Kamala Harris’s team has realized that “brat” vibes and coconut emojis alone would not carry her over the finish line in November.
After making avoiding interviews a cornerstone of her campaign, she is finally scheduled to make the rounds. To speak not with a teleprompter, but a real human.
To talk about substantive issues.
She’ll be tested on her nearly four years in the Biden White House, her record on the border and how she plans to bring down the cost of living.
I kid.
Harris is gearing up for a softball tour, visiting the right-hating ladies of “The View,” Stephen “dancing vaccine needle” Colbert and Howard Stern: all people ready to throw her a parade because she’s not the bad orange man.
On Sunday, she was on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast, which is a home for celebrities to talk about copulation in such a tawdry way that it would make Samantha Jones blush. It’s where Katy Perry boasted of rewarding her fiance Orlando Bloom with oral sex if he’s done housework and Brazilian pop star Anitta and comedian Heather McMahan shared their fellatio tips. Christina Aguilera once referred to herself as a “promoter of the swallow” on the show.
Not exactly an incisive political forum.
But it is a safe spot for Harris — who has been showered with soft-focus media features and fawning takes on her cooking and clothing — to once again be treated like a glittering celebrity.
I’ve seen many Republicans dismiss the podcast, saying they’ve never heard of it. It’s dishonest to claim Cooper’s audience isn’t passionate, engaged or massive; “Call Her Daddy” was the fourth most listened-to podcast in the country in the second quarter of this year, according to Edison Research.
But how does that move the needle for Harris, who was preaching to her choir of Gen Z woman? (Although even they didn’t want it. Some listeners immediately took to social media to voice displeasure at having politics creep into their escapist space.)
Yesterday on “Meet the Press,” Andrea Mitchell said Harris needed to do tougher interviews, expose herself to harsher elements. “She’s got such a big problem with men … big problem. But also the business world, they don’t think she’s serious. They don’t think she’s a heavyweight.”
So naturally, the veep went on “Call Her Daddy” — “to talk about the things that people really care about,” she said.
For a show that deals in lurid revelations, it was relatively boring and Harris played the old hits: her empty platitudes about possibility and ambition — as if the American people think of ourselves as do-nothing slobs in the absence of her affirmation.
Abortion took up a large part of the conversation. Cooper repeated fear-mongering lies about Georgia woman Amber Thurman’s tragic death from a septic infection, saying the 28-year-old died because doctors in the state were hesitant to treat her due to a six-week abortion ban, as Harris nodded along. (Thurman’s family blames the doctors, not the law.) Cooper then asked Harris if there is “any law that gives the government the power to make a decision about a man’s body.”
Harris giggled. “No. No. No. No. No. It’s, no.”
Perhaps a producer should have chimed in, “Hey, what about the military draft?”
The vice-president also spoke of her advocacy for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence: “So the point being that abuse of anyone is something we should all take seriously as opposed to saying, it’s none of our business.”
Except, that is, if her own husband, Doug Emhoff, has been accused of slapping an ex-girlfriend in 2012, knocking up his kid’s nanny and allegedly paying her $80,000. (A spokesperson for Emhoff said of the slap allegation, “The report is untrue.”)
The one bright spot was a response to Sarah Huckabee Sanders stupidly mocking Harris because she doesn’t have biological children. Harris defended the value of being a step-parent. It was humanizing, but did little to convince me that she could be commander-in-chief as the world is on fire.
The media landscape has experienced a seismic change even since the 2020 race — and a wise candidate will sit with a variety of legacy and independent media outlets. Podcasters and influencers.
They’re excellent vehicles to have a free-ranging chat with nuance. And it doesn’t always have to be combative.
But it should be led by someone with expertise. In her intro, Cooper says she doesn’t get involved in politics and doesn’t interview politicians, which was clearly a draw for team Harris. No pressure. No deep knowledge of the issues. No pushback.
It was a venue for Harris to treat women like one-dimensional creatures sated by pro-abortion rhetoric — an insult to our intelligence.
But the Harris strategy is to create an illusion that she’s digging in. And all of these friendly, airy chats provide cover and drown out her lack of depth. We need her on more shows like “60 Minutes,” where Bill Whitaker pressed the VP on her economic plan, saying what we’re all thinking:
“But we’re dealing with the real world here.”
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