Harris’ campaign remains silent on when the vice president will officially hold a press conference

Harris’ campaign has remained tight-lipped about when Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a formal press conference, or why she hasn’t held one since becoming the Democratic 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 dropped out of the race and handed the nomination to Harris through an endorsement. Harris did not hold a formal press conference or participate in a media interview in the 25 days following her endorsement by Biden, 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 to ask if and when a formal press conference was planned, and why the vice president hasn’t held one in more than three weeks. The campaign did not respond to those requests.

Campaign spokespeople have been pressed on the topic in interviews on news shows, but they have also been reluctant to respond. Instead, Harris and members of her campaign have said she plans to hold an interview by the end of August. Details about when or which media outlet will host the interview have not yet been released.

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“I’ve talked to my team, I want us to schedule an interview before the end of the month,” Harris said last week after a campaign event in Michigan.

The vice president has crisscrossed the country for the past three weeks trying to win voters’ support. Biden dropped out of the race amid growing concerns about his mental acuity and his age of 81, leaving Harris with just under 100 days to campaign.

Harris has taken few questions from the media during her campaign, but she has snubbed the media by not holding press conferences or interviews. Time magazine published a glowing article about Harris earlier this month, but the vice president did not agree to be interviewed for that article. Instead, that article quoted advisers and allies who hailed Harris as a formidable candidate to face former President Donald Trump.

Pressure has been mounting on the campaign to hold a news conference, including with CNN’s Jim Acosta interviewing Harris’ communications director, Michael Tyler, on air this week.

“I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this question, but the Trump campaign is also going after the vice president for not giving enough interviews and not having a press conference. Would it kill you to have a press conference? Why didn’t they have a press conference?” Acosta asked.

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Tyler said she and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have been “busy” traveling across the country, citing multiple campaign rallies.

“Michael, you know a campaign rally is not really a press conference,” Acosta told Tyler. “Why didn’t she have a press conference? She’s vice president, she can take questions, why not?”

Tyler said Harris will hold a press conference at some point and sit down for an interview with a media outlet by the end of the month.

The left The Washington Post editorial board also took issue Harris dodged the media Sunday, saying of her opponent: “At least he answered the questions.”

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Trump and allies of the 45th president have used Harris’ lack of media availability as a point of attack.

“It’s pretty sad to think that somebody who does this for a living can’t answer a question or is afraid to do an interview, and in her case, a very friendly interview. She has all the friendly interviewers,” Trump said of Harris Monday night during her roughly two-hour sit-down with tech billionaire Elon Musk at X Space.

Some have said Harris is taking cues from Biden’s 2020 campaign strategy, when he ran a siloed campaign during the pandemic, earning him the nickname “Basement Joe” from Trump.

“Kamala Harris should absolutely hold a press conference. We would expect it when she announces her vice presidential pick. But we can’t expect her to break Biden’s pattern of avoiding press conferences,” said Tim Graham, NewsBusters’ editor-in-chief. Fox News Digital.

Former Clinton aide Paul Begala defends Harris avoiding media: ‘Who cares?’

“Since the 2020 campaign, we have witnessed the bizarre spectacle of Donald Trump granting broad access to television networks that label him a fascist and bludgeon him daily, while Biden and Harris refuse to grant interviews to media outlets that are full of praise for them and their ‘historic achievements,’” he continued. “Either they believe the press can never be slavish enough, or they project a complete lack of confidence in their efforts to write complete sentences.”

Some of the vice president’s supporters say her strategy of avoiding the media is paying off as she continues to build her campaign ahead of the DNC in Chicago next week.

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“Where does it say you have to sit down for a press interview?” James Carville, a longtime Democratic consultant, told the New York Times. “They had to pick a vice president, plan a convention, travel, do this, do that, and she’s already agreed to a debate.”

In the meantime, Trump has been more available to the media, holding press conferences at his homes in Florida and New Jersey in addition to campaigning, and participating in a two-hour conversational interview with Elon Musk this week. Musk has invited Harris to join him for a similar interview before the election, but the campaign has not said whether Harris will accept.

Brian Flood of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.

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