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      Why Isn’t Kamala Harris Giving Interviews or Holding News Conferences?

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      Critics say the vice president has been too cautious with the press. Her supporters think it’s the right strategy at the right time.The press has questions for Vice President Kamala Harris. She isn’t giving a whole lot of answers.In the nearly three weeks since President Biden withdrew his candidacy, catapulting Ms. Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, the vice president has shown little eagerness to meet journalists in unscripted settings. She has not granted an interview or held a news conference. On Thursday, after a rally in Michigan, she held her first “gaggle” — an impromptu Q.-and-A. session — with reporters covering her campaign.It lasted 70 seconds.Ms. Harris replaced a Democratic nominee who has hosted fewer White House news conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan. Now she is taking a similarly cautious approach, relying on televised rallies and prepared statements amid a tightly controlled rollout of her candidacy.Asked on Thursday if she might sit for an interview anytime soon, Ms. Harris suggested that she would get through the convention first. “I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month,” she said, as aides signaled to the scrum of journalists that question time was over.Ms. Harris’s lack of engagement with the media has become a constant rallying cry on the political right, with Republican critics and Fox News stars accusing the vice president of ducking scrutiny. The Harris campaign says it is being thoughtful about how best to deploy its message, and to introduce a new candidate to crucial voters in battleground states.David Axelrod, the architect of former President Barack Obama’s winning campaigns, believes that Ms. Harris — who on Thursday said she had agreed to a prime-time debate on Sept. 10 with her opponent, former President Donald J. Trump — was trying to strike a balance.“This has been a whirlwind few weeks, and right now, buoyant rally speeches are working really well, so she’s riding the wave,” Mr. Axelrod wrote in an email. “But I’m sure they know that, in addition, presidential races impose a series of tests, including debates and unscripted interactions with voters and media, by which people come to know you. There is time, and I’m sure she’ll get there.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Donald Trump Can’t Get Over What Happened to President Biden

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      To hear former President Donald J. Trump tell it, he has just been heartsick over all that has happened to poor old President Biden these past few weeks.“The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday afternoon. “I’m not a fan of his, as you probably have noticed. He had a rough debate. But that doesn’t mean that you just take it away like that.”It has been 18 days since the 46th president was shoved aside by his own party, and the 45th president has yet to get over it. He agonized on Mr. Biden’s behalf, telling a tale of treachery perpetrated against him by former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and, most of all, Vice President Kamala Harris.Recounting how Ms. Harris had attacked Mr. Biden in a Democratic primary debate in 2019 — “She was nasty with calling him a racist and the school bus and all of the different things” — Mr. Trump said Mr. Biden had made a grave mistake by choosing her as his running mate.“For some reason, and I know he regrets it — you do, too — he picked her,” Mr. Trump said. “And she turned on him, too. She was working with the people that wanted him out.” (Mr. Biden endorsed Ms. Harris for president 27 minutes after he dropped out of the race.)There was none of the usual, malicious glee in Mr. Trump’s voice as he rehashed all the drama. He told reporters that Mr. Biden was trying to “put up a good face” but that his exit from the race was “pretty severe” and “pretty horrible.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump y Harris acordaron debatir el 10 de septiembre, anunció ABC

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      David Muir y Linsey Davis son los presentadores de ABC que moderarán el primer cara a cara de los candidatos desde que Kamala Harris entró en la campaña.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Habrá debate.La vicepresidenta Kamala Harris y el expresidente Donald Trump se enfrentarán en un debate televisado en horario de máxima audiencia el 10 de septiembre, según anunció ABC News el jueves, preparando el último momento crucial de una contienda presidencial de por sí impredecible.Se espera que el debate de 90 minutos se celebre en Filadelfia, según dos personas con conocimiento de los planes. Los presentadores de ABC David Muir y Linsey Davis serán los moderadores. Es probable que el debate se realice sin público en directo, pero el formato exacto y las reglas básicas aún están por determinarse, dijeron las personas.En cierto sentido, el anuncio mantiene el statu quo: hace meses, Trump acordó debatir con el presidente Joe Biden en ABC en esa misma fecha. Pero el candidato republicano titubeó sobre ese compromiso después de que Biden se retiró de la campaña y argumentó que no había acordado esos términos con Harris.El debate previo, en junio de este año, fue quizá el más importante en los 64 años de historia de los enfrentamientos televisados entre aspirantes presidenciales. La titubeante y mermada actuación de Biden desató el pánico entre los demócratas y provocó que el presidente cediera su puesto como líder de la candidatura de su partido.Más de 51 millones de estadounidenses vieron el debate en directo, el tipo de convocatoria masiva que cada vez es menos frecuente en una era de fragmentación de los medios de comunicación como la actual. La próxima emisión de ABC podría atraer a una audiencia aún mayor porque será la primera vez que Harris y Trump se vean cara a cara en el escenario de un debate.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tim Walz and the Weird Politics of Free School Lunches

