No. of Recommendations: 12
Perhaps not every issue, especially recent events, but Harris does have three plus years of actual promotions and governance of those policies to draw upon for answering questions about those policies, most of them anyway.
Again, not especially likely. Most Veeps - including Kamala - end up getting asked only to concentrate on a few issues directly. As I noted above, they're not a "second President" when it comes to actual policy - typically, it's the Cabinet that serves that role for the President. For example, the President will rely on the Secretary of Energy to oversee and implement energy policy - not the Veep. Where the Veep does serve as a "second President" is with head of state functions, as opposed to head of government functions - the formalities and protocol of government, greeting foreign dignitaries and the like.
Plus, don't forget that a lot of a presser isn't just getting quizzed on policy points. Harris will get asked questions about her campaign - her strategy, her priorities, where she differs from the President, where she breaks from other party leaders, etc. It's only been 18 days; she hasn't even necessarily decided all those things.
Also, only a poor candidate is purely reactive at a press conference - it's an opportunity to hammer your own message, talk about the things you want to talk about, downplay issues that you want to shift away from. Harris is almost certainly still in the process of figuring out (with her campaign staff) which issues are the ones she wants to center her campaign around, which are the issues she wants to deflect, and how best to do both of those things.
And finally...she's drowning in free media coverage and positive excitement about her campaign right now. A big part of holding a press conference is to direct attention to you and your campaign - and she does not need that boost right now. She's still riding the wave of interest over the Veepstakes, and heading into the free media deluge of the convention. From a strategy standpoint, save your first presser for a week after Labor Day, so you can pull focus from Trump and back onto you at a strategic moment.
