Ohio Sen. JD Vance announced Thursday that he has accepted an invitation to debate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Oct. 1. 

‘The American people deserve as many debates as possible, which is why President Trump has challenged Kamala to three of them already,’ Vance wrote in a post on X. ‘Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both!’ 

Walz, who is Vice President Harris’ running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket, said on X yesterday ‘See you on October 1, JD.’ 

CBS News said in a prior statement that it invited both candidates to a debate in New York City, with Oct. 1 being one of the available dates. 

‘We look forward to their responses and providing voters with an opportunity to hear directly from the vice-presidential candidates,’ the network said. 

Although Vance said on X that he would debate Walz on CNN on Sept. 18 – it’s not immediately clear if Walz will attend that date. 

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

CNN is quoting a spokesperson as saying that the network ‘invited both Senator Vance and Governor Walz to a Vice Presidential debate this fall, and Senator Vance has accepted.’ 

‘We are always in communication with the campaigns around opportunities for the American public to hear from leading candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, and we look forward to this programming in the fall,’ the spokesperson added. 

The Harris campaign has remained mum on when Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a formal press conference, or why she has not held one since she emerged as the Democratic Party’s nominee, while former President Donald Trump prepares to hold his second press conference in a week this afternoon.

Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee on July 21, when President Biden exited the race and passed the torch to Harris through an endorsement. Harris has not held a formal press conference or joined a sit-down interview with the media in the 25 days since Biden endorsed her and she officially clinched the nomination in a subsequent ‘virtual’ roll-call vote less than two weeks later.

Fox News Digital reached out to the campaign this week asking if there were plans to schedule a formal press conference and when, as well as inquiring why the vice president has not held one in more than three weeks. The campaign did not respond to the requests. 

Campaign spokespeople have been pressed about the issue during interviews on news shows, but have also demurred on giving an answer. Instead, both Harris and members of her campaign have said she plans to hold a sit-down interview by the end of August. Details on a date or which outlet will hold the interview have not yet been released. 

‘I’ve talked to my team, I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month,’ Harris said last week after a campaign event in Michigan. 

The vice president has been criss-crossing the country over the last roughly three weeks as she works to earn support from voters. Biden dropped out of the race amid mounting concerns surrounding his mental acuity and 81 years of age, leaving Harris with just under 100 days to campaign. 

Harris has taken a handful of questions from the media while on the campaign trail, but she has snubbed the media by not holding pressers or sit-down interviews. Time magazine earlier this month published a glowing cover story on Harris, but the vice president didn’t agree to an interview for the piece. Instead, that article quoted aides and allies who lauded Harris as a formidable candidate against former President Donald Trump. 

Pressure has built on the campaign to hold a press conference, including CNN’s Jim Acosta questioning Harris communications director Michael Tyler this week on air. 

‘I’m sure this is not going to be the first time you’ve heard this question, but the Trump campaign is also going after the vice president for not doing enough interviews, for not holding a press conference. Would it kill you guys to have a press conference? Why hasn’t she had a press conference?’ Acosta asked. 

Tyler said that she and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have been ‘busy’ traveling across the country, citing multiple campaign rallies.

‘Michael, you know a campaign rally isn’t really a press conference,’ Acosta said to Tyler. ‘Why hasn’t she had a press conference? She’s the vice president, she can handle the questions, why not do it?’ 

Tyler said that Harris will hold a press conference at some point and would sit down for an interview with a media outlet by the end of the month. 

The left-leaning Washington Post editorial board also challenged Harris over dodging the media on Sunday, saying of her opponent, ‘At least he has taken questions.’ 

Trump and allies of the 45th president have used Harris’ lack of media availability as a point of attack. 

​​’It’s pretty sad when you think that somebody that does this for a living can’t answer a question or is afraid to do an interview, and in her case, with a very friendly interview. She’s got all friendly interviewers,’ Trump said of Harris Monday evening during his roughly two-hour interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk on X Space. 

Some have said that Harris is pulling a move from Biden’s 2020 playbook, when Biden carried out a cloistered campaign strategy during the pandemic, which earned him the nickname ‘Basement Joe’ from Trump. 

‘Kamala Harris should absolutely hold a press conference. One would expect it when she names her vice-presidential pick. But we cannot expect her to break from Biden’s serial avoidance of press conferences,’ NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham previously told Fox News Digital.

‘Since the 2020 campaign, we have witnessed the bizarre spectacle of Donald Trump granting wide access to networks that suggest he’s a fascist and hammer him daily, while Biden and Harris won’t grant interviews to media outlets that gurgle all over them and their ‘historic accomplishments,’’ he continued. ‘Either they think the press can never be servile enough, or they are projecting a complete lack of confidence in their efforts to put complete sentences together.’ 

