Both the West Wing and the chicken wings eluded the Harris campaign.
Popular internet show “Hot Ones” turned down the opportunity to interview then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the vice president’s campaign leaders revealed in a new podcast episode Tuesday.
The top generals of Harris’ decidedly unsuccessful presidential campaign gathered on the liberal-leaning “Pod Save America” to analyze the many reasons for their loss.
The campaign honchos listed the Democratic nominee being turned down for an appearance on Sean Evans’ successful YouTube show “Hot Ones” among the many rationalizations and theories as to why Vice President Harris will be unemployed in January.
“Hot Ones” — which features Evans interviewing celebrities as they eat progressively spicier chicken wings — turned down the veep because the show does not want to delve into politics, according to Stephanie Cutter, who was in charge of media strategy for Harris.
Cutter said on the podcast that the Harris team got that reaction “across the board” from non-political media.
“‘Hot Ones,’ which is a great show, they didn’t wanna do any politics, so they weren’t going to take us or [Trump],” Cutter added.
In its more than 350 episodes, spanning nearly a decade of publishing, “Hot Ones” has never hosted a political candidate.
The former Harris staffers — including Campaign Chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon, advisor David Plouffe, Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks, and Cutter — griped that President-elect Donald Trump did not appear to have a problem booking appearances on popular, non-political shows.
“I don’t think he had the same problem,” O’Malley Dillon said during the apparent coping session.
Trump was able to “tap into some cultural elements” that Harris was not able to, she added.
The soon-to-be 47th president appeared on a variety of podcasts and internet shows leading up to the election including comedian Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend,” golfer Bryson DeChambeau’s “Break 50,” Mark “The Undertaker” Calaway’s “Six Feet Under,” Barstool Sports’ “Bussin with the Boys,” and the world’s most popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.” He also appeared on a live stream with popular Kick streamer Adin Rose.
The Harris campaign notably did not appear on “The Joe Rogan Experience” — reportedly turning down an invite to Rogan’s Austin studio.
The eponymous host revealed that the campaign wanted him to travel to meet Harris for an interview that would last under one hour. Rogan, whose episodes often pass the two- or even three-hour mark, rejected those demands.
Plouffe insisted on Tuesday that Harris’ team offered to go to Austin and insinuated Rogan was playing the two campaigns against each other.
“So what’s clear is we offered to do it in Austin, people should know that. It didn’t work out. Maybe they leveraged that to get Trump in the studio, I don’t know, and then we were obviously not going to be back in Texas, but offered to do it on the road,” Plouffe told the left-leaning audience of “Pod Save America.”
Trump sat down in Rogan’s studio for a three-hour interview in Austin, on the same day that Harris held a campaign event with Beyonce in Houston.
Neither “Hot Ones” nor the Harris camp responded to requests for comment.