Vice President Kamala Harris has gone 19 days without holding a formal press conference since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as of Thursday, although she did answer a few questions on an airport tarmac Thursday.
Harris became essentially the de facto nominee after President Biden endorsed her on July 21 when he dropped out of the race and she officially clinched the nomination last week. She has been busy on the campaign trail, spoken at various events, and given informal remarks to reporters at various points, but hasn’t done a formal press conference or wide-ranging interview in the 19 days that have followed.
Harris, amid mounting criticism on that front, briefly talked to reporters traveling with her in Michigan on Thursday. Speaking for just over a minute, she said she looked forward to debating former President Trump on Sept. 10 on ABC and defended the military record of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
She also said her team was trying to set up an interview by the end of the month, as she has yet to do a one-on-one sitdown.
This week, she made headlines by picking Walz as her running mate, but the two have still not been questioned formally in interviews or press conferences. It’s gotten the attention of GOP vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, who has implored the media to do better on the issue and get Harris to answer questions.
During a Wednesday press conference in Detroit, Vance urged reporters to “show a little bit of self-awareness” and pushed Harris to “do the job of a presidential candidate” by speaking to them.
“Until she does, you guys have got to stop giving her a honeymoon and pretending that she is something she isn’t,” he said.
National Review senior writer Noah Rothman recently asked his social media followers, “When is Kamala Harris going to hold a press conference?”
“The most revealing exposure to which a candidate can submit is a prolonged press conference — and that’s precisely what Harris needs to do. Indeed, we know that’s what she needs to do because it was only a few weeks ago that Democratic political professionals and their allies insisted that was what Biden had to do,” he wrote for National Review.
NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham expects her to follow President Biden’s 2020 playbook, when he was famously accused of hiding in his basement during the COVID pandemic.
“Kamala Harris should absolutely hold a press conference. One would expect it when she names her vice-presidential pick. But we cannot expect her to break from Biden’s serial avoidance of press conferences,” Graham told Fox News Digital.
“Since the 2020 campaign, we have witnessed the bizarre spectacle of Donald Trump granting wide access to networks that suggest he’s a fascist and hammer him daily, while Biden and Harris won’t grant interviews to media outlets that gurgle all over them and their ‘historic accomplishments,’” he continued. “Either they think the press can never be servile enough or they are projecting a complete lack of confidence in their efforts to put complete sentences together.”
U.S. News & World Report senior national correspondent Oliver Knox wrote that “of course” Harris should take questions from the press. He said it’s already a “thing” for people in the media industry but pressure isn’t going to “dissipate” as non-journalist begin to ponder where she stands on certain issues.
“A press conference may be high-risk, low-reward for Harris/Walz. But the longer they don’t do a proper q-and-a, the tougher that q-and-a will be on both sides,” Knox wrote.
The Democratic National Convention is set to kick off Aug. 19 in Chicago.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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