Your support helps us to tell the story
Ever since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the mantle as the Democratic nominee for president, she has been criticized for her comparatively few media appearances. She only did her first sitdown interview in August, a month after Biden passed the torch. Her first solo interview was with Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC, and many wondered why that took so long.
Unsurprisingly, the press wants more access. Back in the day, former House speaker John Boehner called speaking to the press “alligator feeding time” and said that “the goal here is to feed the alligators without getting bit.” Boehner, the constantly chain-smoking, wine-drinking Republican, understood that if he did not feed the alligators, they would eventually start to bite him.
If that’s the case, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived to the final month before the presidential election with raw flesh by the bushel.
Earlier this week, her interview on Alex Cooper’s podcast Call Her Daddy about abortion rights went live. On Monday, she and her running mate Tim Walz went on 60 Minutes, where she revealed what kind of gun she carries. On Tuesday morning, Harris appeared on The View to roll out her new policy to have Medicare pay for home care. Tuesday evening brings an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
She also went on Howard Stern’s radio show, where she called Trump a “sore loser.” That last bit is an extra twist in the knife given that Stern frequently hosted Donald Trump when he was tabloid gold in the 1990s and down on his financial luck.
Harris is also blitzing local media. Last week, shortly after Iran fired nearly 200 rockets at Israel (and while Inside Washington played a waiting game), Harris conducted two sitdown interviews: one with KDKA-TV, the Pittsburgh CBS affiliate, and another with WSB-TV, the Atlanta ABC affiliate.
There are a number of reasons for doing a media blitz this late in the game. For one, early voting has begun in many states. Doing interviews so close to early voting allows her to remain front of mind for many voters, particularly as Trump has increasingly remained cloistered in his own ideological cocoon, electing to go on conservative talk host Hugh Hewitt’s show, where he said migrants had “bad genes” and falsely claimed he went to Gaza.
Second, Harris — who has avoided doing too many sitdown press interviews ever since her 2021 interview with NBC News when she laughed off a question of why she had not been to the US-Mexico border — now feels she is able to define herself separately from Biden, though she has made sure not to disavow him too much.
Thid, these appearances are deliberately targeted at audiences she needs. Call Her Daddy is an incredibly popular podcast with younger women who might be politically disengaged. Stern has a largely male audience at a time when Harris knows she will have more to do as a female candidate. And announcing a home care policy on The View recognizes how much caregiving falls on women in families.
Of course, there is extreme risk in doing a full-court press with the media. She’s already tussled with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about her reaction to Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene. If she’s not careful, she could come off as trying to simply want a photo op.
Ultimately, the vice president’s decision to finally speak to the press shows she’s willing to feed the alligators who have been circling for some time. The question is whether the chum she offers will satiate them enough to not bite her fingers off.
