CNN anchor Dana Bash corrected the network’s chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny on Monday after he asserted former President Donald Trump has only participated in “friendly interviews” since September 2023.
Vice President Kamala Harris is launching a series of media appearances consisting of friendly interviews after her party began to fret about her press avoidance. Zeleny, on “Inside Politics with Dana Bash,” suggested Republicans are hypocritical to criticize her for doing “softball interviews,” given what he said was Trump’s similar approach, but Bash noted the former president faced a challenging interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in July.
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“The criticism from the right about, ‘Oh, these are all softball things,’ my recollection is the last difficult interview that former President Trump has done was on ‘Meet the Press’ with Kristen Welker [in September 2023] … I mean, it has been a series of friendly interviews on Fox and other places,” Zeleny said. “He declined ’60 Minutes.’”
“Well, he did NABJ,” Bash responded.
When Trump appeared for a moderated Q&A session with NABJ, ABC News reporter Rachel Scott began the interview by recounting examples of alleged racism by the former president. Trump responded by calling Scott’s statements and question “a disgrace.”
“He did. and that was a round table conversation. But that would have been the last one,” Zeleny conceded. “The last program, I think, before that was ‘Meet The Press.’ So, look, I mean, the reality is they both go to venues where they can get their message out in a conversational way.”
In addition to Fox News interviews, Trump also appeared on CNBC in March. Since Harris entered the race on July 21, he had conducted seven interviews with local outlets compared to Harris’ single interview as of Sept. 19, Axios reported.
The former president had also held three press conferences in the same time frame while Harris held none, according to Axios.
Democrats, including some of Harris’ own staffers, raised concerns to Politico that the vice president’s avoidant media strategy and light campaign schedule could hurt the campaign in its final stretch. Following these worries, Harris has appeared on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast and is also expected to appear on “60 Minutes,” “The View,” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “The Howard Stern Show” this week.
Harris is currently leading Trump nationally by 2.1% while the former president is leading the vice president by 0.1% in the top seven battleground states, according to the RealClearPolling averages.
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