The Democrat’s candidate for US president, Vice-President Kamala Harris, will finally sit down for an interview with a major news organization, and she’s bringing along her choice for vice-president, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Harris has been derided for not having done a sit-down interview since taking over the Democrat’s choice for president on July 21, the day President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Harris and Walz will appear on CNN at 7 pm MT Thursday, being interviewed by the network’s chief political correspondent and anchor Dana Bash, who was one of the moderators of the Trump/Biden debate on June 27. Harris has been revelling in a honeymoon atmosphere since stepping into Biden shoes, culminating in her ‘coronation’ as the presidential candidate at the Democrat National Convention last week.But she has faced a lot of criticism from the media and Republican rivals for not doing an interview. The Thursday sit down fulfills a promise she made to be interviewed before the end of August. “With the interview, Harris’ extraordinarily truncated campaign is entering a new, post-convention phase,” reports CNN. “Her team is anticipating more scrutiny as she and Walz enter the final weeks before early voting begins. Harris has also been preparing for a September 10 debate with her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump.” Harris and Walz have appeared in staged, scripted videos from content creators and social media influencers, “an example of her campaign’s belief that voters, especially young voters, are getting their news from less traditional sources,” reports CNN, adding it has does little to dampen the criticism for not facing the scrutiny that comes with a a face-to-face interview with a journalist. “I think it’s really disgraceful, both for Kamala Harris but also for a lot of the American media that participates in this stuff, to have a person who has been the presumptive nominee of the Democrat Party for 17 days and refuses to take a single question from the American media,” said the Republicans’ vice-presidential candidate JD Vance in Wisconsin earlier this month. But as the New York Post reports the decision to include Walz “was quickly ripped by those who accused the Democratic presidential nominee of using Walz as a crutch as she braces to defend her record and policies after weeks of avoiding such an exchange.” “I think it’s incredibly weak, weak sauce, to show up with your running mate,” Scott Jennings, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, told CNN late Tuesday, reports the Post, adding that the move showed a “troubling lack of confidence in her political ability.” “It makes you wonder as a voter, ‘what kind of president would you be?'” he continued. “I think Republicans are going to think it’s pretty weak to show up effectively with someone who’ll take up half the time.”