Some supporters of the vice president say that her strategy of avoiding the media is a winning one as she continues building out her campaign before the DNC in Chicago next week.  

‘Where is it written that you have to sit down for a press interview?’ longtime Democratic consultant James Carville told the New York Times. ‘They’ve had to pick a vice president, plan a convention, move around, do this, do that, and she’s already agreed to a debate.’

Meanwhile, Trump has been more available to the media, holding press conferences at his homes in Florida and New Jersey, in addition to campaigning, and joining a two-hour conversational interview with Musk this week. Musk invited Harris to join him for a similar interview ahead of the election, but the campaign has not said whether Harris will accept.

Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this article. 

Vice President Kamala Harris could be ‘playing politics’ by allowing her subordinates to take the lead on her making major policy shifts, rather than pushing them herself, a Republican strategist says.

Unnamed officials have announced Harris’ new stance on key issues that she previously supported during her 2019 presidential run, such as fracking and ‘Medicare for All,’ but Harris herself has not yet publicly addressed these position shifts.

While the Harris campaign appears to be pushing a reworked agenda, one political strategist told Fox News Digital that ‘anonymous on background campaign staffers do not take public policy positions, candidates and elected officials do.’

Dallas Woodhouse, State Director for American Majority-North Carolina, a nonprofit conservative training organization, said that Americans should assume that every position taken by Harris during her previous presidential campaign for President and the positions taken by the Biden-Harris administration are exactly hers today, ‘until she herself explains otherwise.’ 

‘The American public will never accept a candidate changing all their stated positions from just a few years ago without thorough examination and explanation,’ he added.

1. Fracking

Harris said that she would ban fracking if elected during her first presidential bid – a key issue among a critical voting bloc in battleground states like Pennsylvania.

‘There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, I have a history of working on this issue,’ Harris said in 2020.

Republicans, including former President Trump, have used her past comments on the issue to blast her in several campaign ads since she launched her 2024 campaign.

But campaign officials for the Democratic nominee are now saying that Harris will not ban fracking if she’s elected president.

2. ‘Medicare for All’

Harris published a plan for ‘Medicare for All’ during her 2019 presidential election, writing that her goal was to ‘end these senseless attacks on Obamacare’ and that she believes ‘health care should be a right, not a privilege only for those who can afford it. It’s why we need Medicare for All.’

‘The idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork all of the delay that may require. Let’s eliminate that,’ Harris wrote in 2019.

Additionally, then-Senator Harris cosponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Medicare for All Act of 2019.

Despite her past support, a campaign official told Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy that Harris will not push the subject of ‘Medicare-for-all’ this cycle.

Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, previous campaign manager, and co-founder of South and Hill Strategies, expressed skepticism regarding the credibility of Harris’ recent policy change.

‘When Vice President Harris ran for the White House five years ago, she was a sitting U.S. Senator and the former attorney general of the largest state in the nation. In other words, an extremely accomplished individual with plenty of time on the national stage to form opinions on the big issues,’ Reed told Fox. ‘The idea that she could, over the span of five changes, just change her tune on a dime on a slew of major big ticket items strains credulity,’

Reed highlighted her shift on ‘Medicare For All,’ which he says ‘would cost $44 trillion dollars – more than our entire $35 trillion dollar national debt.’

‘Either she was wrong then or is playing politics now, and voters will figure it out whenever she decides to answer questions in an unscripted setting.’

Fox News Digital asked the Harris campaign if she plans to personally announce her new stance on the key issues, but did not receive an initial response.

Harris advisers told Axios that ‘Harris doesn’t want to be completely defined by the Biden-Harris record,’ publishing a report that said she is seeking to distance herself from Biden on several issues, including his economic policies.

3. No Taxes on Tips

Under the current Biden-Harris Internal Revenue Service (IRS), taxpayers must report all tip money as income on their tax returns. Initially, she supported measures that allowed the IRS to track and tax workers’ tips, and even casted a tie-breaking vote in 2022 to pass legislation that increased IRS funding for this exact purpose. 

However, Harris recently revealed that she supports ending taxes on tips for service worker employees – an idea floated earlier this summer by Trump, who received positive feedback on the idea.

‘We’ll continue our fight for working families of America,’ Harris said at a recent campaign rally. ‘Including minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.’

4. The Border Crisis

Vice President Kamala Harris has previously supported the rolling back of Trump-era border policies, but is taking a stronger position on the the southern border crisis this election cycle.

