Harris and Walz to sit down with CNN for first formal interview of campaign

Thursday’s interview with presenter Dana Bash will be the first since Harris replaced US President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.

Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz will sit down with CNN on Thursday in their first formal interview of the United States election campaign.

Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for the White House after he dropped out of the race in July.

CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash will conduct the interview from the battleground state of Georgia, CNN said. It will air at 9pm (01:00 GMT on Friday).

“This is the first time she’s going to take questions in a concerted effort like this, in an interview format, since Joe Biden upended this entire race six weeks ago,” CNN Political Director David Chalian said in an interview on the channel.

While Harris has occasionally taken questions from journalists on foreign and economic policies on the campaign trail, she has yet to do a one-on-one media interview or hold a formal news conference, prompting attacks from rival Donald Trump and his Republican Party.

On Tuesday, Trump’s campaign reacted to the interview announcement by noting that Harris would be doing the interview with Walz.

“She’s not competent enough to do it on her own,” the campaign claimed.

Trump has held news conferences and done media interviews in recent weeks but they have mostly focused on criticising the Biden administration’s record instead of detailing his own policy proposals.

Harris laid out some broad policy agendas at the Democratic National Convention last week, promising a middle-class tax cut at home and a muscular foreign policy of standing up to Russia and North Korea while backing a ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution in the Middle East.

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

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 reporters for a few minutes before takeoff. Her office insists that those conversations are off the record, though, so what she says cannot be shared publicly.

The CNN interview will be recorded during a campaign bus tour by the Democratic candidates.