Like president, like vice president. United States President Joe Biden has been notorious since early in his presidential term for ducking press conferences, interviews, and other opportunities for journalists to ask him difficult or just unexpected questions. Now, in the third week of her presidential run, Kamala Harris is following in Biden’s course of extreme avoiding of media questioning.
Addressing Harris’s dodging of media scrutiny, Michael M. Grynbaum wrote in a Thursday New York Times article:
In the nearly three weeks since President Biden withdrew his candidacy, catapulting Ms. Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, the vice president has shown little eagerness to meet journalists in unscripted settings. She has not granted an interview or held a news conference. On Thursday, after a rally in Michigan, she held her first “gaggle” — an impromptu Q.-and-A. session — with reporters covering her campaign.
It lasted 70 seconds.
This type of approach sets Harris apart from other presidential contenders in the 2024 election. It also stands in the way of voters learning much about her — a candidate thrust upon them at the last minute.
Maybe the Harris campaign will implode if she moves away from scripted events, as did Biden’s reelection campaign when Biden debated Republican challenger Donald Trump in June.
Grynbaum presented in his article Trump’s take on Harris avoiding press conferences and interviews, writing:
‘She doesn’t know how to do a news conference; she’s not smart enough to do a news conference,’ he said during a discursive news conference on Thursday in Florida. ‘She won’t do interviews with friendly people because she can’t do better than Biden,’ Mr. Trump added.
That would explain Harris’s peculiar behavior. The longer she keeps up her avoidance, the more people will start thinking along the same lines as Trump about it.