In the Washington Examiner, reporter and columnist Salena Zito reported that Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz toured Pennsylvania for photo ops on Wednesday and Thursday in Lancaster, Moon Township, Fayette County, Pittsburgh, and Erie and almost entirely avoided questions from the press.
The headline was "Walz’s visit to Pennsylvania was heavy on cream and light on scrutiny."
The only interview he did was with a Michigan, not Pennsylvania, public radio station. While Walz was in Pennsylvania on Thursday, a reporter for WCMU (which serves central and northern Michigan) asked how a Harris-Walz administration would handle the Israel-Hamas war, and Walz said the violence was "horrific" on October 7, but then made reference to anti-Israel protesters in Michigan.
“I think those folks who are speaking out loudly in Michigan are speaking out for all the right reasons,” Walz said, so forget the genocidal antisemitism and aim to take over the entirety of Israel. “It’s a humanitarian crisis. It can’t stand the way it is, and we need to find a way that people can live together in this.”
By contrast, Zito noted, GOP veep nominee J.D. Vance has held over 94 interviews with local and national reporters. "I watched him and his team in Erie take pointed questions from local reporters, as well as national reporters." You don't have to like Vance to note he's more transparent, she wrote.
In Lancaster on Wednesday, reporter Alyssa Kratz noted Walz spoke for six to seven minutes and that he would not take questions from the local media. "Nor, she said, were local pool reporters allowed to put up microphones near Walz. When one local reporter shouted out a question, the reporters were told by the Walz campaign staff to 'not disrupt the program.' It is important to note that Walz was done talking with the campaign volunteers when reporters were told not to interrupt him."
Zito then noted Walz's gnoshing during the reporter-ignoring. In New Danville, "he did not answer any questions from the press, but he did get a whoopie pie."
He flew to Pittsburgh, where "he got a mint chocolate chip milkshake with his daughter at a Moon Township creamery, and then drove one hour and 40 minutes to a Fayette County farm. There were no gaggles for the press at the first stop, nor at the stop at the dairy farm located in ruby-red Fayette County, where Trump-Vance signs adorn almost every other home. According to Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Ryan Deto, Walz ate cheese curds as he was told by the farm owners they were supportive of solar energy but not on productive farmland and that natural gas should be a resource that is tapped, not spurned."
Walz then returned to Pittsburgh and prepared for his trip to Erie for a rally at the Highmark Amphitheater, but not before avoiding his press pool in the morning and eating at a local diner for breakfast. "Pool reporter Aaron Pellish of CNN noted on X that he had to rely on a staffer at the restaurant for the details because, of course, Walz’s campaign was stiffing the media."
The Democrats obviously feel that supportive journalists will let them ignore press questions. Walz can't take many if Kamala won't take any. Zito concluded:
The most important interaction a candidate can have is with a local reporter. Those journalists often are lifelong residents or have called the region they cover home for a very long time. They understand the challenges in the community and know their readers or viewers want to know how candidates would address them....if the journalism profession as a whole continues to allow this arrogance and lack of transparency from the Democratic ticket, without major public blowback, the profession will have furthered merited a lack of respect, influence, or trust from the public.