When record numbers of migrants were coming through the border in 2022, Harris said that ‘the border is secure,’ during an appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’

Harris was criticized by border state Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, shortly thereafter, who told CNN that ‘the border is not secure.’

Harris, however, has used her recent rallies to convince voters that tough border security is a top priority for her 2024 campaign.

Harris is also investing in a new narrative, recently putting out a border-related campaign ad, titled, ‘Tougher.’

‘Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crime. As a border state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed gang members for smuggling weapons and drugs across the border,’ a narrator says. ‘As vice president, she backed the toughest border control bill in decades. And as president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.’

‘Fixing the border is tough, so is Kamala Harris,’ a voice in the ad can be heard saying. 

Celebrities have a ‘powerful’ ability to influence elections and increase voter turnout, a Harvard study found.

‘While some polling shows that people claim they aren’t influenced by celebrity voices when it comes to politics, more rigorous evidence indicates that these voices are incredibly powerful,’ reads a study conducted by Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. ‘Nonprofits report higher rates of online voter registration or poll worker sign-ups when a celebrity promotes these calls to action. This potential impact is why nonprofits, candidates, and elected officials are increasingly seeking ways to engage celebrities.’

Researchers working on the study analyzed the approaches of 15 managers, publicists, nonprofit partners, philanthropic advisers and celebrities, including well-known names such as Hailey Bieber, David Dobrik, Billie Eilish, Trevor Noah, Taylor Swift, Kerry Washington and The Roots co-founder and drummer Questlove.

‘Celebrities, like all of us, face choices about how to engage in democracy. For example, they can serve as surrogates for political candidates, helping to ‘rally the base’ or reach new audiences,’ the study reads, adding that there is also evidence that ‘celebrities can help with candidate fundraising, attracting large crowds to political events or volunteer shifts, which draws press attention.’

Overall, the researchers found that celebrities are motivated to activism not only because of their beliefs, but because it can also be ‘good for their brands,’ something that was supported by a previous study on the issue.

‘It helps your audience stay connected to you—a connection based on values, which humanizes an artist and a celebrity in a way that the audience then feels like they know you. And then, when your next film or album comes out, this audience that’s connected to you wants to support you, wants to show up,’ Questlove’s Manager Dawn White told researchers.

The study argues that the impact celebrities have can be massive, pointing to a 2018 Instagram story posted by Swift to her 112 million followers to register to vote at vote.org. That one post led to 65,000 new registrants in 24 hours and 250,000 over 72 hours.

Swift has continued to make similar posts over the years since, while her following has more than doubled to 283 million over the same time period.

Researchers found that celebrities have a more profound impact on ‘younger generations,’ which are not as easy to reach through traditional ‘mainstream media and other get-out-the-vote efforts.’

‘Their control of and presence on social media positions them as centralized sources of information to be tapped into and utilized by those looking to increase voter participation,’ the study reads.

However, the research also found that celebrity impact has been limited by a lack of organization, including a lack of formal programs that would allow them to test and track their efforts.

‘Consequently, there is an extraordinary opportunity and potential to grow, mature, and formalize celebrity civic engagement efforts, which can significantly impact civic culture,’ the study included. ‘That being said, the available data indicate that some approaches work better than others.’

Anti-Israel groups are planning a massive show of force at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week as the party plans to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination.

The U.S. Palestinian Community Network will bring in busloads of protesters from Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and elsewhere. The group is organizing the event under the hashtag ‘March on DNC 2024,’ with leaders arguing ther is no daylight between Harris and President Biden when it comes to Israel-Gaza policy.

‘We’re not going to do anything different. We’re going to mobilize,’ the groups’ leader, Hatem Abudayyeh told NBC News.Harris represents the administration; she represents Biden. There is nothing that she has expressed independently that tells us she does not support the policies.’

‘The movement is saying not only are we needing to stop the genocide, but we need to stop the possibility that this thing is going to be a regional war,’ he added.

‘Genocide Joe Biden has stepped down from running for President as the Democratic Party nominee. His decision doesn’t change the policies of Democratic Party leadership, specifically their support of the genocide in Palestine, so our movement must continue to apply pressure,’ the group further stated on its website.

Meanwhile, federal, state and local law enforcement say they are aware of and are currently monitoring plans for the protest and any threat they may pose to the convention.

One local Chicago organization posted a particularly threatening video on social media earlier this week. The video shows a masked individual vowing to welcome ‘killer Kamala’ to the city.

‘As home to the largest Palestinian diaspora in the country, we want to give Killer Kamala, her partners in crime, and her future VP a warm welcome to our city,’ the individual said.

The Secret Service confirmed to NBC News that they are aware of the video.

