35 days: VP Harris refuses to reveal policy positions, give news conferences or interviews
Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t held a formal press conference since she ascended as the presumptive Democratic nominee in place of President Biden.
Vice President Kamala Harris has gone five weeks refusing to give specifics to voters about her policy positions, holding no news conferences and sitting for zero major interviews since becoming the Democrats' presidential nominee.
Harris spoke on Thursday at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), officially accepting the nomination, and has been busy on the campaign trail, but she has failed to face substantive questions since replacing President Biden on the ticket last month.
Now that the party's national convention has wrapped up, speculation about when Harris will end her media blackout is likely to pick up steam as Americans want to know where she stands on a variety of hot-button issues. Policy shifts on fracking, border security and private health insurance are among issues that she has been urged to explain in recent weeks.
During one of her rare and brief press gaggles, Harris insisted on Aug. 9 that she wanted "to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month." But now, there's just over a week until the calendar flips to September and Harris has not announced any sort of interview.
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Harris laughed and said, "I’m working towards it," on Thursday night when Fox News' Peter Doocy asked if she was ready for a Fox News interview following her scripted DNC speech.
Among other questions she got Thursday night was "how do you feel tonight?" after her convention acceptance speech. "I feel good, now onto tomorrow, "Harris said, laughing.
Another NBC reporter asked how it felt for her to be on the stage.
"It felt good," Harris said. "You know, we've got 75 days to go … That was good, now we've got to move on."
"You will not see one press conference from her in the next 75 days until Election Day," Fox News contributor Joe Concha predicted Friday.
Meanwhile, her opponent, former President Trump, called into Fox News moments after Harris’ DNC speech for an interview; recently sat down with podcaster Theo Von; conducted a two-hour chat on X with supporter Elon Musk; and held a pair of press conferences where he answered questions about a wide variety of topics.
Harris has famously struggled when faced with tough questions in the past, often appearing to laugh uncomfortably or offering jumbled and confusing answers.
In 2021, Harris struggled to explain a strategy for securing the border and infamously joked she hadn’t been to Europe, either, when NBC News anchor Lester Holt asked why she hadn’t visited the southern border.
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In 2023, The New York Times reported that she "all but went into a bunker for about a year, avoiding many interviews out of what aides said was a fear of making mistakes and disappointing Mr. Biden" after the "disastrous" sit-down with Holt.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Friday wrote that her DNC speech lacked substance.
"Harris introduced herself to the American public on Thursday, and her presentation was much like this week’s Democratic convention: well delivered, confident and optimistic, and mostly devoid of policy substance. Whether she can keep this up, unexplained and unexposed, for the next 12 weeks will determine whether she becomes America’s 47th President," the WSJ editorial board wrote.
The WSJ noted a variety of "falsehoods," peppered throughout her scripted speech, including misleading attacks on Trump regarding abortion rights, Medicare and Social Security.
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"Harris attempted to lay out a vision for her Presidency, but it was mostly empty platitudes. She will provide ‘opportunity,’ though she didn’t say how. She will solve the housing crisis, without saying how or explaining why there is a crisis on her watch. And she will reduce prices, without a repeat of her recent proposal to impose price controls," the WSJ editorial board wrote.
Harris would likely be asked how much she wants to be linked to the Biden record in a serious interview.
Other topics she would likely have to discuss include several key foreign policy issues, such as Israel and Ukraine.
GOP vice-presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who has 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, has spoken with CNN twice, Fox News, CBS, ABC and other outlets in recent weeks.
"They won’t let Kamala do a five-minute interview with Elmo," pundit David Marcus recently snarked on X.
But some media members seem to wonder if she's just employing good strategy.
CNN’s Erin Burnett pointed out during DNC coverage that Harris hadn’t done an interview, pondering aloud if she should "just ignore all those calls to talk and just keep doing what she’s doing."
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond when asked if she still planned to sit down with a reporter in August.
The campaign told Fox News Digital earlier this month that it was conducting a strategy to best reach voters.
"With under 90 days to go, the Vice President’s top priority is earning the support of the voters who will decide this election," a spokesperson said. "In a limited time period and a fragmented media environment, that requires us being strategic, creative, and expeditious in getting our message to those voters in the ways that are most impactful — through paid media, on the ground organizing, an aggressive campaign schedule, and of course interviews that reach our target voters. It’s a far cry from Trump’s losing, ineffective strategy of rage-posting, accosting reporters, and insulting the voters he’ll need to win.
"If Donald Trump is so concerned about the success of VP Harris’ campaign blitz, he could, you know, get out there on the campaign trail. We are more than happy for him to shed a spotlight on his election-losing agenda: terminating the ACA, killing a bipartisan border bill, and supporting a national abortion ban."
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
