A Harris campaign adviser acknowledged Sunday that Vice President Kamala Harris “owes the American people an answer” for why she changed her position on policies like fracking, adding that she would be available for an interview “by the end of the month.”
News of Harris’ first public interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee broke on Sunday, when her deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks appeared on Fox News’ “Media Buzz” with Howie Kurtz. During the discussion, Kurtz pressed Fulks about whether Harris felt the need to explain to voters why she was walking back some of the far-left, progressive positions she’d taken during her 2020 presidential run on issues like fracking and health care.
“I think the vice president is answerable to the American people,” Fulks said, accusing former President Trump of stoking misinformation about Harris’ positions on issues like fracking and health care. “We’re not worried about explaining anything to Donald Trump or the American people. The vice president is going to tell the American people where he stands.”
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Harris’ deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks speaks with NBC’s Kristen Welker. (Screenshot/NBC)
Harris has been criticized for not giving interviews or holding a press conference since she was named the Democratic nominee more than a month ago. Her and Walz’s campaigns have also not included any information about their policy views on their campaign websites, and the recently released policy platform from the Democratic National Convention made more references to President Biden and his policies than to Harris.
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ campaign for more details about the vice president’s upcoming interview but did not receive a response.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas told ABC News on Sunday that Harris has an “obligation” to explain to the American people when and why she has changed policy positions on various issues.
“She needs to speak to the American people and talk about these questions, because the only basis for the American people to judge what kind of person she will be as president is what she has done over the last four years in this administration and what she said in her own voice on the last campaign trail,” Cotton said.
Sen. Tom Cotton has slammed Kamala Harris for not being clear about changing policy positions from 2020. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, some of Harris’ supporters believe she should continue to avoid the media.
For example, Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said last week that Harris “has absolutely no need to be interviewed at this point.”
“They need to go out and continue to do big things and do what’s working now, which is go out and hold big, passionate rallies and bring people back to the Democratic Party and inspire voters,” Wilson continued.
Legendary Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino agreed, telling talk show host Bill Maher, “Sometimes it’s about winning.”
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HBO talk show host Bill Maher and Vice President Kamala Harris (Screenshot/HBO, David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“She’s not going to stop and stumble,” Tarantino told Marr, “and there’s nothing wrong with that. No matter what she says in her stupid interview, I’m still going to vote for her anyway, so don’t give a crap!”
‘Anything goes’: Democrats react to Kamala Harris’ lack of interviews
Delegates to the Democratic National Convention last week expressed similar, though less aggressive, views about Harris’s lack of media presence.
“Let’s give it some time,” Indiana Representative Heather Pilowski said last week. “It’s all going to come, so I think we just have to be patient.”
“Our biggest concern right now is uniting the party,” another person said, “and once that happens, I think she’ll get out in public and speak to the American people.”
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At least one delegate didn’t understand why Harris was being criticized for not being available to the media. “I don’t get it,” the Texas delegate said at the convention last week. “I mean, when they have to resort to those tactics and the name-calling and the vitriol and the misogyny, he’s back in 2016, when that’s all he did to Hillary.”