The FBI says it is also monitoring the event, but said in a statement that it is not aware of any specific threats.

‘At this time, the FBI is not aware of any specific and articulable threats related to the DNC,’ the FBI told reporters earlier this week. ‘We will continue to evaluate and share intelligence received from domestic and international partners related to the DNC just as we would for any large-scale event within the Chicago area.’

The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

The favorability ratings of both Vice President Harris and former President Trump are on the rise as a greater number of Americans are saying they are ‘extremely motivated’ to vote in this November’s election, a new poll has found. 

The Pew Research Center survey of 9,201 adults – including 7,569 registered voters – has revealed that Harris’ overall favorability rating has increased from 36% to 44% since May, while Trump’s has gone up from 39% to 42%. 

Among voters who identify as Democrats or Democrat-leaning independents, Harris’ approval has jumped from 65% to 83%, while Trump’s is at 79% among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. 

Nationally, Harris is slightly leading Trump among all voters, 46% to 45%, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. trails in third with 7%, according to the poll. 

The poll also found that 70% of Harris supporters are saying they are ‘extremely motivated’ to vote, up from 63% of Biden supporters who felt the same way in early July when he was still in the presidential race. 

Meanwhile, 72% of Trump supporters that were surveyed reported feeling the same way, up from 63% in July. 

Even though Biden has abandoned his re-election bid, the poll found that he still has just a 37% approval rating among the American public. 

But one number that has changed is the number of ‘double negative’ voters who earlier this year indicated to pollsters that they did not like either candidate, according to the Pew Research Center. 

In May, a quarter of American voters said they held both unfavorable views of Trump and Biden, but now with Harris in the race, that number has fallen to 14%. 

The poll was conducted from Aug. 5-11. 

Vice President Kamala Harris could be ‘playing politics’ by allowing her subordinates to take the lead on her making major policy shifts, rather than pushing them herself, a Republican strategist says.

Unnamed officials for Harris have announced her flip-flopping on key issues that she previously supported during her 2019 presidential run, such as fracking and ‘Medicare for All,’ but Harris herself is yet to be vocal about the position shifts.

While the Harris campaign appears to be pushing a reworked agenda, one political strategist told Fox News Digital that ‘anonymous on background campaign staffers do not take public policy positions, candidates and elected officials do.’

‘The American public should presume that every position taken by Harris during her previous campaign for president and the positions taken by the Biden-Harris administration are exactly hers today, until she herself explains otherwise,’ Dallas Woodhouse, American Majority-North Carolina State Director, told Fox. 

‘The American public will never accept a candidate changing all their stated positions from just a few years ago without thorough examination and explanation,’ he added.

Fracking

Harris said that she would ban fracking if elected during her first presidential bid – a key issue among a critical voting bloc in battleground states such as Pennsylvania.

‘There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, I have a history of working on this issue,’ Harris said in 2020.

Republicans, including former President Trump, have used her past comments on the issue to blast her in several campaign ads since she launched her 2024 campaign.

Campaign officials for the Democratic nominee are now saying that Harris will not ban fracking if she’s elected president.

‘Medicare for All’

Harris published her plan for ‘Medicare for All’ during her 2019 presidential campaign, writing that her goal was to ‘end these senseless attacks on Obamacare’ and that she believes ‘health care should be a right, not a privilege only for those who can afford it. It’s why we need Medicare for All.’

‘The idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork all of the delay that may require. Let’s eliminate that,’ Harris wrote in 2019.

Additionally, then-Senator Harris cosponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Medicare for All Act of 2019.

Despite her past support, a campaign official told Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy that Harris will not push the subject of ‘Medicare-for-all’ this cycle.

Colin Reed, Republican strategist, former campaign manager, and co-founder of South and Hill Strategies, told Fox News Digital that Harris’ shift appears difficult to believe.

‘When Vice President Harris ran for the White House five years ago, she was a sitting U.S. Senator and the former attorney general of the largest state in the nation. In other words, an extremely accomplished individual with plenty of time on the national stage to form opinions on the big issues,’ Reed told Fox. ‘The idea that she could over the span of five changes, just change her tune on a dime on a slew of major big ticket items strains credulity,’

Reed highlighted her shift on ‘Medicare For All,’ which he says ‘would cost $44 trillion dollars – more than our entire $35 trillion dollar national debt.’

‘Either she was wrong then or is playing politics now, and voters will figure it out whenever she decides to answer questions in an unscripted setting,’ Reed said.

The suggested position shift comes amid Republicans using her past stances on issues, such as fracking, against her 2024 presidential campaign.

Fox News Digital asked the Harris campaign if she will be personall announcing her new stance on the key issues.