Vice President Kamala Harris is set to conduct a rare extended campaign interview Tuesday, taking questions from a trio of journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists 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.
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.
