MSNBC’s “Interview” of Kamala Harris Shows How Left-Wing Media Is Treating the Election Like a Coronation

(The Daily Signal)—Vice President Kamala Harris completed her second whole interview of her mostly cloistered presidential campaign Wednesday night.

Frankly, it was an embarrassment for American corporate media and gives the lie to the idea that the Harris campaign is all about defending “democracy.”

The interview was exactly what one would expect if you’d followed the Harris campaign at all. It was a series of mostly softball questions, delivered in the friendliest of confines on left-wing MSNBC, conducted by an admiring and sycophantic host, Stephanie Ruhle.

That setup was practically telegraphed ahead of time.

Five days before the interview, Ruhle went on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” and claimed that Harris didn’t have to answer any substantive questions from the media.

“Kamala Harris isn’t running for perfect,” Ruhle heatedly told the New York Times’ Bret Stephens, another guest on the program. “She’s running against [former President Donald 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.”

Ruhle said it was utopian—“nirvana”—to think we the people might get substantive answers from Harris on how she’d govern if elected president.

Really, what a crazy idea that some of us may have that we should live in a free society, where leaders are expected to account for themselves, and the people are the boss.

Basically, Harris isn’t Trump, so anything at all is good enough, right?

How interesting it is that after those comments, the Harris campaign almost immediately announced that they would allow Queen Kamala to come down from on high and grant Ruhle a humble request for an audience.

It was a “coincidence” that didn’t go unnoticed by commentators on X.

hahahaha

Stephanie Ruhle slobbered over Kamala a few days ago, saying she doesn’t have to do interviews because democracy is at stake, and the Harris campaign immediately called her up and says, “You’re our kind of interviewer.”

Incredible. https://t.co/ziPPQEtYzo

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 25, 2024

Stephanie Ruhle goes on Bill Mahar and lick spittles Kamala Harris saying it doesn't matter that she doesn't answer questions or what she believes. Peter Baker calls her "the great" for landing a pretaped interview because of it. https://t.co/LCqF3ioY1w

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 25, 2024

It is really bad form for MSNBC to have someone argue that Kamala Harris doesn't need to take questions at all and then have that same person conducting the interview with her. Like if they care about journalistic ethics at all, they should assign a different interviewer. https://t.co/YdPcJXOuvK

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) September 25, 2024

As for the interview, Harris was asked a few gentle questions about her proposed policies, to which she responded with mostly shallow, bumbling non-answers.

Unsurprisingly, Harris has few ideas about how to cover the $1.7 trillion in spending she’s proposed other than to raise corporate taxes on “billionaires.” Harris additionally had no answer for how she would get this corporate tax hike through with the Republican Party controlling the Senate, if they win back control in November.

So, we just have to assume more borrowing and more inflation. Great stuff.

Here is Harris addressing increasing housing and other costs in society, but her grand idea is just to say, over and over, that our problems must be addressed “holistically.”

NEW: Vice President Kamala Harris says "holistic" three times in a 15-second period.

The VP proudly showed off the word during an interview with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle.

"Looking holistically at the connection between that and housing and looking holistically at the… pic.twitter.com/Z9DMdR97Qj

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 25, 2024

Using “holistically” in this way is akin to using other meaningless corporate-speak buzzwords like “creating synergy” that are intended to sound profound, but mean nothing. I suppose it’s slightly better than saying that the plan for lowering costs is lowering costs.

NEW: Kamala Harris is asked about her plan to lower the cost of living, says she will do that by lowering the cost of necessities.

Remarkable.

Question: What will you do to lower costs?

Answer: Yeah. I first of all, thank you both for being here and yours is a, a story I hear… pic.twitter.com/UQUNCnvesO

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 20, 2024

There was hardly any real substance to the interview at all. Aside from a handful of policy questions, Ruhle and Harris joshed about accusations that Harris never worked at a McDonald’s in her youth as she claimed.

Harris said she made fries, not burgers. But besides laughing and taking potshots at Trump, she didn’t really get into specifics or dispel the notion that the story about her working at a fast-food chain might be made up.

There’s really nothing more to say about these tepid, jovial back-and-forths, but it is notable how similar this was to Harris’ previous CNN interview with host Dana Bash. A handful of “tough” questions received only the lightest of follow-up questions and a large portion of the interview was fluff, wasting the time of viewers.

That would be fine if Harris was generally out on the campaign trail talking to the press and conducting interview after interview like a typical presidential candidate in the age of “democracy.”

It’s wholly unacceptable when one considers that the vice president was dropped into this race in a last-second swap, in which she never even answered to Democratic primary voters. We really are supposed to just accept that the reason to vote for Harris is that she’s not Trump, just as Ruhle said.

When the MSNBC host was later asked about Harris’ vague policy answers, particularly on why the Biden administration ended up keeping many of Trump’s tariffs in place, Ruhle made the excuse that the issue is “complicated.”

It’s totally fine that Harris didn’t give clear and direct answers, because “we are not talking about clear or direct issues,” she said.

Ah, yes, as Sun Tzu doubtlessly once said, the ways of the great leader must be mysterious and opaque to those who must follow.

Since when are members of the press expected to run PR for the politicians they interview?

What we should take from this MSNBC interview is that America’s media don’t want to ask her tough questions in an election. They want to conduct and plan her coronation. They are hardly even interested in getting answers about the way she will promote left-wing policies.

Just being in power is apparently good enough.

In some sense, Harris’ gilded tower campaign is even more disturbing than the Biden basement campaign. Any pretense of illuminating the policy positions of the candidates before the people is gone.

Hard questions won’t be asked. “Joy” and “vibes” will suffice.