Vice President Kamala Harris took five weeks to do a (joint) interview following her ascension to the top of the ticket in July—and another four weeks to sit for her first solo interview with a national network. That didn't stop Harris campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon from calling it "completely bulls—t" to say Harris was "afraid to have interviews."
O'Malley Dillon, speaking to the so-called Obama bros on Pod Save America, lamented what she called a media "double standard" between Harris and President-elect Donald Trump. Harris, she argued, "got s—t" for dodging interviews, while Trump "got no s—t."
"Being up against a narrative that we weren't doing anything or we were afraid to have interviews is completely bulls—t and also, like, took hold a little bit and just gave us another thing we had to fight back for that Trump never had to worry about," O'Malley Dillon said. She also complained of spending "two weeks talking about how [Harris] didn't do interviews, which, you know, she was doing plenty."
While it's unclear exactly how many interviews O'Malley Dillon considers to be "plenty," Harris and running mate Tim Walz lagged well behind Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance when it came to media availability.
President Joe Biden ended his campaign on July 21. Over the following 59 days, Trump sat for 10 interviews to Harris's 3, according to Axios. Vance alone "participated in more than seven times more interviews and press conferences than Harris and Walz combined during that time," the outlet reported.
Axios's tally, meanwhile, excluded Trump and Vance's "25-plus interviews during the time period with conservative commentators." The pair held 15 press conferences during the 59-day window. Harris and Walz held none.
At the time, those close to the Harris campaign said the media dodging was part of a strategy to avoid gaffes and "negative attention." Now, O'Malley Dillon says there was no dodging at all.
"I am not a media hater by any measure, and I think that, you know, we women don't get far in life talking about double standards," she said. "But real people heard in some way that we were not going to have interviews, which was both not true and also so counter to any kind of standard that was put on Trump that I think was a problem."
"And then on top of that, we would do an interview and … the questions were small and processy and … were not informing a voter who was trying to listen to learn more or to understand."
When Harris did sit for interviews, she often served up word salads and avoided answering questions. During a friendly chat with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle, for example, Harris was asked what she would do as president to increase America's housing supply. After acknowledging that "homeownership for too many people in our country is now elusive," Harris said the following:
"Some of the work is gonna be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in [a] holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing."
Harris also struggled through interviews as vice president.
During a June 2021 sitdown with Lester Holt, Harris addressed her tenure as Biden's border czar. "This whole thing about the border. We've been to the border. We've been to the border," she said. Holt noted that she had not been to the border. "And I haven't been to Europe," Harris replied. "And I mean, I don't—I don't understand the point that you're making."
At that time, O'Malley Dillon, who led Biden's 2020 campaign, served as White House deputy chief of staff. Three years later, as Biden faced calls to end his campaign following his disastrous June debate performance, O'Malley Dillon said the octogenarian is "probably in better health than most of us."