Donald Trump is pummeling Kamala Harris over a potential vulnerability that may be difficult for the Democratic presidential nominee to deflect much longer: her avoidance of the media.
Trump scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida in an attempt to give the issue momentum. It will be his first open meeting with reporters, albeit by invitation only, since Harris clinched the nomination.
Political reporters who have captured everything that appears to drive Trump crazy about Harris—the electrified energy among the Democratic base, her enormous crowds and record-shattering fundraising—have not been given a chance to ask the nominee questions in an unscripted setting.
Harris has largely avoided the press corps since her damaging interview with Lester Holt on NBC’s Nightly News in June 202, when she struggled to defend her reasons for not visiting the U.S.-Mexico border.
Her media engagement since then has included a taped appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in April in which Barrymore pleaded with her to be “Momala” to a nation, and an extended sit-down with Rolling Stone magazine. And on the night of President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump, she appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper to defend her boss and almost immediately afterwards did the same on MSNBC.
The issue is now a key campaign talking point for the Trump team. “Thought you guys might be lonely because the vice president doesn’t answer questions from reporters,” Vance told unsuspecting reporters on Wednesday as he and his entourage walked from his plane to Air Force Two when both landed at the same airport in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said Wednesday that in the “17 days since Kamala Harris replaced her mentor” atop the Democratic presidential ticket, she has dodged press interviews every single day.
But now mainstream journalists are starting to agree that the Trump campaign has a point—possibly stung by the widely acknowledged failure to hold Biden and those around him to account for his apparent cognitive decline.
Some had been willing to give Harris a pass for ignoring their requests for interviews given her hectic few weeks during which she had to seal up her nomination in the wake of Biden’s exit, vet and choose a running mate and plan a rollout of the campaign amid extraordinary circumstances.
“But starting right now, every day she’s not talking to the media is political malpractice,” Ron Fournuer, the veteran ex-White House correspondent for the Associated Press. “It’s political malpractice not to do it. And No. 2, it’s not good for democracy.”
Progressive New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen agreed that it’s time for Harris to start engaging with reporters.
“As a journalist and a citizen I think it would be very good for the Democratic ticket to sti for big interviews and routinely answer on the record questions from reporters on the trial,” Polgreen posted on X. “It is disappointing that this has not happened.”
The Harris campaign has declined requests for comment about when Harris plans to stop shunning media availability. But two people familiar with the campaign’s thinking told Politico there are discussions underway about Harris and running mate Tim Walz doing a joint interview ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which starts on August 19.
However, one longtime Harris ally told West Wing Playbook that any interviews with Harris may not happen until after Labor Day. The voters that she needs are at the local level. They’re not reading the national press,” the unnamed source said.
“It’s the media’s job to push for as much access as possible for the public,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told the Daily Beast. “Each candidate calibrates his or her response based on what’s best for the campaign. I don’t think the public cares whether there are press conferences or not. Maybe they should care, but they don’t.”
It’s unheard of for someone to become the nominee of a major American political party without granting interviews or giving press conferences. But then again, “what is unprecedented” in this extraordinary moment in history, Sabato says, is “a nominee for president in all but name steps down, and someone else is thrust into the position without time to plan.”
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