Kamala Harris’ media whirlwind of the past few days may not move the needle much in the tight race against Donald Trump.
Still, in all of the VP’s sit-downs this past week, a very Bill Clinton moment from last’s night Univision town hall might prove the most memorable in capturing voters’ attention.
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“She connected, she humanized herself with the way she listened more and spoke less with that poor woman,” a top Hollywood publicist says of Harris’ interaction with a sobbing Ivett Castillo, who told Harris and viewers of the Enrique Acevedo-moderated primetime event of the death of her undocumented mother six weeks ago and the shadows that “subgroup of immigrants” live in.
“The viral moment, when the vice president went over to her after the town hall was over, that’s more important that anything else, anything that was said last night,” the publicist said.
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Harris in the past week has greatly upped her media presence, after some criticism that Trump was too dominant in the conversation.
A number of Hollywood backers were pleased with her recent media moves, but still wonder about the impact in a media environment that is a perpetual battle for attention. With Trump declining to do another debate, there are no more major events that can capture a mass audience.
“She has to break through the news silos in these final weeks, that’s how to get to the undecideds,” notes a veteran Democratic political operative of the estimated less than 10% of voters who haven’t locked in a candidate yet. “The network interviews, podcasts, all that stuff is good, but it’s the unexpected situations, like calling into The Weather Channel, drinking a beer with Colbert, that’s the takeaway.”
Harris’ schedule was a weave between mainstream media and more apolitical avenues.
Mathew Littman, a former Biden speechwriter who leads a group of creative professionals engaged in Democratic politics called The Working Group, said Harris’ visit to the Call Her Daddy podcast and her sit-down with Howard Stern are what the campaign should be doing.
“There is a strategy to this stuff,” he said. “These complaints from old media [that Harris is not engaging with them] are absolutely ridiculous.” It reflects where the voters she needs to reach are now, he said.
“Not only do I think it is a good idea, we should have been doing it a long time ago,” he said.
He noted that Trump has done few challenging traditional media interviews; his appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists was one of the few. “Has he done anything where no one asks him a difficult question? The truth is you don’t have to anymore,” he said.
The point is to reach voters who may not be paying attention or are still persuadable.
The Call Her Daddy podcast, for instance, is the second biggest podcast on Spotify and, according to Edison Research, has an audience where 76% are under 35. Host Alex Cooper also has said that her listeners are politically diverse. What’s more, Cooper has a social media presence that amplified Harris’ appearance, including a behind-the-scenes post on TikTok.
“The Stern interview was the highlight, it felt very natural,” saida regular deep-pocket Democratic donor of the VP’s media tour and the hour-plus chat with Stern, who is openly anti-Trump. “But it’s still a process,” he added of Harris’ effort to reach the pockets of undecideds she needs in early voting and on Election Day.
“Maybe a Taylor Swift rally with [Bruce] Springsteen there could cross over, some social media event, whatever it is, she needs an October surprise that grabs persuadable voters,” a media executive tells Deadline, noting two of the VP’s biggest celebrity endorsements.
Additionally, in the Harris campaign’s pursuit of non-legacy media, it has become evident in tone, language and outcome that this is a different type of election in terms of standards of conduct and association. “She had guts to do Stern, who the very next day did a Cocktober gay-themed bit, and Call Her Daddy, which is so raunchy,” said a longtime media and political consultant. “We are past the days of backlash on that stuff.”
Additionally, as Deadline exclusively reported, Harris’ VP nominee Gov. Tim Walz taped a session on Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett’s bromance podcast Smartless that is scheduled to post in the next week or so. He’s also scheduled to appear on Fox News Sunday this weekend, for a second week in a row.
To that end, a Hollywood insider believes that Trump “failed this week” as a guest on the comedy podcast Flagrant and by insulting Motor City at the Detroit Economic Club. Still, despite the media action, the VP’s poll numbers haven’t moved nationally, and some battleground states are seeing Trump’s numbers go up.
The Trump campaign did not respond to request for comment from Deadline on the media stops of the former president and Harris.
Trump has tried to mute the impact of Harris’ appearances. He declined to sit down with 60 Minutes, but after Harris’ interview ran Monday night, he went on a tear over an edit that the newsmagazine made to one of her answers. Newsmagazines routinely edit interviews, but Trump has claimed they were trying to help Harris and, mirroring his past attacks on the press, he has called for CBS to lose its broadcast license over it.
Later in the week, after Harris’ Univision town hall, Trump’s allies quickly spread the false claim that she had the aid of a Teleprompter. Univision’s Acevedo debunked the claim shortly after the town hall aired, but it continued to be repeated by figures like Vivek Ramaswamy and news outlets like Newsmax.
Highlighted by a scheduled appearance in Detroit next week with the perpetually blunt radio host Charlamagne tha God, Harris will continue her schedule of media hits. An October 23 town hall on CNN with Anderson Cooper in Pennsylvania — in lieu of a now-dead debate with Trump — is also on the calendar.
As Harris has ramped up her media after taking criticism for a paucity of interviews, her campaign has pointed out that Trump has been largely choosing friendly outlets. “After backing out of 60 Minutes and doing 27 straight interviews with conservative media, unfortunately it is clear Trump would rather cocoon himself in safe spaces and avoid real questions about his harmful plans and failed divisive leadership,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement Thursday.
Trump has yet to agree to his own CNN town hall, but will do a pre-taped Fox News town hall in Georgia on October 15 with Harris Faulkner and an all-female audience.
Still, some political veterans say no matter how well funded and strong the Harris campaign is, the VP needs to go into the lion’s den in the final days of the race to snag the voters she needs, energize male voters on the fence, and slap down Trump in front of his MAGA base.
“If she really wanted to show she’s fearless and ready to go, she’d go on Fox with Bret Baier one on one and maybe even Megyn Kelly,” says a Democratic insider, adding that HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher could be another good raid into more conservative and male-centric territory.
“In an election this close, that’s how you win, surprise attack and direct interactions with voters, like on that Univision town hall,” a media executive exclaims. “Harris has to upset the table to win the game.”