Kamala Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams, a Biden administration veteran, is amplifying a post by Harris rapid response team member Ammar Moussa calling out Donald Trump‘s “23rd straight interview with conservative media.”
Sams and Moussa are pushing to contradict a pervasive narrative that Harris has avoided challenging interview scenarios since becoming the Democratic nominee.
It’s a criticism that at first disparaged the Vice President for doing too few interviews and, more recently, found fault with her for doing plenty of interviews — but in purportedly friendly environs like Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Me Daddy’ podcast, The View, and the Howard Stern Show.
It’s a characterization of the Vice President — that she’s avoiding hard questions from traditional media — that’s been trumpeted by MAGA operatives and abetted by many mainstream media outlets themselves, outlets like the New York Times that have reacted negatively to being relegated by the Harris campaign.
When it’s MAGA — and not the mainstream media — promoting this angle, the attempt is to contrast Harris’s alleged media reluctance with a purportedly more robust effort by Trump, whom MAGA portrays as welcoming of tough questions. Sams and Moussa are posting to try to convince voters that this comparison doesn’t scan.
In amplifying news that Trump is doing another interview with a friendly platform — this time the John Kobylt Show — Moussa asserts that Trump “can’t do a real interview outside of his conservative bubble.”
[NOTE: Kobylt, who has been a popular radio personality for decades, doesn’t overtly express conservative leanings in his show’s description, but instead his station boasts that “John regularly exposes liars” and provides “blunt, fast paced analysis of the latest news.”]
Trump’s 23rd straight interview with conservative media.
Trump can’t do a real interview outside of his conservative bubble. https://t.co/Mry4cwx1m7
— Ammar Moussa (@ammarmufasa) October 8, 2024
The now commonplace narrative also ignores Harris’s interview on 60 Minutes, generally known as the gold standard of nonpartisan TV news journalism, and Trump’s refusal to participate in a 60 Minutes interview, reportedly unhappy that fact-checking was part of the conditions.