Friday Briefing: A Defining Harris Interview

Vice President Kamala Harris being interviewed on CNN in June.Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

🇺🇸 U.S. ELECTION 2024

The presidential election is less than 70 days away. This is what we’re watching.

The Harris campaign’s defining interview with CNN

Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, sat for the first major television interview of their campaign. It’s a critical opportunity for them to define their campaign, and will be broadcast on CNN at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Here’s how to watch.

Harris has taken few questions from reporters since President Biden ended his campaign. Astead Herndon, a Times political correspondent, explained the challenges of interviewing her and described his conversation with her last year as “arduous.”

“She didn’t break eye contact,” he told the On Politics newsletter. “It was intense. You feel on trial.”

In other campaign news: Donald Trump reposted an image on his social media platform that implied that Harris had traded sexual favors to help her political career. It was the second time over the past two weeks that Trump shared content making sexually oriented attacks against his opponent.

Here’s what else to know:

• The U.S. Army criticized the conduct of members of the Trump campaign over a confrontation at Arlington National Cemetery, one of the country’s oldest and largest military graveyards.

• Senate Democrats played a more assertive role than was previously known in bringing about President Biden’s withdrawal from the race. Here’s how they did it.

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