Vice President Harris speaks at a campaign event at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Washington Crossing, Pa., on Wednesday.
Ryan Collerd/AFP via Getty Images
In her first formal sit-down interview with Fox News, Vice President Harris tangled repeatedly with anchor Bret Baier as he pressed her on immigration policy and positions she took in 2019 when she was running for president that she no longer holds.
About half-way through the intense 30-minute interview, Baier asked Harris a question she didn’t answer very well in more friendly interviews last week on The View and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: What would she do differently from President Biden? This time, she was prepared.
“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas,” Harris said. “I represent a new generation of leadership.”
Harris ventured onto the openly pro-Trump network on a mission to reach moderate Republicans after earlier in the day appearing with more than 100 Republicans, including former Trump administration officials who have endorsed her.
She took every opportunity she could to mention those endorsements and made sure to reference former President Donald Trump’s recent remarks referring to Democrats as “the enemy within.” He has also said he might have to use the military to handle that enemy.
In a town hall with women voters that aired on Fox News earlier in the day, Trump doubled down on that statement, saying, “It is the enemy from within, and they are very dangerous; they are Marxists and communists and fascists and they’re sick.”
But Baier played a different section of Trump’s response for Harris, one in which Trump insisted he isn’t threatening anyone.
“They’re the ones doing the threatening,” Trump told Fox host Harris Faulkner. “They do phony investigations. I’ve been investigated more than Alphonse Capone was.”
This produced an indignant response from Harris.
“With all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within,” Harris said, with her volume rising.
“You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people, he has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest,” Harris said. “He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy and in a democracy, the president of the United States, in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he would lock people up for doing it.”
Trump campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the interview as a “train wreck.”
“Kamala was angry, defensive, and once again abdicated any responsibility for the problems Americans are facing.”
For its part, the Harris campaign framed the interview as a success.
“We feel like we definitely achieved what we set out to achieve in the sense that she was able to reach an audience that’s probably been not exposed to the arguments she’s been making on the trail,” said Brian Fallon, a top Harris campaign aide. “And she also got to show her toughness in standing tall against a hostile interviewer.”
Harris blamed Trump for sinking a border security bill
On immigration, Harris expressed sympathy for the parents of young women killed in the U.S. by undocumented immigrants, but didn’t accept blame as Baier pressed her to do. She repeatedly referred back to a bipartisan border security deal that failed to pass after Trump called on Republicans to tank it.
On the federal government paying for gender transition surgeries for trans prisoners or detained migrants, something Trump has spent millions of dollars on adsdemonizing Harris for supporting, she said she would follow federal law. Harris also pointed to evidence that the Trump administration followed the same law.
“He spent $20 million on those ads trying to create a sense of fear in the voters, because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people,” Harris said, describing the issue of gender transition surgeries for prisoners as “really quite remote” compared to the biggest issues affecting American voters.
