NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for a “misstep” by avoiding interviews in the early weeks of the presidential campaign.
It was announced Tuesday that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will be appearing in a joint interview with CNN's Dana Bash, to be recorded Thursday afternoon and air in primetime.
On Wednesday, Todd NBC News website He said the Harris campaign's “first big mistake” was “upping the stakes” for Ms Harris' first interview by staying in hiding for nearly 40 days.
Kamala Harris gives first CNN interview after weeks of avoiding the press, with Tim Waltz joining
NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for a “misstep” in continuing to avoid coverage nearly 40 days into the presidential campaign. (William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images)
“I think the easiest way to get out of this is to get out there and do local interviews and podcasts that take her to friendly places and not so friendly places,” Todd later told NBC News Now. “When you try to be laser-focused like that, you gravitate towards big events. If you have six interviews, you're going to overwhelm people. It all dilutes it.”
“So I think this just reinforces the negative stereotypes that people had before she entered the race, which is that she worries too much and takes a little too long. There's a fine line between thinking things through and being paralyzed by a decision. And the way they've handled the media thing, I get it, it's not as important as we think it is, but I think the way they handled it was just, kind of a mistake,” Todd continued.
The veteran NBC news anchor looked back at former President Trump's media strategy in 2016 and suggested Harris should take a page from Trump's playbook.
CNN anchor: Did Harris 'wait too long' to schedule her first interview?
Todd said Vice President Kamala Harris' shunning of the press “furthers her vulnerability.” (Reuters/Kevin Wurm)
“There's an allergy to doing the kind of things that Donald Trump did. But the 2016 Donald Trump is not this guy. This version has pretty much hidden away from the mainstream media, whereas the 2016 version … did interviews everywhere. Left, right, center, friendly interviews, hostile interviews, three or four a day. In some ways, he preferred that to actually campaigning,” Todd said. “But what he was successful at was not making any one interview count. It ends up getting diluted. So I think the way they've handled this is just playing on her perceived weakness. And now any missteps are going to be overly scrutinized in this interview, unnecessarily so.”
It's been more than a month since Harris emerged as the Democratic candidate after President Biden dramatically dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. Avoid interviews and press conferencesTensions intensified after last week's Democratic National Convention.
Harris will face a lot of accountability, including several apparent policy shifts, according to an anonymous statement sent to reporters. She will likely be asked to explain sudden changes in policy on issues such as fracking, border security and private health insurance, on which she took progressive positions as a 2019 presidential candidate.
Associated Press slams Harris for calling her a “two-faced” and change candidate as VP: “You're giving her permission”
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will appear in their first joint interview with CNN's Dana Bash. (Rhonda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images)
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She is also likely to face questions about what she knew about Biden's mental decline behind the scenes, despite publicly defending him after his disastrous performance in the debate.
Walz is also likely to face questions about the growing controversy over his military record and the left-wing policies he implemented while governor of Minnesota.
