Maher to Media: Stop Making Excuses — Harris Flopped On Her Own

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Is 107 days not enough for someone to introduce themselves to the American people? Especially if that someone is (a) the sitting Vice President, (b) ran for president five years earlier, and (c) has the kind of coverage from the Protection Racket Media that makes Taylor Swift envious?

Bill Maher asked that question in his HBO show Overtime last night, sparring with Sarah Isgur and John Heilemann, who argued that Harris had too many structural disadvantages to succeed. Nonsense, Maher argued, while Michael Douglas mainly (and wisely) stayed out of the fray. This picks up at the 8:55 mark:

Fox News covered the exchange:

During Friday night’s online “Overtime” segment, ABC News contributor Sarah Isgur argued Harris was “set up to fail” by Democrats when she was tasked to run a “three-month campaign” as she was supposed to “introduce herself to the American people.”

“You’re saying three months wasn’t long enough?” Maher asked. “It was long enough. It’s not that they didn’t have time to introduce- they met someone and they didn’t like ’em.” …

“Bill, I don’t know if you know this, but the vice president of the United States is basically shoved in a broom closet for three-and-a-half years,” Heilemann said. 

“I know, she was more popular in there,” Maher quipped. “This idea that in a mass media age that 107 days is not long enough to know somebody?”

Ahem. Ahem ahem ahem. And might I add … AHEM? 

In the first place, Harris had plenty of opportunities to “introduce herself.” She took over the campaign essentially on July 22nd; she didn’t speak to any reporters at all, not even in press conferences, until over a month later in a very uncomfortable CNN interview on August 29th. Harris didn’t even do that one alone; she brought Tim Walz along to soak up some of the limited time she gave Dana Bash to “introduce herself.” Her time answering questions was somewhere around 20 minutes. 

To some extent, Maher misses this point as well as the wagon-circling from the Protection Racket Media that Harris mainly snubbed for 107 days — even if he gets the larger picture correct. Harris had 107 days to introduce herself, but refused to do so. She wouldn’t talk about policies, she wouldn’t talk about her record, and she wouldn’t talk about any specific changes she wanted to make in the next four years. Harris ran as a cipher and did so deliberately, insisting that Trump was so awful that voters owed her the office instead. And the media played along, hyperventilating to the point of hysteria over Trump being a fascistnazistinkybottom while never really pressing her to introduce herself.

The only interviewer who did press Harris for answers was Bret Baier, who got the interview when Harris started to see her polling numbers slide. How did his colleagues in the media treat him for asking fair questions about policies and the Biden-Harris administration record? They accused him of misogyny and racism. 

The idea that 107 days isn’t enough in a mass-media environment to “introduce” a sitting VP to the electorate is absurd, as Maher says. But the fact is that Harris never even tried to introduce herself, and the Protection Racket Media did its best to cover for her the entire time. 

Now the media wants to make excuses for Harris’ failure. To use another part of Maher’s Real Time show from last night, maybe they should take this suggestion … losers.