July 6th, 2015

CNN Exclusive: Hillary Clinton to do first national TV interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar

The full interview with Hillary Clinton will air Tuesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” at 5 p.m. EDT and again on “Anderson Cooper 360” at 8 p.m. EDT. 

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday will give the first nationally televised interview of her presidential campaign to CNN senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar.

The Democratic front-runner has largely stayed away from the press, only occasionally taking questions from reporters and granting interviews to local news outlets in early-voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

But she hasn’t granted national outlets interviews since jumping into the 2016 race in April. The first one, with Keilar, will take place in Iowa City, as Clinton campaigns in the first state to vote in the presidential nominating process.

Clinton’s status as her party’s favorite isn’t in doubt, but Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has narrowed the gap in recent polls, particularly in New Hampshire and Iowa.

A CNN/ORC poll conducted June 18-24 found that Clinton’s lead in New Hampshire had dwindled to eight percentage points, with 43% of the Granite State’s Democrats backing her while 35% support Sanders.

Clinton’s lead in Iowa is 52% to Sanders’ 33%, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

One nagging challenge for Clinton is that polls show voters generally don’t consider her honest and trustworthy — potentially the result of ongoing controversies about her family foundation’s acceptance of foreign contributions and her use of a personal email account on a private server during her tenure as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.

The interview comes after Clinton’s campaign faced its latest round of criticism over the weekend for using a moving rope line to keep reporters away from Clinton during a New Hampshire parade.