Tonight, Vice President Kamala Harris makes her grand appearance and speech to close out the Democratic National Convention.
This marks the first time Harris will make a large-scale media appearance.
But former CNN personality and current NewsNation host Chris Cuomo has an interesting theory on why Kamala Harris has been laying in the weeds and staying out from behind the camera.
Cuomo believes Harris is dodging the media because she is more vulnerable than previous Democratic presidential nominees.
Harris still has not sat down for an interview one month into her presidential campaign, and she is slated to accept the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday, two days after former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) speeches. Cuomo, on “The Chris Cuomo Project,” said Harris is “hiding” from the press because of the “risk” involved, something that was not a factor for Obama and other Democratic presidential nominees, who he suggested were more talented.
Take a listen:
Chris Cuomo Says Harris Is 'Hiding' From Media Because 'There's Risk' With Her Compared To Past Dem Nominees pic.twitter.com/JdVXZQIuYW
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 22, 2024
“I do think there’s something special about Barack Obama when it comes to political acumen and political skill set, and I think he showed that [on Tuesday]. Now, there’s also a reason that he and Michelle were removed by two days from Harris. Why? Because you got to be careful about overshadowing your nominee,” Cuomo said. “And when she gets this mantle, when this convention ends, when Labor Day happens … it’s time for her to make the case. With me, on the media, in the papers, on the sets, from the stump, in a debate, in more than one debate. She’s got to show she can make the case.”
“She shouldn’t be hiding from making the case. You’ll buy some time; the trend is your friend in politics and the numbers are trending the right way. So they don’t want to put her in front of the media, but that teaches us something also. You don’t want to put her in front of the media because you think there’s risk in that,” he added. “Wouldn’t have done that with Bill Clinton, they wouldn’t have done that with Hillary Clinton, they wouldn’t have done that with Barack Obama, because they felt there was no risk about putting those people in the chair. So here they do see some risk. What does that tell you? It’s an open question.”
Cuomo also said that political talent is currently lacking in the United States, a claim he made after Harris’ Friday economic speech, where she made a gaffe.
The vice president, during the speech in North Carolina, announced her plan to impose a federal ban on so-called “price gouging,” but said “gauging” rather than “gouging.”
“I don’t really care about gouging, gauging. I don’t care, alright? You got to take the level of talent where you find it,” Cuomo said. “We don’t have great talent in our politics right now. We got to wait for better people to want to get involved in what is such a poison process. But this is who we got.”
Not a great take ahead of Harris’ long-awaited speech. Let’s see if this will catapult her into more media appearances.