Harris and Walz to sit for first interview of campaign

Vice-President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz – the Democratic ticket for US president – have agreed to their first joint interview.

The two politicians will sit-down with CNN in Georgia for an interview that airs Thursday at 21:00 EDT (02:00 BST).

It will be the candidates’ first in-depth on-the-record conversation with a reporter since President Joe Biden exited the race and endorsed Ms Harris as his replacement more than five weeks ago.

Since the vice-president moved to the top of the ticket, Republicans have criticised her for appearing to avoid the press and accused her of leaving voters in the dark on her presidential plans.

The interview will be Ms Harris and Mr Walz’s first big test as running mates, and it provides an opportunity for them to quiet that criticism. It also fufills a vow the vice-president made to schedule a sit-down before the end of the month.

It follows the pair’s high-profile speeches at the star-studded Democratic National Convention in Chicago – a slickly produced and well-scripted party celebration – and Ms Harris will continue on to a bus tour of the battleground state of Georgia after the interview.

It will be one of the few opportunities for voters nationwide to hear more detail about the Harris-Walz campaign’s policy positions before election day, which is only 70 days away.

Republicans – as well as members of the media – have grown louder about the campaign’s few concrete policy positions or interviews during Ms Harris’s truncated and unprecedented run for president.

It has opened her campaign up to chiding remarks and insults from her opponents.

Trump said during a recent press conference at Mar-a-Lago that Ms Harris “can’t do an interview” because she was “barely competent”.

Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has scolded the media and Ms Harris for her press avoidance. He said earlier this month that it was “shameful” that Ms Harris had not “taken a single real question from a reporter”.

“She (Harris) is taking a basement strategy of running from reporters instead of getting in front of them and answering tough questions about her record and letting the American people know who she is.”

Mr Vance has frequently noted that both he and Trump have held multiple interviews and press conferences, often facing “hostile questions” from the press.

Vice-President Harris – who has enjoyed a campaign that has ridden high on “good vibes” thus far – has avoided some of the gaffes and blunders that the Republican ticket has suffered in front of the press, however.

That could be the point, as she had a few bad experiences with the press in her first two years as vice-president.

A poor interview in 2021 with NBC’s Lester Holt on immigration and the US southern border seemed to particularly have led to a limit of her press engagement thereafter.

It remains to be seen what effect this interview may have on Ms Harris’s campaign, as multiple national opinion polls show her leading Trump ahead of the November presidential election.

A Farleigh Dickinson University poll released last week suggest Ms Harris is beating Trump nationally by seven points, 50 percent to 43 percent.

It is a stark reversal of fortunes for Democrats, who were beginning to fall behind Republicans in multiple races when Mr Biden was the nominee.

Polls frequently indicated the president trailing his predecessor by several points as well.