Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper admitted she wasn’t surprised when she received backlash for her softball interview with Kamala Harris, but said she ‘didn’t care.’
The podcaster sat down with the vice president in the last weeks of the election, and conceded that her audience was ‘split’ by her decision to host the episode.
While conservatives slammed her for the interview’s lack of hard-hitting questioning and layup answers, a faction of Call Her Daddy’s young audience also hit back over the Biden – Harris administration’s support for Israel.
Speaking of the controversy, Cooper told Forbes: ‘Listen, I knew it was going to come. I am very aware that my audience is very split, and I again take that with responsibility.
‘I don’t want to alienate people but I did feel like I had a sense of responsibility, so I kind of, like, didn’t care.’
It was revealed shortly after Harris’ thumping election loss that the Harris campaign spent a staggering six figures to build the set of a hotel room to match the original Call Her Daddy set.
Cooper said that the Harris campaign reached out to her to set up the interview, which came weeks before Donald Trump appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast – with the Republican receiving over 50 times the viewers that Harris had.
The host said she previously made it a point to avoid politics on her show, but came to the decision to sit down with Harris because it felt like a ‘no brainer.’
Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper admitted she wasn’t surprised when she received backlash for her softball interview with Kamala Harris (pictured) in the weeks before the election
The Harris campaign spent a staggering six figures to build the set of a hotel room to match the original Call Her Daddy set
Cooper revealed that she hesitated when first asked to interview Harris, but agreed after asking herself: ‘How as a woman am I not going to do this?
Cooper continued: ‘They reached out to me and I recognized that maybe in a different election it wouldn’t be the case and who knows in future elections what I’ll do.
‘But in this specific election the entire focus is on women’s bodies and we’re losing rights by the day, and so, to have the most popular female podcast, where most women listen to the show in the country, it felt like a no-brainer.’
She said she hesitated at first, but agreed after asking herself: ‘How as a woman am I not going to do this?
‘How am I going to look back at myself one day if I ever have children, and look back at this decision? I’m really proud I did it.’
Although Harris’ interview with Call Her Daddy was intended to be a dueling episode with Trump’s sit down with Rogan, which came two weeks later, the Republican’s conversation drew far more listeners.
Counting only views on YouTube, at the time of writing Trump’s interview with Rogan was listened or watched a staggering 52 million times.
In comparison, Harris’ Call Her Daddy episode has still not yet reached one million listens, and has only recently cracked 900,000 views.
The episode came three weeks before Donald Trump did a podcast with Joe Rogan, with the Republican’s episode receiving over 50 times more viewers than Harris’
The ludicrous six-figure sum that the Harris campaign shelled out for the Call Her Daddy interview was just one of a number of extravagant purchases the campaign made.
It blew through over $1.2 billion during the race, a staggering sum considering the short amount of time Harris had on the campaign trail after President Biden dropped out in July.
According to the Washington Examiner, these costs included bills to Village Marketing Agency, which was paid over $3.9 million to recruit social media influencers to boost Harris’ online appeal.
The Trump campaign spent a total of around $750 million in comparison, reports the Financial Times.
Some indications, thought, show that the race was much more expensive than that.
The Harris campaign, affiliated PACs and the Democratic National Committee amassed over $2.3 billion in political contributions.
Donald Trump’s team, affiliated PACs and the Republican National Committee raised $1.8 billion. After raising nearly $4.2 billion, they spent a combined $3.5 billion on the presidential race, making it the most expensive contest ever held according to the FT analysis.
Despite spending less, Trump ended up trouncing Harris in the electoral and popular vote – which hasn’t been done by the GOP in decades.