Kamala Harris on Thursday will give her first major interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee in what is being seen as a key test of her credibility after a prolonged honeymoon that has seen her surge ahead of Donald Trump in opinion polls.
She and her running mate, Tim Walz, will face CNN’s Dana Bash in a pre-recorded event that was scheduled following some criticism of Harris’s reluctance to expose herself to media scrutiny following her ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket last month in place of Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race on 21 July.
The US vice-president, who has had a variable performance in past televised one-on-ones, had previously pledged to hold a major interview before the end of August.
The CNN date sees her make good on that pledge with two days to spare.
The terms of her engagement has drawn mockery from Republicans, who have accused Harris of being unwilling to risk a high-profile grilling without the protective presence of Walz, the Minnesota governor who has cultivated a plain-speaking, everyman image.
“Kamala needs to do a live, unedited, solo press conference,” Abigail Jackson, communications director for Josh Hawley, the rightwing Missouri senator, posted on X. “She wants to be commander-in-chief and she’s too scared to do an interview without Tim Walz by her side? Girl power, amirite.”
Others have pointed out that it’s customary for presidential candidates to do interviews with their running mate.
The interview, to take place in the historic southern city of Savannah during a two-day campaign swing through Georgia – a vital swing state – is expected to focus in part on Harris’s policy positions, which have been criticised in some quarters as both vague and for representing a departure from the more liberal stances she assumed in her unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020.
The choice of CNN as the outlet and Bash as interviewer has also been criticised by Trump supporters, who claim both are sympathetic to Democrats and unlikely to pose hard questions. The network hosted the 27 June presidential debate – with Bash acting as a co-moderator with her colleague Jake Tapper – that prompted Biden’s eventual exit from the race following a dire performance.
Harris’s ability to cope with rigorous interviews was questioned following a bruising encounter with ABC’s Lester Holt in 2021, when she displayed annoyance over being asked why she had not visited the southern US border in her vice-presidential brief to discover the underlying causes of illegal migration.
Her delay in facing interviews has contrasted with Trump, who has staged a rash of recent media appearances, even calling up Fox News and Newsmax, two of his favourite outlets, to voice live, on-air criticisms of Harris’s acceptance speech at the Democratic national convention last week.