100 Days of Silence: Kamala Harris Shuns an Adoring Press

The VP has achieved an inauspicious milestone.

It’s been 100 days and Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, has not held a single press conference in that time. She has sat for a few friendly interviews, and, of course, she’s done campaign rallies and other carefully staged-managed public appearances. She even consented to an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, but she has not once in the last hundred days fielded questions from a pool of reporters. It’s an inauspicious milestone for any presidential candidate, and the establishment media has been remarkably unfazed – even going so far as to suggest Harris doesn’t need to talk to the press.

One would have imagined that by now – like presidential underdog Harry Truman in 1948 – Kamala Harris would be well into a whistlestop tour of the country, connecting with ordinary Americans (as opposed to supporters brought in to play the part) and speaking to as many reporters as she could find. Then again, Truman had a vision for America, albeit a progressive one. Harris continues, as she has from the moment she was handed the nomination, to campaign on not being Donald Trump – plus some vague promises of financial giveaways to certain groups she sees as vital voting blocs.

Kamala Harris Doesn’t Meet the Press

No impartial observer could honestly say the VP has come out of any of her recent TV or podcast appearances looking like someone who is at the top of her game. She talks about her formative years – or, at least, how she appears to remember them – or speaks in bizarre and repetitive platitudes that come nowhere close to containing substantive answers to questions she has been asked. Neither has she at any time demonstrated a deep or detailed knowledge of any of the main issues that clearly concern the 2024 voters.

That last point seems like a good reason for Harris’ continued reluctance to accept direct challenges from inquisitive reporters. It is not, however, because — like her boss, Joe Biden — Kamala Harris, even at a press conference, is unlikely to call on any reporter who represents what she would consider a hostile network, newspaper, or website. Thus, in all likelihood, the Democrats’ presidential hopeful could engage with a posse of reporters for an hour or more and not have to answer a single challenging question.

One can only speculate, then, about why Harris refuses to give press conferences. Is it because her campaign handlers understand that she is simply not very good at verbal communication in an environment that requires one to think on one’s feet and formulate responses on the fly? Certainly, her apparent inability to do so has been on display during several recent television appearances, including a sit-down with Oprah Winfrey and a 60 Minutes interview for CBS News. The network even felt the need to completely cut one of her rambling answers to a question about Israel and replace it with a shorter answer she gave to a related question.

Though the left-wing media could fairly be accused of almost countless acts of journalistic malpractice – especially over the past eight years – even it isn’t buying Kamala’s smoke-and-mirrors campaign. When you’re the Democratic candidate for the White House, running against the hated Donald Trump, and Washington’s most famous and most left-leaning newspaper declines to endorse you, things may not be going well. If Kamala Harris fails in her bid to become the 47th president and decides to give it another shot in four years, she would probably do well to reflect on the value of succinct statements and in-person media exposure – especially when most of the media is predisposed to giving you favorable coverage.