CNN panelists sparred on Tuesday over Vice President Kamala Harris avoiding press interviews over a month into her presidential campaign.
Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross defended Harris’ lack of interviews by arguing she has been communicating with the voters on the campaign trail. Republican strategist Brad Todd, a founding partner of the OnMessage media firm, said Harris is intentionally avoiding the press to avoid answering about her changes in policy stances since her time as a U.S. senator and 2020 presidential candidate.
“It’s not a question of ability, it is one of campaign measuring the value of how much she needs to be out visiting the people,” Cross said.
“She doesn’t want to answer for the fact that she was against fracking, she’s against private insurance, she was against gasoline cars. She doesn’t want to talk about it,” Todd argued.
CNN panelists duked it out over Kamala Harris ducking interviews one month into her candidacy pic.twitter.com/67zxz9Epmf
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 27, 2024
Harris has appeared to have changed her positions on many key policy issues since her 2020 presidential campaign. The vice president’s campaign has walked back her position supporting a ban on fracking and has rebranded her as a tough-on-the-border and tough-on-crime candidate despite her previous positions on policing and illegal immigration.
CNN political analyst Mark Preston argued there has not been a negative consequence for Harris avoiding interviews with the press thus far in her campaign. Todd predicted Harris will participate in a softball interview with a friendly outlet to avoid answering tough questions. (RELATED: ‘We Can Never Recover’: CNN’s Scott Jennings Clashes With Panel On Whether Republicans Should Endorse Kamala Harris)
“She’ll show up in an interview with NPR or somewhere like that and she’s not gonna take tough questions,” Todd continued.
“She is going to show up on a network and she is going to have a sit-down conversation,” Cross argued in Harris’ defense. “Her campaign has already said that’s going to happen. If you’re waiting, if anybody else is waiting, she’s actually on the ground, she’s doing bus tours across the state of Georgia, she is talking to the voters. The voters are the ones who are gonna make this decision.”
Michael Tyler, the communications director for the Harris-Walz campaign, told CNN that Harris will schedule a sit-down interview by the end of the month during an Aug. 14 interview. No scheduled interview has been publicly announced as of Tuesday.
Republican nominee Donald Trump held a press conference on Aug. 8 and another on Aug. 15, where he took questions from a variety of media outlets. He further appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in July which immediately turned hostile.
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