Harris spokesperson defends lack of interviews: "She's focused on her work"

The campaign representative for Vice President Kamala Harris refuted criticism of her limited media presence and guaranteed she would conduct more interviews prior to the election.

Dana Perino of "America's Newsroom" queried Ian Sams, senior spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, on Friday about the potential risks involved in Harris placing all her focus on next Tuesday's debate against former President Trump, given her limited experience with Q&A sessions outside of debate preparation.

"Sams rejected that statement. He sat down with Dana Bash for a long interview on CNN that aired."

"One interview in 47 days," Perino replied.

Sam suggested that the media is now focusing on Harris because she is the presidential candidate, despite having conducted 90 interviews prior to her nomination.

"She's taking questions from reporters on the campaign trail so far in this campaign. People who are covering her every single day, she's going to do more interviews and talk to the press more and take more reporter questions," he said.

"Ian, come on," Perino interjected.

Sam's claim that Harris has engaged with media on the trail was rejected by her, who argued that merely stating that debate prep is going well does not equate to answering tough questions from reporters.

"Is it not necessary for American voters to hear directly from her? She desires to be the commander-in-chief. We paid attention to her. And you didn't like that either," Perino stated.

"The question is funny because it's like you're treating her like she's in the witness protection program. Despite President Trump's smaller crowds, she's been traveling to packed arenas across battleground states and speaking to thousands of people," Sams said.

The Trump-Vance team has conducted 39 interviews, while the Harris-Walz team has only had six non-scripted interviews.

Harris has two new taped interviews that will air on September 6.

Last week, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, broke their media silence by appearing on CNN's Dana Bash's show in Georgia.

Since her selection of Walz on August 6, Harris had not given an interview to a journalist until the highly publicized interview she gave on that day. Trump and Vance, on the other hand, had given interviews to multiple news organizations during that time.

On September 10th, ABC News will host a debate where Trump and Harris will come face to face.

Planet Chronicle' Brian Flood and David Rutz contributed to this report.