Donald Trump will spend today preparing for his live Fox News forum tonight. Originally, Trump and Fox offered tonight for a first debate between Trump and Kamala Harris, but she refused to meet Trump on the stage ... and then spent the next several weeks ducking the media. 

Harris finally appeared on CNN last week, with running mate Tim Walz as a chaperone, and only answered questions for roughly 18 minutes, with another eight directed to Walz. Harris offered nothing but vague platitudes like "my values haven't changed" while avoiding an explanation of why her policies have done a 180. And since then, Harris has perfected the cell-phone-call dodge to ignore reporters' questions.  

Critics are slamming Kamala Harris for dodging the press with her headphones. pic.twitter.com/tflMrR1WBL

— New York Post (@nypost) September 3, 2024

But hey, at least Harris made one media appearance! How many has Trump made, with and without running mate J.D. Vance? Fox's Brian Flood needles the absent Harris with the current scorecard:

Former President Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have sat down for at least 37 interviews since the Harris-Walz ticket was formed, compared to a single non-scripted interview for the Democratic presidential hopefuls thus far. ...

Since Aug. 6, Trump has spoken with Fox News' "Life, Liberty & Levin" host Mark Levin, NBC News, the Daily Mail, Dr. Phil, Fox News’ Alicia Acuna, Hugh Hewitt Radio, FOX Business, podcaster Theo Von, the New York Post, WBRE News Wilkes-Barre, WLOS News 13 Asheville, Univision, and "FOX & Friends" twice. He's also made at least two other cable news appearances and sat down with supporter Elon Musk for a lengthy conversation, according to a Fox News Digital review.

The former president also sat down with podcaster Lex Fridman in an interview that was posted on Tuesday and a New Hampshire radio show on Wednesday.

Vance, who has been critical of Harris dodging the press, has spoken to "FOX & Friends," CNN’s John Berman, WBAY2, News 5 Cleveland, NBC News, "Meet the Press," No Spin News, WALB 10, "CBS Evening News," "The Brett Winterble Show," "Jesse Watters Primetime," "Fox News Sunday," "The Dan O’Donnell Show," ABC’s "This Week," CBS’ "Face the Nation" and CNN’s "State of the Union" over that same time period. 

It's not just the number either, although that is stunning enough. It's almost one a day since the GOP convention for Trump and Vance, a rather amazing amount of media access even considered on its own. At the same time, both candidates are still doing campaign stops, on a pace that will obviously accelerate from this point forward.

But the type of media interactions also provides a telling contrast. Most of these Trump interviews and pressers, if not all of them, are no-holds-barred interactions. Trump will entertain questions from reporters at pressers on any subject and demonstrates little to no limits or controls on topics. (Perhaps too much so, for some of his supporters who want to se more discipline from Trump.) 

Harris, on the other hand, will barely acknowledge any substantive questions from the world's least-worked press pool. The one interview to which Harris has submitted consisted of barely enough time to even cover a few issues and almost no chance for Dana Bash to drill down on Harris' answers. It consisted of 26 minutes in toto, including Walz' small contribution to the discussion. And ever since, both Harris and Walz have done a Brave Sir Robin from the media:

Reporter: “Governor, are you going to take ANY policy questions?"

Walz: Walks away
pic.twitter.com/tGJgm0FXqb

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 4, 2024

Profiles in Courage, it ain't. It's more like Monty Python:

Meanwhile, Trump sat down with podcaster Lex Friedman for a full hour, taking challenging questions and answering in detail and at length. At some point, the contrast between a candidate who can do this and a candidate who can't will become too great to ignore ... especially if Harris develops a sudden case of COVID before the debate next Tuesday. 

We will be live-blogging the Fox forum tonight, which is yet another format that Harris has yet to tackle as the nominee. Beege will provide live commentary, so be sure to join us!

Here's my conversation with @realDonaldTrump

It's here on X in full, and is up everywhere else too. Links in comment.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:09 - Psychology of winning and losing
3:51 - Politics is a dirty game
5:28 - Business vs politics
8:04 - War in Ukraine
9:53 -… pic.twitter.com/64pCfH8JPs

— Lex Fridman (@lexfridman) September 3, 2024