The Media Game

The two candidates staked out very different approaches to reaching voters over the past days.

Image via the NYT, photos by Getty Images

It was an incredible 48 hours of media appearances for Vice President Kamala Harris. Since Sunday evening, it felt like she was pretty much everywhere. She went on 60 Minutes, during an hour of programming that also highlighted the dangers of election denialism and Gov. Tim Walz defending his “dangerously liberal” record of (checks notes) providing free lunches and paid family leave.

She also went on The View, the Call Her Daddy podcast, the Howard Stern Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Collectively, the audiences for these appearances were in the tens of millions and reached across gender and generational lines.

Meanwhile, Trump spent his time in safe spaces, being interviewed by the likes of Fox’s Laura Ingraham, radical conservative Hugh Hewitt and right-wing troll Ben Shapiro. These were friendly but not tough interviews, and it’s hard to see how Trump reached beyond his MAGA base with these appearances.

And yet, it was Harris who received criticism from the political press for her schedule of appearances. Politico tsk tsked, “After avoiding the media for neigh [sic] on her whole campaign, Kamala Harris is … still largely avoiding the media. The VP is set for a series of interviews that likely won't press her on tough issues, even as voters want more specifics.”

As I’ll discuss below, this is a laughable take considering the mileage Harris received from these appearances. It’s also further evidence of a double standard, given Trump’s lame schedule during the same period. And it fundamentally misunderstands who “the media” is these days and where audiences are. Hint: They’re not reading Politico.

Today I’ll cover Harris’s 48 hour blitz and the key points she made to important demographic groups. Then for yucks I’ll look under the Trump rock to see what wiggled beneath it during the same time period. Lastly, I’ll offer some thoughts about why some outlets are big mad about how things have shifted.

The Harris media game

First up was Harris’s interview with Bill Whitaker. Far from “largely avoiding the media” and not being pressed on “tough issues,” the interview was both hard-hitting and a great opportunity for Harris to show her mettle. That stood in stark contrast to Donald Trump, who had backed out of the 60 Minutes entirely—a first for a presidential candidate—disgruntled about being fact checked and claiming they owed him an apology for his previous appearance. The show began with a two-minute, scathing summation of Trump’s unprecedented no-show:

During her interview, Harris recommended that, in light of Trump’s cancellation, viewers should watch one of his rallies instead. “You're going to hear conversations that are about himself and all of his personal grievances,” Harris said. “What you will not hear is anything about you.” She continued, “You will not hear about how he is going to try to bring the country together, find common ground. That is why I believe in my soul and heart, the American people are ready to turn the page.”

A key moment of the interview occurred when Whitaker raised the sharp contrast in international leadership styles between the two candidates. Concerning the war in Ukraine, Harris argued, “Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He talks about, ‘Oh, he can end it on day one.’ You know what that is? It’s about surrender.” 

The statement held particular salience given breaking news from reporter Bob Woodward, who claims in his book War that Trump had spoken seven times with Vladimir Putin since leaving office, sometimes asking an aide to leave so they could speak in private. Trump’s far-too-cozy relationship with Putin understandably has NATO and Ukraine on edge should he win the election.

Harris also went on The View and received an audience ovation. While on the show, she unveiled a proposal for Medicare to cover elderly home care costs, a lifeline for millions sandwiched between caring for their aging parents and their kids.

She also hammered home the idea that Trump is always just about himself and cares nothing for average struggling families. “What [Trump] does not talk about is you,” Harris said, speaking about his rallies. “He does not talk about what your parents need, what your children need... He talks about his needs.”

You might never have heard about the Call Her Daddy podcast before today. But it’s actually the second most popular podcast in the country, listened to by millions of mostly young women.  NPR obtained some interesting audience data on the show from Edison Research:

• 70% women 

• 76% under 35 (93% under 45)

• 48% Democrat / 24% Republican / 20% Independent 

• 34% live in the south / 24% west / 22% northeast / 20% midwest

Harris met these listeners where they were. She offered concrete proposals to help young people understand they would not be left behind. She proposed increasing the housing supply by three million units, $25,000 in downpayment assistance for first time homebuyers, and a child tax credit of $6,000 for the first year of an infant’s life.

Importantly, she also spoke directly to young women about abortion rights, including Trump’s outrageous debate statement about babies being executed after birth. “That is not happening anywhere, and it’s a lie,” Harris said. “He’s suggesting that women in their ninth month of pregnancy are electing to have an abortion? Are you kidding? That is so outrageously inaccurate, and it’s so insulting to suggest” that women were doing that.

She also took on Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders head on, who had claimed, “My kids keep me humble” and that “unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.” Harris responded, “I don't think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here not aspiring to be humble. This is not the 1950s anymore.”

To reach men, including many young men who are Trump-leaning, Harris appeared on Howard Stern’s broadcast. There are some interesting demographics at work here as well. As one political commentator noted, 

Stern has over 10 million listeners with 74% of his audience … between 25-54 years of age with an average household income of $160k. 73% Male and 27% female. 34% college graduates, 85% white.

