Over the weekend, a gaggle of media establishment figures lost their collective crackers at the news that Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with podcaster Alexandra Cooper for an episode of “Call Her Daddy.”

The general tenor of this “how dare she” reaction is a version of the constant refrain the Harris campaign has heard since the vice president announced her candidacy in late July.

Following the generally jovial digs into the “Kamala is Brat” phenomenon came the aggressive suggestions about what Harris needed to do, the topmost being the requirement to sit down immediately with top TV anchors and other national news outlets.

When she didn’t meet those expectations, the chorus of complaints shifted to her inaccessibility. An August sit-down with CNN’s Dana Bash, with her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz beside her, was painted as a Milk Bone toss to a ravenous wolf pack – an amuse bouche too insubstantial to sate.

Harris has submitted to probing questions by mainstream journalists since then, including at a mid-September event sponsored by the National Association of Black Journalists. That received less coverage than a live-streamed celebrity-studded lovefest hosted by Oprah Winfrey and did nothing to quiet that noise.

The Democratic candidate has since agreed to radio interviews, appearances on local news and other podcasts, but “Call Her Daddy” makes another level of outreach. Cooper’s podcast was Spotify’s second-biggest in 2023 — surpassed in popularity only by “The Joe Rogan Experience” — and averages around 5 million listeners for episodes that don’t feature a presidential candidate.

Cooper refers to her following as her “Daddy Gang,” courting their tastes with topics that range from dating and sex to, lately, conversations about mental health and reproductive rights.

Some of the commentary class’ kneejerk reaction to Harris' decision to pitch Cooper was disdain. Sunday's Politico Playbook column inveighed against the “Call Her Daddy” announcement along with the rest of Harris’ scheduled appearances this week, declaring that Harris is “still largely avoiding the media.”

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Harris’ media schedule this week includes her participation in a special Monday night edition of “60 Minutes,” with Bill Whitaker conducting a one-on-one interview.

Tuesday she’ll drop by “The View” as well as appear on “The Howard Stern Show” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” On Thursday, Univision hosts her in Las Vegas, NV., for a town hall. The Spanish-language network’s event with Donald Trump, originally scheduled to take place on Tuesday in Miami, was rescheduled to Oct.16 because of the intensifying weather conditions posed by Hurricane Milton.

One must cite the hypocrisy in expecting Harris to do things Trump is not doing and has never done.

Citing “60 Minutes” and Univision’s town hall as exceptions, the Politico column reads, “Let’s be real here: Most of these are not the types of interviews that are going to press her on issues she may not want to talk about, even as voters want more specifics from Harris. Instead, expect........

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