A glance at the calendar reminds us all that August will shortly come to an end. Why does that matter? Kamala Harris -- or her campaign -- promised that she would make herself available for in-depth interviews by the end of the month. Both ABC News and Politico openly wondered today when, or if, Harris would offer them some joy.

ABC News points out that this has become a talking point for Republicans, which is the usual context of such reporting. At least they're asking, though:

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to soon face her first post-convention test when she sits for a formal interview -- something she told reporters this month she planned to do by the end of August, but has yet to announce.

With an absence of plans for any such sit-down, Republican critics have accused her of dodging the press.

"Accused"? Harris has dodged the press, objectively speaking. Harris became the presumptive nominee within a day of Joe Biden's withdrawal under pressure from the Democrat establishment. She became the official nominee when the DNC conducted a virtual poll of delegates on August 6. How many press conferences has she held since? How many sit-down interviews? The answer to both questions is zip, zilch, nada, none at all. 

So why does ABC frame this as an accusation by critics, rather than objective fact?

Probably for the same reason readers have to wade through seven additional paragraphs of Harris-fluffing to find out that Democrats are also getting concerned about Hiding Harris:

Democrats have cautioned that Harris has several hurdles to clear in the coming weeks.

One of those hurdles is the pending media interview, where Harris would likely have to defend the decisions of the Biden administration and specify some of her policy stances.

That's pretty lame, but at least ABC is finally saying something about The Joy of Silence. And ABC even does some throat-clearing on the biggest reason Harris may be avoiding the media:

Harris is also likely to be pressed on how much she knew about Biden's capacities prior to the June 27 debate. That night, she urged Americans to judge Biden not on the "90 minutes" on stage but the "three-and-a-half years of performance."

Yet, that same debate performance set in motion a weekslong effort by top Democrats to nudge Biden from the race.

Few had a better understanding of what Biden was like behind the scenes than Harris, his No. 2, and an interviewer would likely challenge her about what she witnessed in private.

Welp -- scratch ABC News off the short list for the first-interview choice! 

Politico Playbook also takes a deeper dive on The Joy of Silence, but they paint this as mainly driven by Kamala's lack of substance. She's so much of a cipher, they report, that they're keeping Walz on the shelf, too. Why? Because Walz has no idea what Harris plans to do as president either:

— What about Tim? One of the issues that Harris world is currently working to address is how to deploy running mate TIM WALZ in the media. The danger in sending him out to do big solo interviews is that he might not have a full command of where Harris is on every issue. As someone pointed out to us last night, Harris talks about the “opportunity economy,” but if Walz were asked to define it, would he know how?

Tim Walz -- he's just like us! As in, completely mystified by Kamala Harris. And why would Walz be expected to define it when Harris clearly cannot? She can't even get her terms correct on economic policy, let alone convince allies she knows what she's talking about. Or do people think Walz can define what "price gauging" is?

OMG. Kamala said "Price Gauging" instead of "Price Gouging"...

I get misspelling it, but how do you not realize you are saying the completely wrong word?pic.twitter.com/e0EzVRFeol

— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) August 16, 2024

Nevertheless, Politico explains in its Playbook today, Harris had better step up soon ... because The Joy of Silence has started to become an issue:

Nearly three weeks ago, on an airport tarmac in Detroit, Eugene asked VP KAMALA HARRIS about plans for a sitdown interview. She had just formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination and was facing pressure to answer questions about her candidacy in a more formal setting.

Harris gave him a deadline: “I’ve talked to my team,” she said. “I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month.”

That’s four days from now, on Saturday. Of course, “scheduled” doesn’t mean the interview will happen by then. But with the Democratic nominee generally hitting all her marks since entering the race, her scripted, light-on-policy candidacy has become an issue. 

It's always been "an issue." It's just that the media refused to talk about it ... until today. They've been too busy propagandizing about "Joy" and Kamala's sudden depth on policy, despite never talking about it or laying out any policies on her campaign website. That should have been not just an issue before now, but the issue. 

Also, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:

•  Do conventions mean anything any longer? Andrew Malcolm and I analyze the Democrat  convention and the lack of substance in it. 
• Joe Biden got pushed off the prime-time schedule as ingloriously as he was pushed off the ticket, and the media didn't even blink -- or ask questions. 
• Instead, the media seems a lot more interested in manipulating their audience than in informing it.  

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!