There are two things going on here. The article mentions one of them at the very end, but doesn’t really emphasize it. The first is that the media is beholden to the “both sides” narrative even when it makes absolutely no sense.
Imagine that someone powerful said, “I want to kill everyone with blonde hair, all 30 million of them. No mercy, no survivors.” And someone from the opposition said, “This is morally wrong and ethically unconscionable. I will do my best to prevent this genocidal atrocity.” The media would fact-check this into:
“The President says he wants to kill all the blonde people, but perhaps he was talking about the type of chocolate-free brownie. Since he hasn’t actually killed anyone, who can say? His opponent claimed that he was ‘genocidal’ and no blond person has been killed yet, so this is false.”
This absurd both-sidesing is inherent to our terrible journalism culture but there is also something else going on here. Even with Harris in the race, Trump still has a ~45% chance of winning it all. If he does win, these journos don’t want to be on the “enemies” list. And there will be an enemies list this time around for sure if Trump does take the prize.
Thus, part of this kowtowing is a very human, very understandable motivation. It is simply fear.