It is notable that Harris is trailing Trump most among non-college educated white men.

Stern noted that Harris was an experienced prosecutor and therefore, at least to him, the real “law and order” candidate, and not the “leftist” the right has tried to paint her, who wants to let criminals run through the streets.

Stern endorsed her enthusiastically over Trump and told his listeners to back her.

“I think you’d be a great president. You’re compassionate. I love your experience as a prosecutor & I want to thank you. I love you as VP. I want to encourage anyone who thinks similarly to me to vote.”

Harris rounded out the 48 hours with an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. To kick things off, Colbert poked fun at the Trump 60 Minutes drama.

He then sat down with Harris and they shared a beer together. Not just any beer, but a Miller High Life, the “champagne of beers” made in swing state Wisconsin. 

Colbert praised Harris’s debate performance, then got a chance to ask her about what was going through her mind during the moment, captured in a photo he presented to her, when Trump began ranting about immigrants eating the pets of the people of Springfield. 

Her response was pitch perfect for that late night audience. “It starts with a W, there’s a letter in between, and it ends with an F.”

Trump, still in the MAGA weeds 

I don’t want to spend much time today on Trump’s appearances, given that they were more of the same with right-wing media allies. 

It did find it notable that Laura Ingraham seemed to work extra hard, to no avail, to get Trump to say he wouldn’t lock up his enemies after becoming president. 

“But you’re not gonna do that?” Ingraham asked, leading him to the answer.

“A lot of people say that’s what should happen,” Trump still responded.

Sorry, Laura. Fascists gonna fascist.

She also couldn’t help but fact check his claims about the hurricane relief response. When Trump said North Carolina was “bad” and that Harris should be there, Ingraham corrected him, noting, “She was there today.”

Trump’s campaign advisers have been begging him to stop with the personal attacks upon Harris, which are driving voters to her and away from him in disgust. But on Hugh Hewitt’s show, he just couldn’t help himself.

“She doesn't lie in a complicated way because her mind doesn't work that way,” Trump insisted. “She’s not a smart person. She’s a low IQ individual ... She’s a stupid person. We can't have a stupid person as our president.”

He also managed to get in a new racist remark, exclaiming, “We got a lot of bad genes in our country right now."

Trump continued the personal attacks on Harris while on Ben Shapiro’s podcast, saying Harris “answers questions like a child.” (Narrator: This is classic projection.)

He also insisted, “She's always doing the wrong interview at the wrong time.” (Narrator: See above.)

And finally, in an awkward bid to win over Jewish voters, Trump told Shapiro that most of his friends growing up were Jewish. 

Some thoughts on the two sides’ media strategies

In the quest for the centrist voters who will decide the election, Harris is building bridges, while Trump continues to slink beneath them. 

Harris went alone on to 60 Minutes, indicating she’s tough and ready to answer questions from the media. Trump was nowhere to be seen. Women watching The View were thinking about how much Harris’s proposal around elder care might help them, not only in their current need to take care of their aging parents, but also when they themselves might need such care in a couple decades.

Millions of gettable voters, including Republican and independent women, heard Harris talk about abortion and the need for women to be something other than humble. And non-college educated white men heard their hero, Howard Stern, call Harris the law and order candidate and endorse her without reservation.

By contrast, who beyond the right-wing echo chamber (and those reading this newsletter who are not gettable by Trump!) heard anything Trump said during the same time frame? 

Harris is moving the needle with voters through affirmative outreach to anyone willing to hear more about her. We are seeing this show up in the polling, which keeps inching her way. Trump is doing no such similar work.

So why is it the political punditry is still blasting Harris, and not Trump, for “avoiding the media” and not facing tough questions?

The plain truth is this: The “media” is far different now that it was just a few short years ago. Audiences now consume most politics through podcasts and social media, through substacks like this one, and through light entertainment and even comedy shows. In contrast to dry takes in long articles or canned Sunday morning news appearances, these mediums can better reveal to audiences who the candidates really are. 

Howard Stern, for example, is an excellent interviewer. As the New York Times surprisingly gushed, he got Harris to tell stories she’d never told any member of the press.

It was the longest uninterrupted interview Ms. Harris has done since becoming the Democratic nominee, and while it did not delve much into what she would do as president, it was the most revelatory about her as a person.

Mr. Stern is not a journalist, and he said multiple times that he supported Ms. Harris for president, but he is a skilled inquisitor who managed to extract an array of fresh details about her life.

And Stephen Colbert cracking a beer with Harris got her to relax and joke with him.  Referring to her own rallies while getting a dig in at Trump, Harris said: “Quite a few people show up by the way”—before describing Trump as a “loser.” 

“This is what happens when I drink beer,” Harris laughed.

Far from “avoiding the media,” Harris has plunged right in—just not under the terms that would allow legacy media to control the narrative.

And that’s perfectly fine by me.