In 2016 Trump made himself very accessible to the press.

I would say that in 2016 the media made itself available for Trump to use for daily free publicity without holding him to any real account for his non-stop lying, distortions, and smear jobs.

We all lived thru this, you can't gaslight the truth. Trump bullied the media then just like he still does today. And instead of questioning why a person running for POTUS would praise Wikileaks and Russia for having committed security crimes against American citizens, the media dutifully reported Trump's every utterance as it regarded his "love" for Wikileaks while he told Russia they'd be "rewarded" if they'd only commit more crimes to help him win his campaign.

I don't want Harris talking to the press until she wants to talk to the press. It's the same press who've told us for years that she's dumb, stupid, inarticulate, a diversity hire, unprepared for the presidency and so on and so on.

I'm very happy letting Kamala speak directly to voters without the press in-between and that includes the progressive media who tried to organize a jungle primary at the DNC before Biden, Harris, and unstoppable momentum shut them out of the process.

F you for all the mischaracterizations made about Harris' abilities to lead and F the press for parroting the same BS you're peddling with zero recognition of Trump's own hypocrisy in never being able to discuss any policy issue beyond cliches and word salads, yet the media continues to let him slide.

Ethics and norms are purely situational

The projection is strong with this one padawan.

I never thought I'd see Tony claim that the press only thinks Kamala should answer questions because the R's put the thought in their heads.

You have a reading comprehension problem. I'm saying that the clamor for Kamala to go before the press we've seen over the last 3 weeks originated from Trump's own supporters including himself and Vance, who still keep saying that she's scared or unable to do so.

F 'em. She's speaking to the voters on her,/b> terms, not Trump's nor the media's and certainly not yours.

And look at her rise. Why should she change anything for the very people who doubt you? What does she need to prove to R's and the media? Nothing as far as I'm concerned, and many others agree with the same conclusion.

unbold

Beyond that, we should want both candidates to answer hard questions before voting. But you don't actually care about the candidates qualifications... Just that Kamala doesn't out herself as an idiot.

This just proves you're drunk on the right wing Kool-Aid. Trump has never answered a hard question in his life and the media continues to let him utter gibberish and unintelligible word salads without any effective follow up questions. Trump cannot articulate a single policy and detail how it will be implemented if his life depended on it because he doesn't care! He knows he if says his cliches over and over, his crowds will cheer and turn on any media person daring to ask him follow up questions, or he'll simply call them 'nasty' and his minions will boo and the questions will go unanswered.

It's really striking just how little you folks think of Harris after she's been in front of podiums, cameras and voters for over 2 decades. She was elected U.S. Senator for gawd's sake, something very few Americans living or dead can say. She flat embarrassed Bill Barr and Brett Kavanaugh with her questioning on the Judiciary Committee without raising her voice. And you REALLY think that an interview or press conference is going to expose that she's dumb and inarticulate as Trump keeps saying every single day?

I guess that's to be expected when one supports a convicted felon, insurrectionist, and decompensating septuagenarian sociopathic narcissist without an iota of self-awareness.

I don't know what it's going to expose, and that's the problem.

That's a YOU problem, not a Kamala problem. Here's reality for you: Almost every single person yelling for Harris to sit before the media or reporters isn't going to vote for her anyway, and she knows it! And those who are are already on board under the existent status quo, so what exactly does she have to gain at this moment?

Don't get me wrong, she can and will give press conferences and sit for multiple interviews with every outlet in due time. Which brings me to the second thing that irks me about this topic.

What Harris and Walz are doing is unprecedented in U.S. electoral history! There are no blueprints, no white papers, no think tanks that can guide a candidate on how to drop the head of the ticket and replace them, choose a new running mate that turns out to be hyper-popular and then change the direction and momentum of the campaign with a flawless rollout that's left her opponent petrified and babbling incoherently about how he feels aggrieved by the change.

Kamala will get to interviews and press conferences on her schedule, - as she's publicly stated - not yours, and I'm fully happy about that.

and you say she will...

SHE said that she will, live on tv last week when she answered a couple press questions on the tarmac after one of her barnstorming swing state stops.

And the question they asked her? They wanted her to comment on something demeaning that Trump had just said wherever he was, that she had no knowledge about.

Her answer: "I don't know what he said. I've been busy talking with these voters."

Chef's kiss.