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The joint interview, airing at 9 p.m. Eastern, is the first time the vice president will face sustained questions from a journalist since President Biden withdrew from the race.
- Published Aug. 27, 2024Updated Aug. 29, 2024
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Vice President Kamala Harris has agreed to her first major interview since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president five weeks ago.
Ms. Harris will appear on CNN alongside her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, for a joint interview on Thursday in Georgia. Dana Bash, the CNN anchor who co-moderated the debate in June between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, will conduct the interview.
CNN plans to tape the joint appearance on Thursday afternoon and air it that evening at 9 Eastern time.
The question of where and when Ms. Harris would sit for an extensive discussion with the mainstream media has started to loom over her candidacy. She has shown little enthusiasm for speaking with reporters in unscripted settings, outside of a handful of impromptu sessions on the campaign trail that left little opportunity for sustained questioning about her policy plans.
Her allies say that, given the accelerated nature of her candidacy, Ms. Harris is being shrewd about her media rollout. She took advantage of last week’s prime-time Democratic National Convention to keep tight control over how she introduces herself to American voters.
Ms. Harris’s critics, especially Mr. Trump, say she has been hiding from scrutiny. Mr. Trump, who has done a flurry of interviews with a variety of traditional and nontraditional media outlets, has repeatedly accused the vice president of not wanting to open herself up to questions.
Within the TV news world, Thursday’s interview is a coveted prize for Ms. Bash and CNN, which has already played a consequential role in this year’s campaign. The network’s debate in June, with Ms. Bash and Jake Tapper as moderators, set off a panic among Democrats that led to Mr. Biden’s withdrawal from the race.
In choosing which news anchor to meet with first, Ms. Harris and her aides had to juggle several factors.
Appearing on MSNBC, a network with a fervent liberal fan base, could have been viewed by some voters as a cop-out. Democratic leaders are wary of Fox News. ABC News is already hosting next month’s debate between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, and CBS News is hosting the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 1 between Mr. Walz and Mr. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio.
Ms. Bash, 53, the anchor of “Inside Politics” on CNN, started at the network as a producer shortly after graduating from college; she has been a stalwart of the channel’s campaign coverage since 2000. Ms. Bash and Mr. Tapper received praise for their efforts at the June debate, where they played a muted role as the candidates clashed onstage.
Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016. More about Michael M. Grynbaum
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