NEW YORK TIMES
Vice President Kamala Harris has agreed to an interview with Fox News, the network said on Monday.
The interview, with Fox News’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, will take place near Philadelphia on Wednesday, shortly before it airs at 6 p.m. Eastern on Mr. Baier’s program, “Special Report.” Ms. Harris is expected to sit for 25 to 30 minutes of questions, the network said.
This is Ms. Harris’s first formal interview with Fox News, whose day-to-day programming is heavy on conservative punditry that often explicitly supports her Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump.
It could also represent an opportunity for the Democratic nominee three weeks ahead of Election Day.
Ms. Harris will have a chance to deliver her message to a viewership that may be skeptical of her candidacy. Her willingness to appear on Fox News may aid the perception that she is open to facing tough questions. And she can reach a swath of independent voters, more of whom watch Fox News than CNN or MSNBC, according to research by Nielsen.
Senior Democratic officials have long shown hostility toward Fox News, going so far as to formally bar the network from hosting a primary debate in 2020. Hillary Clinton, in 2016, was the last Democratic presidential nominee to sit for a Fox News interview. President Biden has not appeared on the network since taking office, though he has jousted at news conferences with its senior White House correspondent, Peter Doocy.
But a thaw has occurred.
Ms. Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, was interviewed on “Fox News Sunday” the past two weekends. (Mr. Walz’s aides reached out to Fox to schedule his second appearance.) In recent months, the network has also welcomed a string of Harris supporters, including Gov. Gavin Newson of California, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is now such a regular that he cheekily told Democratic convention-goers, “You might recognize me from Fox News.”
Mr. Baier’s interview with Ms. Harris is scheduled to air on the same day that Fox is set to broadcast an unusual town hall in which Mr. Trump plans to field questions on subjects like abortion, child care and day care from an all-female audience.
Ms. Harris has appeared across a range of traditional and niche media outlets in recent weeks. On Tuesday, she is set to record a live interview in Detroit with Charlamagne Tha God, host of the syndicated morning radio show “The Breakfast Club,” which is particularly popular with Black millennials. Last week, she sat for interviews with “The View,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Howard Stern Show.”
Ms. Harris sat for a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on CBS last week. Mr. Trump refused to appear on the program and accused CBS of bias; the network said he had committed to an interview and then reneged.
Mr. Trump is a frequent presence on partisan Fox News shows like “Hannity”; he has also kept up a heavy schedule of interviews on podcasts and other alternate media, including a video game celebrity’s streaming page. On Tuesday, he will be interviewed by the editor in chief of Bloomberg News, John Micklethwait, at the Economic Club of Chicago.
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