Trump Schedules Another Presser As Kamala Continues To Shy Away From Reporters

Former President Donald Trump is forging ahead with another press conference as his 2024 rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, continues to duck substantive engagements with reporters.

According to his campaign, Trump will hold a press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, at 4:30 p.m. ET on Thursday. Trump’s last press conference was last week, when he spent more than an hour talking with journalists at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and he spoke with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on X Spaces for roughly two hours on Monday.

Trump’s willingness to take on questions, whether they be from reporters or tech billionaires, makes for a stark contrast with Harris, who has for the most part avoided taking questions during the more than three weeks of her presidential campaign that began after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race following a fumbling debate performance.

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“DAY 24: Kamala hasn’t done a single interview nor press conference since she forced Biden off the ticket,” said a post to X from Trump’s campaign on Wednesday. “Just the same teleprompter speech — over and over again,” it added, referring to how Harris has largely stuck to campaign rally appearances.

DAY 24: Kamala hasn't done a single interview nor press conference since she forced Biden off the ticket.

Just the same teleprompter speech — over and over again. pic.twitter.com/FfYMjFZ2tX

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 14, 2024

Harris did speak with reporters last week on August 8, the day of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago press conference, but stood for less than two minutes of questions. There, Harris said she was “looking forward” to her first debate against Trump and indicated that she wanted to sit down for an interview — sometime in the next few weeks. “I’ve talked to my team. I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month,” she said.

Minimizing press exposure appears to be working for Harris as polls generally show her performing better against Trump than Biden was doing before he stepped aside. However, as pollster Brent Buchanan recently explained to The Daily Wire, the overall picture is likely to look different by mid-September — after the so-called “honeymoon” period — as voters get to see more of Harris talking without the help of a teleprompter during the upcoming ABC News debate.

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CNN’s Jim Acosta pressed Michael Tyler, the communications director for the Harris-Walz campaign, on Wednesday to explain why Harris has not held a press conference as a presidential candidate. “Would it kill you guys to have a press conference?” he asked at one point. In response, Tyler noted that Harris did say she wanted a sit-down interview before the end of the month, but the spokesman would not commit his boss to any press conferences.

CNN's Jim Acosta repeatedly pressed a Harris campaign spox on why VP Kamala Harris won't commit to holding a press conference pic.twitter.com/yMgeZCJ0tq

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 14, 2024

Further underscoring the divide, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), appeared on multiple talk shows on Sunday while the Democrats’ VP pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has also made himself scarce on the media circuit.

“I enjoyed sitting down with three of the major networks today to answer the tough questions any leader should answer. Kamala Harris has done as many tough interviews as Tim Walz has battlefield deployments,” Vance quipped on X, alluding to a controversy over Walz’s military record.