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      You could say that Tim Walz became the Democratic vice-presidential nominee with one weird trick — that is, by using that word to describe Donald Trump and JD Vance, a categorization that went viral. In his maiden campaign speech he upgraded it a bit further to “creepy and weird as hell.” (If you think that’s over the top, have you seen Trump’s bizarre rant speculating about whether Joe Biden is going to seize back his party’s presidential nomination?)But Walz is more than a meme-maker. He has also been an activist governor of Minnesota with a strong progressive agenda. And I’d like to focus on one key element of that agenda: requiring that public and charter schools provide free breakfasts and lunches to all students.Perhaps not incidentally, child care has long been a signature issue for Kamala Harris, and Walz’s policies may have played a role in his selection as her running mate.In any case, free school meals are a big deal in pure policy terms. They have also met fierce Republican opposition. And the partisan divide over feeding students tells you a lot about the difference between the parties, and why you really, really shouldn’t describe the MAGA movement as “populist.”Now, even many conservatives generally support, or at least claim to support, the idea of cheap or free lunches for poor schoolchildren. The National School Lunch Program goes all the way back to 1946, when it passed with bipartisan support and President Harry Truman signed it into law.Why should the government help feed kids? Part of the answer is social justice: Children don’t choose to be born into families that can’t or won’t feed them adequately, and it seems unfair that they should suffer. Part of the answer is pragmatic: Children who don’t receive adequate nutrition will grow up to be less healthy and less productive adults than those who do, hurting society as a whole. So spending on child nutrition is arguably as much an investment in the future as building roads and bridges.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kamala Harris Responds to Pro-Palestinian Protesters at Michigan Rally

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      When protesters first interrupted Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Detroit on Wednesday evening, she smiled, with a gentle corrective. “I am speaking now.”But as the disruption continued, her patience ran thin. “You know what?” Ms. Harris said, with the sudden force and resolve of a parent in the driver’s seat who has had it. “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”As the crowd roared, Ms. Harris stayed silent, jaw set, eyes fixed.The Detroit stare-down was the latest reminder of how Ms. Harris has been able, with an almost theatrical flair, to turn efforts to undermine and rattle her into her own political weapons.She also takes particular umbrage at being interrupted.Viewers might have recalled her 2020 debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence, when she objected to his repeated attempts to cut into her responses. Her left hand went up, palm facing Mr. Pence across the stage. “Mr. Vice President, I am speaking. I am speaking,” she said. When it happened again, she smiled at him: “Mr. Vice President, I am speaking.”Her reaction also suggested a new approach to dealing with the protests that in recent months had tripped up President Biden.In January, protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza interrupted President Biden’s speech at a church in Charleston, S.C. “That’s all right, that’s all right,” the president said, as they were escorted out. “Look, folks, I understand their passion.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      From Tips to TikTok, Trump Discards Policies With Aim to Please Voters

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      The former president’s economic agenda has made some notable reversals from the policies he pushed while in the White House.At his convention speech last month, former President Donald J. Trump declared that his new economic agenda would be built around a plan to eliminate taxes on tips, claiming that the idea would uplift the middle class and provide relief to hospitality workers around the country.“Everybody loves it,” Mr. Trump said to cheers. “Waitresses and caddies and drivers.”While the cost and feasibility of the idea has been questioned by economists and tax analysts, labor experts have noted another irony: As president, Mr. Trump tried to take tips away from workers and give the money to their employers.The reversal is one of many that Mr. Trump has made in his bid to return to the presidency and underscores his malleability in election-year policymaking. From TikTok to cryptocurrencies, the former president has been reinventing his platform on the fly as he aims to attract different swaths of voters. At times, Mr. Trump appears to be staking out new positions to differentiate himself from Ms. Harris or, perhaps, just to please crowds.To close observers of the machinations of Mr. Trump’s first term, the shift on tips, a policy that has become a regular part of his stump speech, has been particularly striking.“Trump is posing as a champion of tipped restaurant workers with his no-tax-on-tips proposal, but his actual record has been to slash protections for tipped workers at a time when they were struggling with a high cost of living,” said Paul Sonn, the director of National Employment Law Project Action, which promotes workers’ rights.In 2017, Mr. Trump’s Labor Department proposed changing federal regulations to allow employers to collect tips that their workers receive and use them for essentially any purpose as long as the workers were paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. In theory, the flexibility would make it possible for restaurant owners to ensure that cooks and dishwashers received part of a pool of tip money, but in practice employers could pocket the tips and spend them at their discretion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Los fans de Taylor Swift ansían su respaldo a una candidatura presidencial

