Harris, Walz to Be Interviewed by CNN on Thursday

Vice President Kamala Harris is sitting down with CNN this week for her first interview since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid.

The Democrat presidential nominee will be joined by her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in an interview with CNN anchor Dana Bash in Savannah, Georgia. The interview will air Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.

Harris’ lack of access has become one of Republicans' key lines of attacks against her as she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden's July 21 announcement.

“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,” GOP Vice President nominee J.D. Vance said in Wisconsin earlier this month.

That number will approach 40 days when Thursday's interview finally happens. 

The CNN interview may be an opportunity for Harris to quell criticism that she is unprepared for uncontrolled environments, but it may also carry risks as her team tries to build on momentum from the ticket shakeup and Democratic National Convention.

During her three-plus years as vice president, she has done on-camera and print interviews with The Associated Press and many other outlets, often at a pace more frequent than Biden.

The Trump campaign has kept a tally of the days she has gone by as a candidate without giving an interview. On Tuesday, the campaign reacted to the news by noting the interview was joint, saying “she’s not competent enough to do it on her own.”

Earlier this month, Harris had told reporters that she wanted to do her first formal interview before the end of August.

Harris travels with members of the media on Air Force Two for all trips and nearly always comes to the back of the plane to speak to them for a few minutes before takeoff. Her office insists that those conversations are off the record, though, so what she says can’t be used publicly.

She will rally voters in Savannah on Thursday as part of a bus tour that kicks off on Wednesday.

This story has been updated.