PHILADELPHIA — Vice President Kamala Harris said she’s working to earn the vote of Black men and not taking any constituency for granted, as she sits down for a rare extended campaign interview Tuesday with trio of journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists.
“I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket,” Harris said. “Black men are like any other voting group. You gotta earn their vote, so I’m working to earn the vote, not assuming I’m gonna have it because I’m Black.”
Black male voters are traditionally one of the most consistently Democratic leaning demographics in the nation, but Republicans have tried to make inroads, while Democrats worry about flagging enthusiasm at the polls.
The interview in Philadelphia comes just a month after former President Donald Trump’s appearance before the same organization turned contentious over matters of race and other issues.
The Trump interview opened a chapter in the campaign in which the Republican candidate repeatedly questioned Harris’ racial identity, baselessly claiming that she had only belatedly “turned Black” at some point in her professional career. Trump has since repeatedly questioned Harris’ racial identity on the campaign trail and during the September presidential debate.
Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, has repeatedly dismissed Trump’s remarks as “the same old show.” During her September debate with Trump she said it was a “tragedy” that he had “attempted to use race to divide the American people.”
Trump, his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and other Republicans have criticized Harris for largely avoiding media interviews or interacting on the record with reporters who cover her campaign events. She and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, gave a joint interview to CNN last month. Her campaign recently said she will be doing more local media, and last week she sat for her first solo television interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, taking questions from a Philadelphia station.
Asked whether Americans are better off today than four years ago when she and President Joe Biden entered office, Harris did not directly answer the question, instead referencing the state of the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic and bringing up her plans to try to lower housing costs and promoting herself as a “new generation” of leader.
Harris said her candidacy offers the country a chance at “turning the page on an era that sadly has shown us attempts to by some to incite fear to create division in our country.”
In Trump’s interview with NABJ, he lambasted the moderators and drew boos and groans from the audience at times. The interview also sparked debate within the NABJ convention itself, which operates both as a networking and communal space for Black professionals in media as well as a newsmaking event.
PolitiFact, a fact-checking news organization, was provide live fact checking of the Harris interview, as it did for Trump’s NABJ appearance. As with Trump’s appearance, the audience was made up of NABJ members and college students.
Harris has largely sidestepped traditional media appearances and instead focused on rallies, grassroots organizing and social media engagement, where the vice president can sidestep questions from independent journalists about her policy record and proposed agenda.
Tuesday’s event was being moderated by Eugene Daniels of Politico, Gerren Gaynor of theGrio and Tonya Mosley of WHYY, a Philadelphia-area public radio station that is co-hosting the gathering.
NABJ noted the importance of hosting the conversation in Philadelphia, a major city in a battleground state with a large Black population. Philadelphia was also the home to one of the major precursor organizations to NABJ.
For years, the association has invited both major presidential candidates to speak before the convention. Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden all attended NABJ events as presidential candidates or while in office.
