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“One of the best ways to communicate with people,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in her appearance on the podcast “Call Her Daddy,” “is to be real.”
She was responding to a direct — and fair — question from podcast host Alex Cooper: Why had Harris, having done only two extensive interviews so far in her brief and intense run for the Presidency, decided to appear on this show? “Call Her Daddy” was the first of a brief and intense burst of media interviews Harris had done this week, which also included “60 Minutes,” “The View,” “The Howard Stern Show,” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” And throughout, Harris sought to rapidly fix what has been a career-long challenge — defining what has been a hazy image.
Harris’ first two major interviews as a candidate — one conducted jointly with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on CNN, and one done solo, on MSNBC — had been smooth enough, but unremarkable. As a candidate, ever since President Joe Biden stepped aside, Harris has shone in settings where she is either in control, like her rallies, or where she could put her background as a prosecutor to good use, as in her remarkable debate performance against former President Donald Trump. Interviews, though, require a softer touch, and Harris has at times found herself on her back foot.
Of this week’s big interviews, “60 Minutes” — though by no means a failure — was the one that was the most qualified of successes. What it achieved for Harris was quieting an ongoing conversation among the columnist class that Harris has been actively dodging mainstream media interviews. (This made for a particularly pointed contrast as Trump had been asked to appear on the same broadcast, and had said no.) The interview format, though, did not particularly benefit a candidate who tends to speak in paragraphs rather than sentences (never before have I been quite so aware of the “60 Minutes” tendency to pipe in audio of the correspondent speaking while an answer is still unfolding), and Harris’ redirecting of journalist Bill Whitaker’s line of questioning about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not reflect the candidate at her strongest.
On Colbert’s show, too, Harris struggled with answering a question about the protracted conflict in Gaza; asked about concrete reasons Americans might feel hope about a resolution to the war, Harris spoke generally about the value of optimism. But this was embedded within a friendly interview. In the moment, Harris seemed to realize that she was in the weeds, saying “it is a conversation that requires probably more time than you and I have right now.” Colbert then threw her a lifeline, asking directly about how close the current administration has gotten to a cease-fire deal. In the next segment, the pair drank beers together — Miller High Lifes, at the candidate’s request — and Colbert good-naturedly razzed her about the canniness of choosing a beer from swing-state Wisconsin.
Each piece of press solved a problem of sorts for Harris — for all the jokes about swing voters, “Colbert” put her in front of an audience likely composed of Democratic voters in order to amp up enthusiasm. (Colbert was so boosterish, in fact, that he name-checked as praiseworthy three governors who had been affected by the recent Hurricane Helene, seeming to pointedly leave out Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been in a war of words with Harris as Hurricane Milton bears down on his state.) “The View” and “Howard Stern” made for soft-landing interviews on programs with across-the-aisle reach, though not without their own hiccups. While Stern, who is a blunt and direct interlocutor, made clear he is voting for Harris, “The View’s” open-ended question about how Harris differed from the unpopular incumbent found Harris at a loss to say much substantive at all.
It was “Call Her Daddy” on which Harris came across the best — which is to say, the most clearly. The show’s loose, conversation structure allowed Harris to take command, and its audience — young women — dictated that the conversation would return to one of the issues on which her campaign is strongest: reproductive health. In a campaign where so many voters seem not just decided but polarized, and in which the outcome may rest on convincing some minuscule number of voters to turn out rather than not voting at all, this matters.
Listening to “Call Her Daddy,” a future of campaigning seemed to come into focus. There are candidates more adept at being interviewed than Harris, and candidates less adept, too. But just as Trump spurned “60 Minutes” in favor of a press strategy leaning heavily on “manosphere” podcasts like Theo Von’s, Harris seemed to gain little from “60 Minutes” and to gain much from going on a program with a particular, siloed audience to whom she can speak directly. Right now, Trump skipping “60 Minutes” feels like an example of his particular aberrance and Harris’ relatively slim portfolio of interviews feels like a consequence of her foreshortened campaign. But those are just vibes. In 20 years, it may be remarkable if a candidate does any traditional media at all.
English (US) ·