In the 33 days since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris has refused to provide any details of her policy positions to voters, hold a press conference or give a single major interview.
Harris spoke at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, formally accepting the nomination, and has been busy campaigning, but has not answered any substantive questions since launching her candidacy on Biden’s behalf last month.
With the party’s national convention now over, speculation is likely to grow about when Harris will end her media control as Americans wait to know where she stands on a range of key issues. Policy shifts on fracking, border security and private health insurance are some of the issues she has been called to account for in recent weeks.
During a rare, brief press conference on August 9, Harris claimed she hoped to have an interview scheduled by the end of the month, but now, with just over a week until September, she has not announced any interviews.
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Vice President Kamala Harris has not held a press conference in more than four weeks since she was confirmed as the Democratic presidential nominee. (Reuters/Kevin Wurm)
When asked by Peter Doocy on Thursday night if she was ready to do an interview with Fox News after preparing her draft speech for the Democratic National Convention, Harris laughed and said, “I’m working on that.”
Among the other questions she received after her acceptance speech at the convention Thursday night was, “How are you feeling tonight?” “I’m feeling good. Now, tomorrow,” Harris replied with a laugh.
Another NBC reporter asked her how it felt to be onstage.
“It felt good,” Harris said. “I’ve got 75 days left … so that’s good. Now I’ve got to move on.”
“There won’t be a single press conference from her in the 75 days leading up to Election Day,” Fox News contributor Joe Concha predicted Friday.
Her opponent, former President Trump, called in for an interview with Fox News shortly after Harris’ speech at the Democratic National Convention, sat down with podcaster Theo Fung last week, chatted for two hours with supporter Elon Musk on X and answered questions on a range of topics at two press conferences.
Harris has been known to struggle when faced with difficult questions, often laughing awkwardly or giving incoherent, confusing answers.
In 2021, Harris struggled to explain her border security strategy, and when asked by NBC News host Lester Holt why she hadn’t visited the southern border, she infamously joked that she’d never even been to Europe.
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Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance (Getty Images)
In 2023, The New York Times reported that after her “disastrous” meeting with Holt, she “mostly holed herself up in her bunker for about a year, avoiding many interviews because aides feared she would make a mistake and disappoint Biden.”
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote Friday that her Democratic National Convention speech lacked substance.
“Harris introduced herself to the American people on Thursday in a presentation that closely resembled hers at the Democratic convention this week: well-delivered, confident and optimistic, but largely devoid of policy content. Whether she can maintain this state of affairs for the next 12 weeks without explanation or exposure will determine whether she becomes the 47th president of the United States,” the Journal reported. The editorial board wrote.
The Journal noted that her draft speech was littered with a variety of “falsehoods,” including misleading attacks on Trump about abortion rights, Medicare 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 ended his reelection campaign. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“Harris has tried to lay out her vision for her presidency, but it’s mostly empty platitudes. She says she’ll provide ‘opportunity’ but doesn’t say how. She says she’ll solve the housing crisis but doesn’t explain how or why it’s happening during her term. And she says she’ll lower prices without repeating her recent proposal to impose price controls,” the Journal editorial board wrote.
She will likely be asked in a serious interview to what extent she wants to be associated with Biden’s record.
Other topics she may have to discuss include several key foreign policy issues, such as Israel and Ukraine.
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Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance has urged reporters to “show some self-awareness” and urged Harris to “do her job as a presidential candidate” by speaking to reporters, speaking to CNN twice in recent weeks and to Fox News, CBS, ABC and other media outlets.
“They won’t let Kamala do a five-minute interview with Elmo,” critic David Marcus recently quipped about X.
But some in the media wonder if she’s simply using good strategy.
CNN’s Erin Burnett noted that Harris had not been interviewed while covering the Democratic National Convention, wondering aloud whether she should “ignore all the calls to talk and just carry on doing what she’s doing.”
Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to questions about whether she is still scheduled to meet with reporters in August.
The campaign told Fox News Digital earlier this month that it is implementing strategies to most effectively reach voters.
“With less than 90 days left, the VP’s top priority is winning the support of voters who will decide the outcome of this election,” the spokesperson said. “With limited time and a fragmented media environment, we need to be strategic, creative and agile to reach voters in the most effective ways possible – through paid media, on-the-ground organizing, an aggressive campaign schedule and, of course, interviews that reach our target voters. This is a far cry from Trump’s ineffective strategy of fighting a losing battle – angry posts, attacks on reporters and insulting voters as necessary to win.”
“If Donald Trump is so concerned about VP Harris’s campaign success, he should be out there campaigning. We’re thrilled that he’s focusing on the policies that are likely to lose him the election: repealing the ACA, killing bipartisan border legislation, and supporting a nationwide abortion ban.”
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Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
