Why is Kamala Harris bringing Tim Walz to her first major interview?

Three weeks in the past, simply days after being formally chosen because the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris was pressed on her plans for a sit-down interview.

“I’ve talked to my staff,” she advised reporters on the airport tarmac in Detroit. “I need us to get an interview scheduled earlier than the top of the month.”

On Thursday night time, Ms Harris will – simply barely – make good on that promise, sitting down with CNN’s Dana Bash for her first main interview.

However Ms Harris is not going to be there by herself. The vice-president shall be joined by her working mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for the prime-time look, airing at 21:00 EDT (02:00 BST).

Ms Harris might have answered the query of when she would conduct an in-depth, substantive dialogue of her candidacy and agenda – commonplace process for all main get together presidential candidates.

However with Mr Walz in tow, the choice to make this a joint look can also gas rising criticism that after escaping the rigours of a months-long presidential major, she is now dodging the scrutiny that comes with a solo interview.

“I feel it’s extremely weak, weak sauce, to indicate up along with your working mate,” stated Scott Jennings, a former particular assistant to President George W Bush, on CNN, including that Harris had a “troubling insecurity” in her personal political capability.

Nonetheless, supporters of Ms Harris insist that given the unprecedented nature of her candidacy following President Joe Biden’s sudden departure from the race, she is taking issues at a sensible tempo.

“I feel the cadence has been proper,” stated Peter Giangreco, a Chicago-based Democratic strategist. “Win the nomination, decide your nominee, lay out your financial plan, do your conference and now do some sit-downs and amplify that.”

Joint interviews that includes each members of a presidential ticket usually are not uncommon.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden sat for an interview with 60 minutes after Mr Biden was chosen because the vice-presidential nominee in 2008. Eight years later, Hillary Clinton and her working mate Tim Kaine did the identical. For Ms Harris and Mr Biden in 2020, they picked ABC’s 20/20. And fewer than every week after Trump introduced JD Vance as his working mate, the pair had been collectively interviewed on Fox.

However since Mr Biden handed the torch to her late final month, Ms Harris has restricted most of her engagement with the press to scripted and highly-controlled environments. Her final formal sit-down interview was on 24 June, greater than two months and a political lifetime in the past.

Her occasional interactions with reporters – transient solutions to shouted questions on her strategy to and from marketing campaign occasions – have executed little to quell Republican claims that she is shirking any alternative to have her file and agenda put underneath the microscope.

The harshest criticism comes from her Republican opponents, who’ve each given a number of interviews previously month.

“She’s not sensible sufficient to do a information convention,” Mr Trump advised media earlier in August. “She gained’t do interviews with pleasant individuals as a result of she will’t do higher than Biden.”

The Democratic nominee has loved a surge in momentum since getting into the race. Now, after her whirlwind introduction to American voters, she must “reinforce” that vitality, stated Republican strategist and Trump critic Chip Felkel.

“She’s gotta get on the market,” he stated. “She’s received to indicate that she will assume underneath stress, as a result of that’s a part of what the president has to do.”

Since she campaigned within the Democratic presidential major in 2019, Ms Harris has switched her stance on a number of key coverage positions, backing off a few of her extra liberal guarantees.

She has deserted pledges to help Medicare for all (giving all Individuals entry to government-funded healthcare) and to ban fracking. And the vice-president now helps a bipartisan border invoice that features lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} on a border wall, one thing Ms Harris as soon as known as “un-American”.

These obvious modifications might open her as much as questions on being a coverage flip-flopper – an unwelcome label for a candidate nonetheless attempting to outline herself.

However by doing a joint interview, the Harris marketing campaign might have calculated that the stress – and the troublesome questions – will at the least be shared between the 2 of them. And it ensures each are in lockstep in relation to explaining coverage.

Mr Giangreco, the Democratic strategist, predicted Ms Harris and Mr Walz will attempt to flip the main focus onto their financial plan, an agenda to decrease the price of residing and supply financial safety that she first introduced at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, two weeks in the past.

Mr Giangreco additionally pointed to a different potential advantage of a joint interview: drawing a distinction between Mr Walz and his Republican counterpart JD Vance who he has labelled as “bizarre”.

Nonetheless, the true affect of Ms Harris and Mr Walz’s sit-down gained’t be identified till it’s executed.

Ms Harris’s file with high-pressure interviews is blended. A 2021 dialog with NBC’s Lester Holt, by which she fumbled via questions on her function within the administration’s border coverage, was extensively considered a failure.

However in a newer look, a one-on-one with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, by which she defended Mr Biden’s calamitous debate efficiency, Ms Harris regarded calm and assured amid a political firestorm.

If this high-stakes CNN joint interview falls into the latter class, then the Harris marketing campaign will hope a lot of the criticism will fall away, stated Mr Felkel, the Republican strategist.

“They simply want to have the ability to say ‘See, we advised you,’” he stated. “After which preserve transferring.”