Former President Donald Trump recently criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for avoiding answering questions from the press for 27 days, likening her media evasion to when President Joe Biden conducted his 2020 presidential campaign primarily from his “basement.” As reported by Breitbart News, as of Friday, Harris had not participated in an unscripted interview with the press in 26 days.
While delivering a speech at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump compared Harris’s refusal to engage with the media to Biden’s campaign strategy during the 2020 election. The former president stated that, just like Harris, Biden also hid from the press during his campaign. Trump highlighted this issue by pointing out that as of Friday, Kamala Harris had not conducted an unscripted interview in over four weeks.
During her speech in North Carolina on Friday, Vice President Harris discussed several economic policies but did not entertain any questions from the media. Addressing the situation, Trump told the crowd that he believed one of the reasons why Harris avoids interviews is because she tends to laugh during them. The former president mentioned that he has heard Harris’s laughter and described it as “the laugh of a crazy person” or “a lunatic.
I’ve been waiting for her to laugh because as soon as she laughs, the election’s over,” Trump joked while discussing Kamala Harris. However, he expressed concern that by avoiding press interactions, Vice President Harris might be giving the impression of hiding from the media, just like when Biden campaigned from his basement in 2020.
The comparison between Harris’s evasion of the media and Biden’s basement campaign was confirmed when the president admitted in an interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur that he had conducted much of his 2020 campaign from home to avoid catching COVID-19. The former president’s comments on Vice President Kamala Harris are likely meant to emphasize the importance of transparency and open communication with the press, especially for those in high-ranking political positions.