CNN to interview Kamala Harris, Tim Walz as Donald Trump confirms September debate

Kamala Harris will be interviewed on Friday AEST for the first time since Joe Biden dropped out of the White House race.

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US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz will give an interview to CNN on Thursday, as Donald Trump confirms the September 10 presidential debate will go ahead.

The interview with CNN will be Ms Harris’s first since being nominated to the party’s ticket after Joe Biden dropped out of the race for the White House five weeks ago.

Republicans have repeatedly accused Ms Harris, 59, of avoiding an interview since Mr Biden named her as his successor.

The pair would give the interview while on a campaign trip to the battleground state of Georgia on Thursday and it will be broadcast at 9pm local time the same day (11am Friday AEST), CNN said.

CNN added that “the extensive interview, Harris’s first interview since becoming the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden ended his campaign for re-election, will air as a prime time special.”

It will be conducted by anchor Dana Bash, the network added. Ms Harris has been riding a wave of enthusiasm among Democrats since replacing Mr Biden, culminating with a speech accepting the nomination at the party convention in Chicago last week.

But since Mr Biden dropped out she has only answered a few questions from reporters at campaign events, along with giving some off-the-record comments on flights on Air Force Two.

There had been concerns the September 10 debate, which would test Ms Harris’s ability to think on her feet, would be dropped amid a dispute over open mics and Mr Trump’s claims that debate host ABC News would be biased against him.

However on Wednesday he confirmed the debate would go ahead with closed mics, as happened in the first presidential debate on CNN with Mr Biden.

In a post on Turth Social, Mr Trump said he had reached an agreement with the Democrats that the debate would be held under the same rules as those of the CNN debate.

AFP