Democratic strategist James Carville expressed frustration on a Thursday podcast over Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign yielding to outside pressure to do interviews.
Harris, who launched her campaign on July 21, initially avoided interviews, but recently engaged in a friendly media blitz as well as appearing on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” Carville, on “Politics War Room,” suggested Harris’ “60 Minutes” appearance was a misstep, claiming it offered no real benefit and forced her to cater to the interviewer’s “agenda.
LISTEN:
“This is something that I think they screwed up. It became, ‘When are you going to do long form journalism? When are you going to sit down and be questioned? When are you going to do Tim Russert?’ Okay, the problem with that is, if you do it, you don’t get credit for it. Secondly, if you go on a show, you talk about what the questioner wants to talk about,” Carville said. “That’s the way ’60 Minutes’ works. Talk about what you want to talk about. Don’t talk about what they want to talk about. Talk about Obamacare … Talk about tariffs.”
“It’s always, ‘Well, if we do it, then they won’t say things bad about us.’ Yeah, they’re not going to say anything good … You are letting someone else set your agenda. I just — I could see this coming and the whole thing became the test of her candidate-hood or whatever it is, is to sit there and be grilled for 30 minutes,” he continued. “Well, do one of those and that’s enough. Get out of there. Do what you want to do. Bring up the issues you want to bring about. Have the surrogates you want out there to talk about it and quit fucking responding to what other people want.”
Harris faced tough questioning during her “60 Minutes” interview as CBS News’ Bill Whitaker pressed her on her many policy flip-flops, vague economic plan and the border.
“I’m serious. I’m very passionate about this and I’m getting increasingly pissed off about it,” Carville said.
Former President Donald Trump declined to participate in a “60 Minutes” interview. Journalist Mark Halperin said on Thursday that Trump could “afford” to skip the interview, but it was essential for Harris because voters need to learn more about her.
“The polls are quite clear on this, and the anecdotal is quite clear too. She’s got to show people what she’s about. People know what Donald Trump’s about. So skipping ’60 Minutes’ doesn’t really cost him anything. Is it bad pool? It is, but that’s the way it goes,” Halperin said. “He can afford not to do it. And that’s true for at least one reason, as said, people don’t know her as well. And it’s also true if Trump’s ahead, right? If he’s ahead, it’d be malpractice for him to agree to things that could cost him the lead.”
Carville during a September podcast seemed to advise Harris to take a mix of “planted” and unrehearsed questions during public speaking events to appear more impressive, without making it “evident” she knew about some of the queries.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Politcon)
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