Reporters will soon be allowed to accompany Hillary Clinton on her campaign plane, an aide revealed Thursday.
News that Clinton will reportedly unveil a new plane large enough to accommodate her traveling press corps marks a decided shift for a candidate who has up until now insisted on riding separately from media.
ABC News confirmed the details.
“Beginning on Monday – with just 64 days left until the election – the Democratic presidential nominee will replace her small, private jet with a significantly larger aircraft that she will not only share with her campaign staff, but with Secret Service staffers and reporters too,” ABC reported, citing a campaign aide.
Clinton will start using the press-friendly plane starting on Labor Day, the aide said.
The Democratic nominee is scheduled to appear at that time in Ohio and in parts of Illinois and Iowa.
Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has so far been the only person in the entire 2016 election to ride with his traveling press corps.
The announcement from the Clinton aide caps off a day that began with the Democratic nominee’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., getting hammered with questions about the former secretary of state’s lack of media availability.
In an appearance on “CBS This Morning,” Kaine was asked to comment on a joint press conference this week in Mexico City between Trump and President Enrique Pena Nieto.
“[Trump] immediately opened up the floor to reporters for questions. When will we see Hillary Clinton open up the floor and take questions from reporters at any event?” one host asked Kaine.
The Democratic nominee hasn’t held a single press conference in 2016. In contrast, Trump has already held 17 unscripted, back-and-forth conversations with members of the press.
Clinton has agreed to dozens of sit-down interviews this year, but most of these exchanges are orchestrated affairs involving pre-selected media personalities asking pre-approved questions.
None of these appearances have featured the sort of unscripted, back-and-forth quality that defines traditional press conferences.
Kaine, for his part, dismissed the question from the “CBS This Morning” team and maintained that Clinton has taken questions from members of the press.
“You see Hillary take questions from reporters every day. She does — she talks to the press everywhere she goes,” Kaine said.
Kaine also alleged Clinton participated in a press conference as recently as last month when she spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention in Washington, D.C.
Clinton’s appearance last month at the journalism convention included nearly a dozen instances of attendees clapping and cheering the Democratic presidential candidate. Clinton did take some questions from reporters after her address, but only from pre-selected members of the press.
Later, when a handful of reporters asked Clinton last week to elaborate on her claim Trump has legitimized racist hate groups, the former secretary of state ignored their questions entirely and instead tried to distract them with chocolate.
Kaine was widely criticized by media Thursday morning for alleging Clinton has been open with media.
News that Clinton will now allow reporters to travel on her plane also comes 35 days after she delivered her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
