Two of Washington’s most influential newsletters inadvertently did an excellent job this week of highlighting a couple of things that are more or less two sides of the same coin: the media-generated dynamic leading up to the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, plus the drummed-up anticipation surrounding the first nationally televised interview with Kamala as the Democrat nominee.
Both newsletters, by Politico and Axios, framed their offerings as if Kamala has masterfully positioned herself to hold all the cards for both events, when in fact she’s done nothing. If anything, she should have the weaker hand with both.
Kamala is currently in the White House, leading an administration that has overseen: record levels of inflation, making middle-income earners poorer; weak wage growth, leaving middle-income earners reducing their own standards of living; and an open southern border, diverting limited government resources away from taxpaying Americans to migrants who broke our laws. That’s without mentioning the two new foreign wars directly implicating the United States and which require yet more indefinite financial sacrifice by American taxpayers, many of whom haven’t even been born.
Kamala did not go through a primary to earn her party’s nomination. She has served as vice president with record-low approval ratings. Kamala did not make it through a single primary competition of her first real run for president in 2019, dropping out before the first contest in Iowa as she polled at just 3 percent among Democrat voters. She did just have her staff anonymously tell the news media that she no longer holds every major position that defined that campaign — defunding the police, decriminalizing unauthorized border crossing, eliminating private health insurance — without any explanation for the changes.
An honest news media would remind voters of that reality, around the clock, every single day, and insist it’s incumbent upon Kamala to answer for herself. But our media, ushered along by Axios and Politico, deceitfully pretend Kamala has all the leverage.
Axios, Aug. 27: “[Harris] was continuing to control the campaign conversation as she roared out of Chicago into her first post-convention week.”
Politico, same day: “[W]ith the Democratic nominee generally hitting all her marks since entering the race, her scripted, light-on-policy candidacy has become an issue. And questions about when, where and with whom Harris will finally sit down are dominating the inside conversation this week.”
See there? If you’re installed as the Democrat nominee, having received not a single primary vote for the job, and you allow the media to pretend you’re not currently presiding over a weak economy, an open border, and global wars, Politico will say you’re “generally hitting all your marks.” Must be nice!
Not only are the media asking the “questions” about the pending interview, they’re strategizing with the campaign about it.
Politico was kind enough to offer the extra detail that Kamala’s team is consulting with its closest advisers (Washington reporters) on who should be so lucky as to get the opportunity to ask the vice president questions. That’s not a joke. “Harris campaign staff,” the newsletter said, “have been asking reporters who they think she should talk to.”
This is undoubtedly the most open alignment in history between a national Democrat campaign and the media supposedly vetting that campaign on behalf of voters.
While Donald Trump is dashing to every TV, radio, and podcast studio that will have him — fewer and fewer corporate ones will — Kamala remains cloistered away, huddling with reporters about how to handle … reporters.
This isn’t a celebrity we should be waiting to hear from. This is a candidate for president who should be scurrying in front of every camera she can find so that she can defend her indisputably awful tenure in the White House, a tenure she says she’d like to extend. And if she won’t, she deserves to be berated by everyone, especially the media, until she does.
They won’t, though. They’re helping her hide.
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