Vice President Kamala Harris, told reporters that she wants to get her first interview as the Democratic nominee for president scheduled before the end of August while taking a handful of questions from reporters after a campaign event in Michigan on Thursday.
“I’ve talked to my team, I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month,” she said on the tarmac before boarding Air Force Two en route to Arizona.
The new pledge from the vice president to face the press comes as the GOP presidential ticket – in the midst of trying to find its footing against a new Democratic nominee just three months from an election – has been honing in on a new line of attack against Harris: accusing her of dodging questions from the press.
Republican vice presidential nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance – who was sent to shadow Harris on the campaign trail this week and give his own remarks along the way – put a spotlight on the GOP’s new line of attack when he approached Air Force Two on a tarmac in Wisconsin on Wednesday after his own campaign plane landed and told reporters that he wanted to “check out my future plane” and ask Harris “why she refuses to answer questions from the media.”
“I at least have enough respect for you all and for the American people to come and talk to you and answer questions,” Vance told reporters.
The fresh criticism that appeared to build all week culminated on Thursday when Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, announced last-minute that he would hold a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, which he used in part to double down on Harris’ lack of interactions with the press.
It was just hours after that press conference that Harris approached reporters on the tarmac after an event in Michigan to take questions for about a minute and a half and pledge to sit for an interview.
In the less than three weeks since President Joe Biden dropped his bid for a second term Harris swiftly rounded up the backing of key Democratic leaders as well as rank-and-file members of the party in Congress, brought in key endorsements from unions, climate and youth voter groups, erased Republican nominee former President Donald Trump’s fundraising edge and saw major national polls shift in her direction.
In the same time period, she yet to hold a press conference or sit for an interview, sticking instead with holding scripted rallies in battleground states, making statements to the press about a topic dominating the news that day but not taking questions afterwards and chatting off-the-record with reporters traveling with her on the campaign trail.
Early in her tenure as vice president, Harris received criticism for a sit-down interview she did with NBC News’ Lester Holt regarding the U.S.-Mexico border after Biden tapped her to oversee the administration’s efforts to address the root causes of migration.
The vice president recently, however, received widespread praise from her party and pundits for her post-debate interview in June with CNN’s Anderson Cooper in which she steadfastly defended the president, who subsequently almost immediately endorsed Harris when he dropped out of the race, clearing the way for her whirlwind rise to becoming the party’s presidential nominee.