Vice-Chairman Kamala Harris sits with CNN this week for her first interview since President Joe Biden abandoned his re-election bid.
The Democratic presidential candidate will be joined by her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in an interview with CNN anchor Dana Bash in Savannah, Georgia. The interview will air Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
Harris’ lack of access has become one of the Republicans’ main lines of attack against her as she rose to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden’s July 21 announcement. The CNN interview could be an opportunity for Harris to suppress criticism that she is unprepared for an uncontrolled environment, but that it also could pose risks as her team tries to build on the momentum of the ticket reshuffle and the Democratic National Convention.
During her three-plus years as vice president, she has done on-camera and print interviews with The Associated Press and many other media outlets, often at a rate more frequent than Biden’s.
Trump’s campaign has been keeping track of how many days she has gone as a candidate without giving an interview. On Tuesday, the campaign responded to the news by saying the interview was a joint one and saying “she’s not competent enough to do it alone.”
Earlier this month, Harris told reporters she wanted to conduct her first formal interview before the end of August.
Harris travels with members of the media on Air Force Two for all trips and almost always comes to the back of the plane to talk to them for a few minutes before departure. Her office insists that those conversations are off the record, so what she says cannot be made public.
On Thursday, she will mobilize voters in Savannah as part of a bus tour that begins Wednesday.