With less than a month until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign announced several new interviews this week, adding to a schedule already packed with two major outlet interviews—a busy press week uncharacteristic for the Democratic nominee.
Since entering the presidential race in late-July after President Joe Biden stepped down, Harris has faced repeated criticism for her fairly limited press engagements. She largely avoided the media early on, including formal interviews and speaking to reporters outside of campaign events.
Reports from Axios and The Telegraph in early September revealed that the Harris-Walz campaign had granted fewer interviews than any other candidates in modern history.
Harris only gave her first interview as the nominee on August 29 to CNN. The interview drew scrutiny, including from supporters of former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, who noted that she did not appear alone but was joined by her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Harris has since increased her media presence, sitting down for a solo cable television interview with MSNBC in September. Other notable appearances include participating in a discussion with members of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and speaking with Oprah Winfrey, among others.
Early Sunday morning, Harris’ campaign announced a series of what are expected to be friendly and not highly confrontational interviews for this week. On Tuesday, the vice president is scheduled to appear on The View, The Howard Stern Show, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Stern and Colbert both backed Biden in 2020, with Colbert having participated in fundraisers for the Democratic candidate and Stern outwardly endorsing him.
Newsweek reached out to Harris’ campaign for comment via email on Sunday.
Edging further into pop culture, Harris recorded an interview with Alex Cooper for her popular Call Her Daddy podcast, set to be released Sunday, according to an Instagram post from the show. The show was Spotify’s second-biggest podcast, drawing millions of younger listeners, and recently became part of SiriusXM.
The new media appearances fall between Harris’ already scheduled interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes airing Monday and a Univision town hall set for Thursday. Univision is the largest provider of Spanish language content in the U.S.
The action-packed press week comes as Election Day is 30 days away and in-person early voting and mail-in voting has already started in some states.
60 Minutes invited Harris and Trump to appear on the broadcast, however, “After initially accepting 60 Minutes‘ request for an interview with Scott Pelley, former President Trump’s campaign has decided not to participate. Pelley will address this Monday evening,” the news program said in a statement.
On October 1, Steven Cheung, Trump’s campaign spokesperson, reposted 60 Minutes statement on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: “Fake News. 60 Minutes begged for an interview, even after they were caught lying about Hunter Biden‘s laptop back in 2020. There were initial discussions, but nothing was ever scheduled or locked in. They also insisted on doing live fact checking, which is unprecedented.”
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