This is so weird.

Kamala Harris has been running for president for more than a month at this point but she has yet to give a single media interview. Instead her campaign has been coasting on a) relief it's not Biden, b) carefully orchestrated events, and c) brat/joy vibes.

As Ed pointed out earlier, the media pressure on the Harris camp to actually put the candidate out there has been ramping finally after weeks of them settling for nothing. She had, after all, promised to give an interview before the end of August. She only had until Saturday to keep that promise.

This afternoon CNN revealed that Harris has finally agreed to do her first interview with their network, only it won't be just Harris it will be a joint interview featuring Harris and Walz.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will sit with CNN for their first joint interview on Thursday as Democrats work to broaden their base’s excitement from last week’s Democratic National Convention. 

The interview, conducted by CNN’s chief political correspondent and anchor Dana Bash, will air at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday. It occurs as the candidates embark on a bus tour through the battleground state of Georgia and marks the first time Harris has sat with a journalist for an in-depth, on-the-record conversation since President Joe Biden dropped his bid for a second term and endorsed her on July 21.

After 37 days as the candidate, Harris is giving a joint interview. Could it be any more clear that Harris and her team don't believe she's up to standing on her own? She needs Walz there as a backup in case she goes off the rails. 

Just truly funny that Harris refused to talk to the press for more than a month because she’s such a liability, and when she finally gave in it was for a joint interview.

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) August 27, 2024

She's been Vice President for 3 1/2 years. At what point do we take the training wheels off her bike?

Kamala clearly not ready for solo interview but totally ready to be the leader of the free world. She's the dog that caught the car https://t.co/TAdXD5JDVy

— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) August 27, 2024

First question at the joint interview should be "Why couldn't you do this interview solo?"

LOL, a joint interview. She simply cannot be left unattended. https://t.co/ipJiD4IMXh

— Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) August 27, 2024

It really is like bringing your dad to a job interview.

"Vice President Harris, will you sit for an interview?"

"Only if I can bring Dad with me!" https://t.co/NztFsVwg3v

— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) August 27, 2024

Also, it will be taped. Why exactly?

Why did CNN agree to do a pre-taped interview with Harris and Walz instead of going live?

And why isn't Harris doing this solo?

Dana Bash will conduct the interview, the same "anchor" who insisted recently that Harris wasn't the Border Czar.

— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) August 27, 2024

Even CNN, in the article announcing the interview, points out that Harris has a track record of failure in this department.

Previous major interviews have presented a challenge for Harris. During a 2021 sit-down with NBC’s Lester Holt, Harris responded with annoyance when asked why she had not visited the US-Mexico border as part of her assignment to investigate root causes of migration from Central and South America.

“At some point, you know, we are going to the border,” Harris said in the interview. “We’ve been to the border. So, this whole, this whole, this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”

Holt responded: “You haven’t been to the border.”

Over at NY Magazine, Jonathan Chait argues that this strategy for managing a big interview is the wrong one. Instead of putting all the eggs in one basket, he thinks Harris should do lots of interviews so the importance of each one is lessened.

Harris had a poor interview with Lester Holt, in which she failed to provide a convincing answer for why she hadn’t visited the border (it was not her job). That interview had an inordinate impact on her public persona because there was little else to shape it.

The correct takeaway from this experience shouldn’t be that Harris needs to avoid interviews. It’s that a dearth of interviews creates a situation in which a single interview has an extreme effect on her public image...

The opposite approach would be to flood the zone with interviews. Not all of them have to be brand-name national reporters. Local news stations have real journalists who ask questions their audiences care about. But, yes, getting Harris out into the news several times a week is actually a much safer strategy.

He's probably right but then again, this is similar to the argument people were making about Joe Biden just a few months ago. If you're worried about his age, just watch him go! Except people were watching and what they saw was concerning to them. Similarly, the idea of getting Harris out there several times a week or more is great until she face-plants two days in a row. There's every reason to think it will happen and her people know that.

Once again the Democrats are doing their best to hide the candidate from the voters. It didn't work out with their first pick in this race but given that we only have 10 weeks until the election, they might just pull it off with their 2nd pick. They will unless the media takes a real interest in vetting her as an actual candidate instead of as a marketing brand.