The press has questions for Vice President Kamala Harris. She doesn’t give many answers.
In the nearly three weeks since President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy, catapulting Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, the vice president has shown little interest in meeting with reporters in unscripted settings. She has not given an interview or held a news conference. On Thursday, after a rally in Michigan, she held her first “gaggle” — an impromptu question-and-answer session — with reporters covering her campaign.
It took 70 seconds.
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Harris replaced a Democratic nominee who has held fewer White House news conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan. Now she is taking a similarly cautious approach, relying on televised rallies and prepared statements amid a tightly controlled rollout of her candidacy.
Asked Thursday if she could be interviewed soon, Harris suggested she go through the convention first. “I want us to schedule an interview by the end of the month,” she said, as aides informed the crowd of reporters that question period was over.
Harris’ lack of media engagement has become a constant rallying cry on the political right, with Republican critics and Fox News luminaries accusing the vice president of ducking the investigation. Harris’ campaign says it is thinking carefully about how best to spread its message and introduce a new candidate to crucial voters in swing states.
David Axelrod, the architect of former President Barack Obama’s winning campaigns, said he believes Harris — who said Thursday she had agreed to a prime-time debate with former President Donald Trump on Sept. 10 — was trying to strike a balance.
“It’s been a hectic few weeks, and right now, upbeat speeches work really well, so she’s riding the wave,” Axelrod wrote in an email. “But I’m sure they know that a presidential election also involves a series of tests, including debates and unscripted interactions with voters and the media, where people get to know you. There is time, and I’m sure she will get there.”
Trump has a less benevolent view.
“She doesn’t know how to do a press conference; she’s not smart enough to do a press conference,” Trump said during a discursive news conference Thursday in Florida. “She won’t do interviews with nice people because she can’t do it any better than Biden,” Trump added. “She should do interviews. She doesn’t want to do interviews.”
Fox News, which broadcast Trump’s press conference live, echoed the former president’s attacks, running a headline on its screen that read: “Trump Takes Questions as Harris Dodges.”
Harris has answered some questions from reporters, but out of public view. Since becoming the presumptive nominee, she has held off-the-record meetings with reporters in the back of her campaign plane several times. Biden rarely holds such meetings; this week, however, he opened himself up to criticism in an interview with CBS’s Robert Costa.
Some political strategists say Harris is doing exactly what she should be doing. Her campaign rallies have been widely covered, and a kickoff event Tuesday with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was watched live on cable news by nearly 8 million people. Big interviews early in a candidacy also come with big risks: See Sarah Palin’s Katie Couric fiasco.
“Where does it say you have to sit down for a press interview?” said James Carville, former President Bill Clinton’s longtime messaging guru. “They had to pick a vice president, plan a convention, travel around, do this, do that, and she’s already agreed to a debate.”
Carville said Harris was managing her time wisely, given the extraordinary task of launching a presidential campaign three months before Election Day. He imagined a plea from a reporter — “‘Come talk to me for 45 minutes'” — and then outlined how the campaign would respond: “Oh, shut up!”
Trump has given multiple interviews in recent weeks, albeit to a slew of very sympathetic media outlets, including a livestream from an internet celebrity who gave him a gold Rolex and “Sid & Friends in the Morning,” a Trump-friendly New York drive-time radio show. Trump faced tougher questions when he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week, and again at Thursday’s 65-minute press conference.
Harris’s record with major interviews has been mixed. A 2021 appearance with NBC’s Lester Holt went poorly and raised concerns within the Biden administration. Since then, Harris has built relationships with media luminaries like Joe Scarborough and numerous White House correspondents. In her most recent TV interview, on CNN immediately following the June debate, Harris was comfortable speaking out about Biden’s poor performance.
Harris aides say that in a fragmented media landscape where trust in traditional news organizations has declined, the most effective way to reach voters is through alternative channels like TikTok and their own social media platforms.
“The vice president’s top priority is to earn the support of the voters who will decide this election,” Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Harris, said Thursday, adding that the campaign was “strategic, creative and aggressive” in using TV ads, rallies, local organizers, “and of course interviews that reach our target audience.”
He did not say when such an interview would take place.
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