Harris to sit down with Black journalists for a rare interview
WASHINGTON — Vice-Chairman Kamala Harris will give a rare extended campaign interview on Tuesday, answering questions from a trio of journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists, just a month after former President Donald Trump ‘s appearance before the same organization led to a controversy over racial and other issues.
The Trump Interview opened a chapter in the campaign in which the Republican candidate repeatedly questioned Harris’ racial identity, baselessly claiming that she had “gone black” only late in her professional career. Trump has since repeatedly questioned Harris’ racial identity during the campaign and during the presidential debate in September
Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, has repeatedly dismissed Trump’s comments as “the same old show.” During her debate with Trump in September, she said it was a “tragedy” that he had “tried to use race to divide the American people.”
Trump, his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vanceand other Republicans have criticized Harris for largely avoiding media interviews or communicating openly with reporters covering her campaign events. She and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, gave a joint interview with CNN last month. Her campaign recently said she will do more local media, and last week she posed for her first solo television interview Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, he has answered questions from a Philadelphia radio station.
In Trump’s interview with NABJ, he said: the moderators criticized and sometimes elicited boos and groans from the audience. The interview led to a debate within the NABJ convention itselfwhich serves as both a networking and community space for Black media professionals as well as a newsmaking event.
PolitiFact, a news organization that checks facts, will be fact-checking Harris’ interview live, as it did for Trump’s NABJ appearance. As with Trump’s appearance, the audience will be NABJ members and students.
Harris has largely bypassed traditional media appearances and instead focused on gatherings, grassroots organizing and social media involvementwhere the vice president can dodge questions from independent journalists about her policies and proposed agenda.
Tuesday’s meeting was moderated by Eugene Daniels of Politico, Gerren Gaynor of theGrio and Tonya Mosley of WHYY, a Philadelphia public radio station that co-hosts the meeting.
NABJ noted the importance of hosting the conversation in Philadelphia, a major city in a pivotal state with a large black population. Philadelphia was also home to one of NABJ’s most important precursors.
For years, the association has invited both major presidential candidates to speak at the convention. Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have all attended NABJ events as presidential candidates or while in office.