Hot Ones apparently denied Kamala Harris' request to take on the gauntlet

Kamala Harris was not permitted to test her mettle against Da Bomb Beyond Insanity, her campaign managers revealed. Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and senior campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter recently stopped by Pod Save America to discuss some of the things that went wrong for the Vice President’s campaign. One major issue was the imbalance in Harris and Trump’s podcast appearances, as many at-home analysts quickly diagnosed with calls for a “liberal Joe Rogan” after the results rolled in.

According to the advisors, however, Harris’ relatively shorter time on the airwaves was not for lack of trying. The team apparently approached Hot Ones—the Sean Evans-hosted show with hot questions and even hotter wings—but “they didn’t want to delve into politics” according to Cutter (via The Independent). The show generally hosts actors, singers, athletes, and the occasional fellow talk shot host. 

“And that’s across the board,” Dillon added. “I do think we had a lot of support in a number of, you know, athletes and others that were just not super interested in getting their brand caught up in the politics of this campaign and I don’t think [Trump] had the same problem.”

That’s certainly true. In October, Trump did a three-hour appearance on Joe Rogan that reached an audience of about 40 million people, while the podcaster reportedly rejected the Democratic nominee because he insisted on filming in Texas and the Harris campaign did not want to do that. Apparently, Harris’ team did “lots of outreach to many of the same podcasts that [Trump] went on” but ultimately had to pick and choose because of limitations on time.

“I think that [being rejected for podcasts] had an impact on us that there were places that we knew we had support that we desperately wanted to go and have conversation that we thought would be interesting and relevant and fun, and we couldn’t get there,” Cutter added. A “liberal Joe Rogan” is probably impossible regardless, but definitely won’t happen if potential candidates reject the call in the first place.