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      La cantante dio su codiciado apoyo al presidente Joe Biden en 2020. Ahora, una silueta en una foto de Instagram ha llevado a algunos swifties a especular que defenderá a Kamala Harris.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]¿Están solo viendo cosas o la silueta de una bailarina de apoyo de Taylor Swift se parece a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris?El ejército de fans de Swift en internet por lo general trata de descifrar los mensajes ocultos de la estrella del pop como un trabajo a tiempo parcial, por lo que la especulación se extendió cuando algunos sugirieron que una foto que Swift había publicado en Instagram de su Eras Tour, que ha estado recorriendo Europa este verano, podría ser una pista de su apoyo a una determinada candidatura presidencial.Sin embargo, no ha habido ningún respaldo por parte de Swift, quien ha puesto cada vez más su enorme influencia al servicio de la política progresista. En octubre de 2020, su declaración de apoyo a Joe Biden no dejó nada a la interpretación.La foto en cuestión, que Swift incluyó en una publicación sobre sus recientes conciertos en Varsovia, coincide con una transición estándar de la gira en la que sus bailarines de apoyo —con trajes de pantalón no muy diferentes de los que Harris prefiere— desfilan fuera del escenario entre canciones.A pesar de los argumentos en contra, algunos swifties estaban convencidos de que la publicación era un mensaje en clave. Un segmento liberal del público está ansioso por que la cantante dé a conocer sus lealtades, y la urgencia subraya el poder de Swift como alguien que puede influir en la política electoral con una sola publicación en las redes sociales. (En 2023, una publicación suya en Instagram dio lugar a 35.000 nuevos registros de votantes).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Taylor Swift Fans Crave a Presidential Endorsement

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      Taylor Swift’s coveted support went to President Biden in 2020. A shadowy figure in an Instagram photo led some fans to make the leap that she will champion Kamala Harris.Are they just seeing things, or does that silhouette of a Taylor Swift backup dancer resemble Vice President Kamala Harris?The internet army of Swift fans often treats decoding the pop star’s Easter eggs as a part-time job, so speculation spread when some suggested that a photo Ms. Swift had posted to Instagram from her Eras Tour, which has been crisscrossing Europe this summer, could be a hint at support for a certain presidential ticket.And yet, there has been no endorsement from Ms. Swift, who has increasingly thrown her outsize influence behind progressive politics. In October 2020, her pronouncement of support for Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not leave anything up for interpretation.The photo in question, which Ms. Swift included in a post about her recent concerts in Warsaw, aligns with a standard transition from the tour in which her backup dancers — wearing pantsuits not unlike the kind that Ms. Harris happens to favor — strut offstage between songs.Despite the counterarguments, some Swifties were convinced that the post was a coded message. A liberal segment of the fandom is eager for the singer to make her allegiances known, and the leap underscores Ms. Swift’s power as someone who can influence electoral politics in a single social media post. (In 2023, one Instagram post of hers led to 35,000 new voter registrations.)A representative for Ms. Swift did not immediately respond to a question about the fandom’s reaction to the singer’s post.Ms. Swift’s Democratic leanings and her supercharged cultural prominence on N.F.L. broadcasts last season have irritated supporters of the Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, some of whom have pushed conspiracy theories that her presence was meant to boost President Biden’s now-scrambled re-election. Ms. Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, named Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota her running mate on Tuesday.The chatter about Ms. Swift’s recent Instagram post revived debate over the role of a pop star in politics.“If we’re going to pay that much money as consumers, you don’t need to serve up politics for that,” Harris Faulkner, the Fox News host, said on television after the speculation about the concert photo swept the internet. “When people pay to see you, just perform.”The Eras Tour has been on its major European leg this summer. On Wednesday, three concerts in Vienna were canceled after Austrian officials announced the arrests of two men whom they accused of plotting a terrorist attack, saying that one of them had focused on several stadium shows Ms. Swift had planned for this week.Ms. Swift had begun to openly flex her electoral influence toward November’s election — but not toward any specific candidate. In March, when Mr. Biden was still at the top of the ticket, Ms. Swift encouraged her millions of Instagram followers to make a plan to vote in the presidential primaries, in a nonpartisan message that urged fans to “vote the people who most represent YOU into power.” More