The White House scheduled a live briefing on hurricane Milton earlier today. Even though the point of this was ostensibly for the President and VP Harris to receive the latest news on the hurricane, the actual focus seemed to be making it appear as if Biden and Harris were in charge and running the response.

Look, it can't hurt to have the president warning people to get out of the way of this storm, but that's really all he can do here. The rest of this feels like a scripted show, one that maybe didn't go as smoothly as planned. At one point, Biden really fumbled his prepared remarks even though he seemed to be reading them off a prompter.

"Finally, we're teaming up with state and local officials to support impacted communities," Biden said. And then things went off the rails. "I spoke with the Florida governor Desantis, with mayor Tampa Cast...mayor, the Tampa mayor, the Clearwater mayor, Rector and the Pinellas County chairwoman Peters.

"I offered them everything we need. Everything we have. Everything they need. And I made it clear to them they should reach out if there's anything more they need."

Hopefully, the mayors were less confused than the audience listening to this.

Biden then got explicitly political and attacked Trump for leading an "onslaught of lies." At the end of these comments he said, "I'm going to turn it over to Vice President Harris if that's okay with all of you."

Harris then got her moment to talk about how the "we" have been "working around the clock" to prepare for the hurricane. She also brought up concerns about disinformation.

A bit later when NOAA's National Weather Service Director Ken Graham was speaking, Harris seemed to need to make a comment to someone offscreen. She covered her mouth with her hands and said "It's a live broadcast."

NEW: Kamala Harris struggles through a live broadcast on Hurricane Milton, covers her mouth to tell her staff she is on a live broadcast before stumbling while reading prepared notes.

"It's a live broadcast," Harris told her team before reading their notes.

"To the people of… pic.twitter.com/BGeSLtQPDe

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 9, 2024

It took a while to find this, but it's right there in the White House released video.

Who is Harris talking to? 

As the briefing wears on, it's very clear that President Biden is reading pre-scripted questions from notes on his desk. Eventually it ends with a bunch of off-screen reporters shouting questions before the feed is cut.

Again, it might be a good thing to have the president reinforce the message that this storm could be very deadly. But this whole scripted show with its obvious partisan political overtones feels like a way to shoehorn Kamala Harris into the news cycle after she was dissed and dismissed by Gov. DeSantis as trying to insert herself into something she's never had any responsibility for in the past.

This may be the strangest interlude yet in the basement campaign.