Kamala’s First Very Big One-on-One Media Interview Will Be with . . . an Ardent Kamala Booster

It’s no secret by now that Kamala Harris is terrified of answering basic political questions put to her by anyone with a video camera nearby. Her avoidance of the media has, in fact, been at the center of my coverage of Harris’s surprise campaign, as well as everyone else’s here at National Review. (Folks, it was a wild summer.) But she continues to sit in a deeply uncomfortable position in the polls, leading Donald Trump only nominally and in a way few with memories of 2016 or 2020 have any confidence in whatsoever. People either don’t seem to know who Harris is, or don’t quite buy what it is they’re being asked to believe about her, so she desperately needs to get herself out there in front of voters in a humanizing way — rallies and ads aren’t getting the job done.

But what can you do with a woman who will forever be even more incapable of carrying on a detailed policy discussion than late-dementia-era Joe Biden? Biden used to be a canny blatherer at least, even if he spouted nonsense with the confidence of a fool; only age robbed him of his abilities in that regard. Harris, on the other hand, has never been able to have a serious policy conversation in public and never will be, for the simple reason that she is manifestly intellectually incapable of it. Asking her to get better at talking to skeptical media is like asking me to try extra hard to grow six inches taller, or asking RFK Jr. not to collect dead wildlife specimens. It’s just not going to happen. And as far as splashy, friendly interviews go, you can only draw water from the Oprah well once per four-year election cycle. (The FEC strictly enforces this rule.)

So, in a move sure to impress skeptics of her ability to comprehend policy or respond in a recognizably human way to unexpected questions, Kamala Harris is now sitting down for her First Big Mainstream Media One-on-One Interview — with one of her staunchest media defenders, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. Ruhle, mind you, was last seen on Real Time with Bill Maher making the actual case for Harris in her own embarrassingly fawning words. I invite you to listen to her argue with the New York Times’ Bret Stephens a few days ago about how stupid it is to expect Kamala Harris to actually answer policy questions. That exchange serves not only as an explanation for the Harris campaign’s choosing to sit down with Ruhle but also as a perfect embodiment of just how in the tank most outlets are for the Democrat. Notice, also, the specific hill Ruhle chose to die on:

STEPHENS: It would be great for her [Harris] to sit down with you [Bill Maher], or George Stephanopoulos or you, Stephanie, and . . . ask her, ask her – you know, George W. Bush 25 years ago was asked if he could name the president of Pakistan and other people. He had no idea. And people said, “this guy has no command of a foreign policy” and it turned out to be a prescient set of questions. It’s not too much to ask, “Kamala, say, are you for a Palestinian state if Hamas is going to run that state? Yes or no.”

RUHLE: Okay, let’s say you don’t like her answer. Are you going to vote for Donald Trump?”

STEPHENS: No, I’m not. I’m just said I’m not going to vote for him.

RUHLE: Kamala Harris isn’t running for perfect. She’s running against Trump. We have two choices. And so there are some things you might not know her answer to. And in 2024, unlike 2016, for a lot of the American people, we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is and the kind of threat he is to democracy.

Rest assured, she is not alone in thinking about the election in this maximalist way, this sweatily desperate insistence that you must buy a pig in a poke, or even affirmatively embrace untruth and lies, in the cause of the greater good: preventing Donald Trump and the Republicans from winning an election. So we’re not talking about someone with any pretense of journalistic detachment (or the ability to muster it) here, a point instantly noted by Alex Thompson of Axios among others.

Since the Ruhle interview is going to be pre-taped — of course it was going to be pre-taped, God only knows what might need to be edited out — you can safely assume it will make no news and present Harris in the most flattering light possible. Harris is too fragile a candidate to face an actual journalist. She needs loyal servants instead, and she has no shortage of them in the media.