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WASHINGTON — US Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday will face her first major test after securing the Democratic party’s nomination for president - an interview.
Harris will sit down with her running mate Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota, for an interview with CNN anchor Dana Bash.
This will be Harris’s first major media interview as she has faced growing calls from both Republicans - including her rival for the White House Donald Trump and his running mate Senator J.D. Vance - and Democrats to answer questions in an unscripted interaction with reporters.
Apart from a few questions from reporters of the pool travelling with her, she has not addressed a news conference either. The interview will be her first big step. The next will be the September 10 debate with Trump.
Trump and Vance have repeatedly challenged her in interviews and news conferences in the hope of getting a stumble out of her or a misstep that will stop or pause her momentum, which has turned the race from the time President Joe Biden dropped out and Harris was elevated to the top of the Democratic ticket. Harris has done very few media interviews as Vice-President and a disastrous interview in 2021 continues to be used to define her.
The NBC interviewer had asked if she had plans to visit the border after being tasked by Biden to tackle the problem of immigration at its roots.
"At some point... We are going to the border. We've been to the border ... This whole thing about the border, we've been to the border. We've been to the border," she said. The interviewer then pushed back: "You haven't been to the border" and she responded: "And I haven't been to Europe either."
"And I mean, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. I’m not discounting the importance of the border," she added.
Even after agreeing to the CNN interview, Harris is facing criticism for not doing it solo. “Last night, CNN announced that Kamala has mustered up the courage to sit for a 'joint' interview - after 39 days of hiding out from reporters," the Trump War Room account had written on X after the announcement of the interview.