The viral YouTube show Hot Ones offered the chance to interview Kamala Harris during the election because the show’s producers didn’t want to “get into politics” amid a serious Democratic recalibration around the use of social media.
During a post-mortem conducted by Pod Save America, former aides revealed how the campaign was run and what it should do differently in 2028.
Comparing their campaign to Trump’s, which benefited from a huge audience of podcasters and social media stars like Joe Rogan, they revealed that they tried to get on Hot Ones but were rejected by producers.
Hosted by Sean Evans, Hot Ones sees another celebrity eat a series of chicken wings covered in increasingly spicy sauces while being asked more and more probing questions.
The show’s host has been praised for his in-depth research and presentation of questions, which Harris’ team wanted to use during the race for the White House.
But producers turned them down, telling them they didn’t want to “get involved in politics,” according to Stephanie Cutter, Harris’ director of presidential communications.
DailyMail.com has contacted Hot Ones’ parent company, Buzzfeed, for comment.
The aides also said during the interview that the “political climate was bad,” leading to Harris’ loss.
Hot Ones had the chance to interview Kamala Harris (pictured) during their viral show
The show is hosted by Sean Evans, known for his probing questions to celebrity guests
“We were facing strong headwinds,” said David Plouffe, who led Obama’s 2008 campaign and then served as a White House adviser.
Plouffe also emphasized that Biden was so unpopular when he dropped out of the race and backed Harris that improving her ratings was a difficult task.
He noted that Harris entered the race with an approval rating of just 33-35 percent and while they improved her numbers by 15 points, they didn’t have enough time to sell her to voters.
And Plouffe lamented how difficult it was for Democrats to win support from independents in battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — even though that was the task, and the team assured Democrats across the country that they could do it were.
“It’s very difficult for Democrats to win battleground states,” Plouffe claimed, noting that those states were more conservative than the average blue state and that even moderates there tended to lean right.
Meanwhile, campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon repeatedly complained about the lack of time they had to make Harris a winner in the 107-day campaign that began in July when Biden ultimately dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris.
She defended their approach of emphasizing how Harris was “different” from both Biden and Trump and a candidate for the “future,” rather than trying to differentiate herself from Biden, whose approval rating was epically low.
Campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter confirmed that Harris was “unwilling” to split from Biden.
“She had a huge lack of popularity because people didn’t know about her, or what they did know about her was due to negative media,” she said.