Why Kamala Harris is Going on Fox News
This is one of the rare moments when going on Donald Trump's favorite network makes sense
On Wednesday, Kamala Harris will sit down with Fox News’s Brett Baier. At this late stage, the persuadable voter universe is made up of less politically engaged people, and it’s hard to justify any cable news interview, let alone one with a network fully committed to electing Donald Trump.
I generally think Fox News — and the entire Murdoch empire — is one of the more destructive forces in American life. They used dishonest reporting to radicalize a generation of Republican voters. Throughout my career, I have urged Democrats and others in the media to stop normalizing Fox News and call it out for what it is — racist, xenophobic agitpop for profit.
With the exception of talented communicators like Pete Buttigieg and Gavin Newsom, I urge Democrats to avoid doing interviews on Fox News. The audience is relatively small, and the odds that a persuadable voter in your state or district watches the interview is infinitesimal. The network invariably takes the speaker’s worst moment and cycles through that clip all day on their social platforms. It’s a rigged game, and it takes a certain type of politician to make the risk worth it.
Despite all of this, I think Kamala Harris’s decision to do this high-risk Fox News interview is the right one.
Here’s why.
1. Battling for Attention
The Harris Campaign operates from a simple premise — the more people see her, the more they like her. Polling shows that her media appearances make voters like her more.
Without any big moments left on the docket, the Harris Campaign must grab the attention of voters who don’t engage with political news. That's why Harris went on The Howard Stern Show, The View, and Colbert in a single day. Those shows all boast large audiences of non-political junkies. Brett Baier’s Fox News show has an audience filled with political junkies, the vast majority of whom wouldn’t vote for Harris for all of the money in the world.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Message Box to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.