The Harris campaign has remained mum on when Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a formal press conference, or why she has not held one since she emerged as the Democratic Party’s nominee, while former President Donald Trump prepares to hold his second press conference in a week this afternoon.
Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee on July 21, when President Biden exited the race and passed the torch to Harris through an endorsement. Harris has not held a formal press conference or joined a sit-down interview with the media in the 25 days since Biden endorsed her and she officially clinched the nomination in a subsequent ‘virtual’ roll-call vote less than two weeks later.
Fox News Digital reached out to the campaign this week asking if there were plans to schedule a formal press conference and when, as well as inquiring why the vice president has not held one in more than three weeks. The campaign did not respond to the requests.
Campaign spokespeople have been pressed about the issue during interviews on news shows, but have also demurred on giving an answer. Instead, both Harris and members of her campaign have said she plans to hold a sit-down interview by the end of August. Details on a date or which outlet will hold the interview have not yet been released.
‘I’ve talked to my team, I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month,’ Harris said last week after a campaign event in Michigan.
The vice president has been criss-crossing the country over the last roughly three weeks as she works to earn support from voters. Biden dropped out of the race amid mounting concerns surrounding his mental acuity and 81 years of age, leaving Harris with just under 100 days to campaign.
Harris has taken a handful of questions from the media while on the campaign trail, but she has snubbed the media by not holding pressers or sit-down interviews. Time magazine earlier this month published a glowing cover story on Harris, but the vice president didn’t agree to an interview for the piece. Instead, that article quoted aides and allies who lauded Harris as a formidable candidate against former President Donald Trump.
Pressure has built on the campaign to hold a press conference, including CNN’s Jim Acosta questioning Harris communications director Michael Tyler this week on air.
‘I’m sure this is not going to be the first time you’ve heard this question, but the Trump campaign is also going after the vice president for not doing enough interviews, for not holding a press conference. Would it kill you guys to have a press conference? Why hasn’t she had a press conference?’ Acosta asked.
Tyler said that she and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have been ‘busy’ traveling across the country, citing multiple campaign rallies.
‘Michael, you know a campaign rally isn’t really a press conference,’ Acosta said to Tyler. ‘Why hasn’t she had a press conference? She’s the vice president, she can handle the questions, why not do it?’
Tyler said that Harris will hold a press conference at some point and would sit down for an interview with a media outlet by the end of the month.
The left-leaning Washington Post editorial board also challenged Harris over dodging the media on Sunday, saying of her opponent, ‘At least he has taken questions.’
Trump and allies of the 45th president have used Harris’ lack of media availability as a point of attack.
’It’s pretty sad when you think that somebody that does this for a living can’t answer a question or is afraid to do an interview, and in her case, with a very friendly interview. She’s got all friendly interviewers,’ Trump said of Harris Monday evening during his roughly two-hour interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk on X Space.
Some have said that Harris is pulling a move from Biden’s 2020 playbook, when Biden carried out a cloistered campaign strategy during the pandemic, which earned him the nickname ‘Basement Joe’ from Trump.
‘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,’ NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham previously 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.’
Some supporters of the vice president say that her strategy of avoiding the media is a winning one as she continues building out her campaign before the DNC in Chicago next week.
‘Where is it written that you have to sit down for a press interview?’ longtime Democratic consultant James Carville told the New York Times. ‘They’ve had to pick a vice president, plan a convention, move around, do this, do that, and she’s already agreed to a debate.’
Meanwhile, Trump has been more available to the media, holding press conferences at his homes in Florida and New Jersey, in addition to campaigning, and joining a two-hour conversational interview with Musk this week. Musk invited Harris to join him for a similar interview ahead of the election, but the campaign has not said whether Harris will accept.
Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this article.
