China, and her changing policy positions.

Among the most high-profile quips was Harris’s attempt to respond to a question from interviewer Bill Whitaker if “Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening” to the administration.

"Well Bill, the work we that have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel, that were very much prompted by, or a result of, uh, many things including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region,” was Harris’s reply.

“If China attacks Taiwan, will you use military force?” Whitaker asked. Harris declined to directly answer, saying “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals, but we need to make sure that we maintain a One China Policy” but insisted that meant “supporting Taiwan’s ability to defend itself” and maintaining “direct lines of communication with China.”

“The reason most voters don’t know you is that you have changed your position on so many things,” Whitaker said, before listing fracking, Medicare-for-all, and loose immigration policies.

"We are a diverse people, geographically, regionally, in terms of where we are in our backgrounds,” Harris retorted. “And what the American people do want is we have leaders who can build consensus.”

The interviewer also pressed Harris on why the administration waited until 2024 to crack down on the influx of asylum seekers at the border, questioning why the Biden-Harris administration did not implement such a policy years earlier. Harris began the exchange by blaming Trump for stopping the passage of an immigration bill, though Whitaker pressed her on the “historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years” of the administration.

“Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?” Whitaker asked.

“It’s a longstanding problem and solutions are at hand and from day one literally we have been offering solutions,” she said. A dissatisfied Whitaker clarified that “what I was asking was was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?”

“The policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem,” Harris added. While Whitaker attempted to press her on whether the administration should have acted earlier, she did not address his query.

“The View”

Harris appeared on ABC's left-leaning program “The View” this week, during which she was asked “If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?”

"There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she replied. The exchange saw the Trump War Room reshare the clip while the campaign shared the segment without commentary in a news release.

Republicans, evidently, found the exchange to need little additional material for use as a promotional tool. Fox News contributor Guy Benson, for instance, merely added the quip “I’m Donald Trump and I approve this message.”

Harris also struggled to differentiate herself from Biden when pressed on what would be the “biggest specific difference” between her prospective administration and Biden’s. “Well, we’re obviously two different people and we have a lot of shared life experiences … we’re also different people, and I will bring those sensibilities to how I lead,” she said.

“Call Her Daddy”

Earlier in the week, Harris came under fire for appearing on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, a women-oriented program that largely addresses sex-related issues, amid the ongoing Hurricane Helene relief efforts in western North Carolina.

Her appearance on the program alone was not without controversy in light of its usual subject matters and the timing. The Trump campaign, for its part, juxtaposed footage of her appearance on the podcast with footage of the devastation in the Old North State.

One particular exchange also went viral during which Harris and host Alex Cooper discussed abortion and attempted to think of a law regulating men’s bodies, without success.

“I want to take a moment and can we try to think of any law that gives the government the power to make a decision about a man’s body?” Cooper asked, to which Harris replied “no,” repeatedly.

The clip went viral as critics pointed out that neither party were able to think of the military draft. Neither did either person think to mention COVID-19 vaccine mandates, which the Biden-Harris administration imposed on men and women during the pandemic.