By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-28 19:47:08 | Updated at 2024-11-28 21:37:54
2 hours ago
Pollster Nate Silver tore into Vice President Kamala Harris' aides for complaining she was a victim of a 'double standard' when refusing to do media interviews during the opening weeks of her 2024 campaign.
Silver reacted on X to this week's Pod Save America interview with Harris' top campaign advisers: Jen O’Malley Dillon, Stephanie Cutter, Quentin Fulks and David Plouffe.
During the interview, O'Malley Dillon grumbled that now President-elect Donald Trump 'got no s***' for doing less traditional media than Harris, but she 'got s***.'
Cutter chimed in saying, 'Oh yes. We got tons of s*** that she wasn't doing enough media.'
'Double standard,' O'Malley Dillon then commented.
On X on Wednesday, Silver pointed to a transcript of those comments and suggested that he found them astonishing.
'Harris didn't do a solo network interview until late September,' he wrote. 'Which who cares, fine, the networks don't matter so much. Then she did a bunch toward the end of the race. But she was legit not doing a lot of traditional media'
'That was the campaign's choice, not some conspiracy,' Silver argued.
Pollster Nate Silver tore into Vice President Kamala Harris' aides for complaining she was a victim of a 'double standard' when refusing to do media interviews during the opening weeks of her 2024 campaign
Silver was commenting on a portion of the Pod Save America interview, in which Harris' top aides complained that there was a 'double standard,' with Trump able to get away with doing non-traditional media. Silver pointed out that Harris avoided all media during the opening of her campaign
Harris took over the top of the Democratic ticket on July 21st, running the shortest modern presidential campaign.
During the opening weeks of her campaign, she avoided media appearances - both traditional and non-traditional.
Trump had the benefit of running the longest campaign in American history, first announcing his intentions to go after the White House for a third time on November 15, 2022 - just a week after the 2022 midterm elections.
While Trump's many podcast appearances can be credited with helping him win the White House back, he also appeared regularly on Fox News.
He also participated in a CNN town hall in May 2023 - and gave NBC's Meet the Press one of his first interviews after beating Harris earlier this month.
'The Harris campaign folks are the most non-agentic people I've encountered in a position of comparable decision-making authority,' Silver also said.
'They don't even see themselves as victims so much as Non-Player Characters with no will of their own,' he added.
Silver's comments echoed others who have pushed that the Harris campaign isn't accepting enough blame for the Democrat's devastating loss.
Top members of Harris' team were interviewed by Pod Save America this week including (from left) David Plouffe, Jen O'Malley Dillon, Quentin Fulks and Stephanie Cutter
CNN Democratic pundit Bakari Sellers called the podcast interview 'disappointing at best' blasting 'their lack of self-awareness, their lack of self-reflection.'
Republican strategist Tricia McLaughlin said the Pod Save America interview was 'reminiscent of a Kamala Harris interview: nothing is actually said.'
'No one answers the question. No interview push back,' said McLaughlin, who worked for Vivek Ramaswamy's presidential campaign.
In a follow-up post, Silver said actually thought the Pod Save America hosts' interviewing style was effective.
Silver said 'one critique I don't agree with is that [Pod Save America] went too soft on them.'
'[S]ometimes being leff adversarial and giving interview subjects more rope actually makes them look worse,' the top pollster argued.
