Not everyone in the mainstream media is happy with Kamala. They’re making their voices heard.
And now NBC’s Chuck Todd stabbed Kamala Harris in the back for one breathtaking reason.
NBC News’ chief political analyst Chuck Todd didn’t hold back when he criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for making a “mistake” by dodging interviews for weeks after launching her presidential campaign—a move that seems to reveal more about her flaws as a candidate than her team might like to admit.
On Tuesday, it was announced that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, would finally break their silence with a joint interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, set to air in primetime.
But by Wednesday, Todd was already calling out Harris’ campaign for its misstep, writing on NBC News’ website that the real “first big mistake” was allowing nearly 40 days to pass without facing the media.
By staying in the shadows, Harris has only “raised the stakes” for this first interview.
Todd offered some sharp advice: “The easiest way to diffuse this is to go everywhere… doing local interviews, doing a podcast here, she can go to friendly places, go to unfriendly places.”
He warned that by being too “laser-focused” on avoiding the spotlight, Harris is playing right into the hands of her critics. “We’re going to gravitate to the big event,” Todd noted. “If there are six interviews, we’re all overwhelmed… Everything gets diluted.”
Todd didn’t mince words, pointing out that this media strategy only reinforces the negative perceptions already dogging Harris.
“She hand-wrings too much, she’s a little—takes too long,” he said, adding that the Harris campaign is dangerously close to crossing the line between being careful and being paralyzed by indecision. “The way they’ve handled it, I think, is a bit—it’s been a mistake,” Todd concluded.
He also drew a comparison with former President Trump’s media blitz in 2016, suggesting Harris could learn a thing or two from his playbook. “There’s this allergy to ever doing something that Donald Trump did,” Todd said, acknowledging that while the current Trump might avoid mainstream media, the 2016 Trump “did interviews all over the place. Left, right, and center, friendly interviews, adversarial interviews, he’d do three or four in a day.” This strategy made sure that no single interview could dominate the narrative, something Harris seems to be risking by avoiding the media for so long.
Todd warned that by hiding from the media, Harris is playing into her “perceived weakness,” and now any mistake she makes in her upcoming interview will be blown out of proportion.
“Any fumble now is going to get overly scrutinized in this interview, unnecessarily so,” Todd added.
It’s been over a month since Harris became the Democratic nominee following President Biden’s dramatic exit from the 2024 race, and her reluctance to engage with the press has only fueled growing skepticism.
Her disappearance from the public eye has sparked more questions, especially after last week’s Democratic National Convention, where her absence was particularly noticeable.
Harris now faces a barrage of tough questions, not just about her policies, but also about her credibility.
She will need to explain her sudden shifts on key issues like fracking, border security, and private health insurance—stances she was firmly progressive on back in 2019 but seems to have softened since then.
Moreover, she will likely be pressed on what she knew about Biden’s mental decline, despite publicly defending him after his disastrous debate performance.
Her running mate, Walz, won’t escape scrutiny either. He’s expected to face tough questions about his military service record and the controversial left-wing policies he implemented as Minnesota’s governor.
In the end, Todd’s critique underscores the growing sense that Harris’s campaign is stumbling right out of the gate, and unless she changes course, her weaknesses could be on full display in the weeks to come.
Stay tuned to The Federalist Wire.
