Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) feigned surprise that microphones were recording them during a public appearance at a local bar.
With Election Day quickly approaching, Harris rallied in Michigan Saturday and followed it up with a visit to Trak Houz Bar & Grill in Kalamazoo. Whitmer and the presidential candidate drank Oberon, a beer brewed in the city, as they spoke with each other.
“Great rally,” Whitmer said to Harris.
“Really great,” Harris replied, with some of her response lost in the murmur of the bar. “You know what I’ve taken to is … and just shouting it out. Like first-time voters and Gen Z.”
“I’ve been bugging your whole team,” Whitmer admitted. “Like we’ve got to do this and this and this.”
“We need to move ground among men. Oh, we have microphones in here just listening to everything,” Harris suddenly says as she turns around and makes eye contact with one of the many cameras rolling on her. “I didn’t realize that. OK, well, now you tell us. We just told all the family secrets, s***.”
People online shared the video clip to speculate whether the two were aware of the hot mics beforehand. Most agreed that the exchange was awkward.
“Kamala and Gretchen Whitmer are caught on a hot mic at their very cringe drinking beer at bar scene,” Charlie Kirk captioned his post of the video.
“I just died from cringe,” another user wrote.
“‘We can win over men by sitting at a bar with Gretchen Whitmer.’ Paid political consultants,” another user wrote.
“Gretchen Whitmer is a walking, talking, tweeting — and always drinking — midlife crisis,” one user commented.
Meanwhile, others saw the photo opportunity as a waste of time so close to the end of Harris’s campaign. Her opponent, former President Donald Trump, did not make pit stops as he rallied in Michigan and Pennsylvania that day, as he followed it up the next day with a rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
“Trump is on the campaign trail working his tail off while Kamala is at the bar drinking with Governor Whitmer … you can’t make this stuff up,” one user wrote.
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The Washington Examiner reached the Harris campaign and Whitmer’s office for comment.
Whitmer is still smarting from backlash after her attempt to rally support for the Harris-Walz campaign in a video where she hand-feeds a woman a Dorito chip while wearing a campaign hat. The video hearkened to how those of the Catholic faith receive Communion during their worship services, which prompted an apology from Whitmer.