In the five weeks since she won the Democratic nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris has refused to give voters specifics about her policy positions, has not held a press conference, and has not given a single high-profile interview.
Harris formally accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Thursday and has been busy campaigning, but has faced no substantive questions since she was nominated to replace President Biden last month.
Now that the party’s convention is over, speculation about when Harris might end her media blackout is likely to intensify as Americans wait to see where she stands on a range of hot-button issues. Policy shifts on fracking, border security and private health insurance are among the issues she has been urged to address in recent weeks.
Harris claimed in one of her rare, brief press conferences on August 9 that she would like to “schedule an interview before the end of the month.” But now, with less than a week to go before the calendar turns to September, Harris has not announced any kind of interview.
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Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t held a press conference in more than four weeks since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. (Reuters/Kevin Warm)
When asked if she was ready to do an interview with Fox News’ Peter Doocy based on a script from her DNC speech Thursday night, Harris laughed and said, “I’m trying to be.”
One of the other questions she was asked Thursday night, after her acceptance speech, was, “How are you feeling tonight?” Harris smiled and said, “I feel good. Let’s move on to tomorrow.”
Another NBC reporter asked her how it felt to be on stage.
“It felt good,” Harris said. “You know, we’ve got 75 days left… It felt good. Now we have to keep going.”
Fox News host Joe Concha predicted Friday that “she won’t hold a press conference in the next 75 days until Election Day.”
Meanwhile, her opponent, former President Trump, called into Fox News for an interview shortly after Harris’s DNC speech, recently spoke with podcaster Theo Vaughn, had a two-hour conversation with supporter Elon Musk about X, and held two press conferences answering questions on a variety of topics.
Harris has a history of struggling when asked difficult questions, often appearing to laugh uncomfortably or giving confused and disjointed answers.
In 2021, Harris struggled to explain her border security strategy, once joking that she had never even been to Europe when NBC News anchor Lester Holt asked why she had not visited the southern border.
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Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican vice presidential nominee Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio). (Getty Images)
In 2023, The New York Times reported that after her “disastrous” interview with Holt, she “hid in a bunker for nearly a year, fearful of making a mistake and disappointing Mr. Biden.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote on Friday that her DNC speech lacked substance.
“Harris introduced herself to the American people on Thursday, and her presentation was much like the Democratic National Convention this week: well-delivered, confident, upbeat, and largely policy-free. Whether she can keep that up for the next 12 weeks without explanation or revelations will determine whether she becomes the 47th president of the United States,” the WSJ editorial board wrote.
The WSJ noted that her scripted speech contained a number of “lies,” including misleading attacks on Trump’s abortion rights, health care and Social Security.
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Critics have noted that Vice President Kamala Harris has not held a formal press conference since President Biden wrapped up his reelection campaign. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“Harris has tried to lay out a vision for her presidency, but it’s mostly empty platitudes: She’ll offer ‘opportunity,’ but she won’t say how. She’ll solve the housing crisis, but she won’t explain how or why there’s a crisis on her watch. And she’ll cut prices, but she won’t repeat her recent proposal to impose price controls,” the WSJ editorial board wrote.
Harris is likely to be asked in a serious interview how involved she is with Biden’s work.
Other topics she will likely have to discuss include several key foreign policy issues, including Israel and Ukraine.
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Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP vice presidential nominee, urged reporters to “show some awareness” and pressured Harris to “do the job of a presidential candidate” to talk to them. He has done so twice in recent weeks, speaking to CNN, Fox News, CBS, ABC and other outlets.
“They won’t let Kamala have a five-minute interview with Elmo,” pundit David Marcus recently quipped on X.
But some journalists seem to suspect that she is simply using a clever tactic.
CNN’s Erin Burnett noted that Harris did not give interviews during her DNC coverage, and said she debated aloud “whether to ignore all requests to talk and just keep doing what she’s doing.”
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it plans to speak to reporters in August.
The campaign told Fox News Digital earlier this month that it is implementing a strategy to best reach voters.
“With less than 90 days to go, the Vice President’s top priority is to build the support of the voters who will make or break this election,” the spokesperson said. “With a limited timeline and a fragmented media environment, we must act strategically, creatively and quickly to get our message out to voters in the most impactful way possible: through paid media, field operations, an aggressive campaign schedule and, of course, interviews with targeted voters. It’s a far cry from Trump’s losing and ineffective strategy of angry posts, reaching out to reporters and insulting the voters he needs to win.”
“If Donald Trump is that worried about Vice President Harris’s campaign success, you know, he can run the campaign. We’re very glad to see him focusing on the agenda he lost the election on: ending the ACA, repealing the bipartisan border bill, supporting a nationwide abortion ban.”
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Paul Steinhauser of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
