Tim Walz seemed eager to take as much screen time as he could get before he was announced as the Harris campaign's vice presidential pick, and many political commentators believe it was to increase his chances of being selected for the role. But since the later stages of the vetting process, he's gone radio silent.
The Daily Caller reports:
From July 22 to Aug. 6, about two weeks before he was added to the ticket, Walz appeared on MSNBC, PBS, CNN and Fox News a total of ten times, an analysis by Newsbusters' Curtis Houck, shared with the Daily Caller, showed. Since Harris chose Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6, the governor has not appeared on the networks he flocked to during the vetting process, according to Houck's analysis.
Walz has done one tv appearance since being named Harris' running mate; his joint interview on CNN alongside the vice president. Over the first month of her presidential campaign, Harris faced scrutiny for a lack of unscripted moments. The pressure forced Harris to commit to setting up an interview by the end of August, though rather than doing a one-on-one sit-down, she brought Walz along.
Lies aside, Jennings told the Caller that another reason for sidelining Walz could be because he would be pressed about a policy platform Harris is yet to define. More than a month into her campaign, Harris has only unveiled her economic policy and has yet to put a platform on her website. The Trump campaign, by contrast, features the Republican National Committee's platform as its own.
The CNN interview seemed to hurt the campaign more than it helped. They've been under scrutiny from both the press and the public for their perceived lack of substance and engagement as they've revealed very little about their policies and made a point of avoiding hard hitting questions. When they finally sat down for an interview, and made the highly unorthodox choice to do it together, both viewers and commentators seemed underwhelmed and unsatisfied with their performance.
Newsbusters' Curtis Houck explained, “It's no surprise that Tim Walz has gone into the witness protection program first started by the Biden-Harris 2020 campaign after blanketing the liberal cable networks during the vetting process to show Kamala Harris his loyalty to he. Between July 23 and August 6, he appeared on CNN and MSNBC at least seven times, with an additional hit on taxpayer-funded PBS. Morning and evening, Walz made sure Harris and her team saw him at all hours of the day. Importantly, none came after July 30 as the vetting intensified and Harris conducted final round interviews.”
Their media strategy offers a stark contrast between that of the Trump campaign.
The Daily Caller continues:
While Harris and Walz have done one media appearance together, Senator J.D. Vance has done 94 interviews, press conferences and gaggles with the media since Trump named him his running mate on July 15, according to Axios. In the month of August, Vance did all five major Sunday shows, the outlet reported.
Some in the political world speculate that Tim is on a media blackout, because since the Harris campaign announced him as her running mate, he's found himself in scandal after scandal — chief among them, his embellished military service.
Senior adviser to the Trump campaign Tim Murtaugh said, “Walz has lied about so much that they have no idea what piece of his embellished life story he'll roll out next. Next thing you know he'll claim to have quarterbacked the Minnesota Vikings to the Super Bowl while simultaneously serving in Afghanistan.”
They’re both so feeble that they know they can’t explain anything or defend any of the actions taken in the last 3 1/2 years. She always says, on day one I will implement different things, while she’s already had 3 1/2 years to do, or change, things. The also have no game plan other than repeating most of Trump’s ideas to try and show moderate views. It can’t be farther from the truth. The key to that is, she said her values haven’t and won’t change. That means, far left ideology, which amounts to Californicating the US. Are these really the people you want to run the country?
Gee wonder why??