Kamala Harris’ first interview on Fox News was a contentious affair, and at times she and Bret Baier wound up talking over each other.
But while the vice president repeatedly ducked some questions, she also had several moments when she appeared to be standing up to her least favorite network–undoubtedly something she hoped to achieve.
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She showed passion, even anger, raising her voice, on a question about most of the country believing we’re on the wrong track, saying that Donald Trump was "unfit to serve" and "unstable." Turning questions into broadsides against the former president was her signature move.
But what about half the country that supports him, Baier asked. "Are they stupid?"
No, but "he’s the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish," Harris said. Trump is the one talking about "an enemy within," and using the military against Americans. "He’s talking about locking people up because they disagree with him."
Several times she told Baier "you and I both know" before lobbing a grenade at Trump, trying to project an image of standing up to both Fox and her opponent. She wanted this fight.
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Among the questions Harris didn’t want to answer:
Does she support taxpayer-funded transgender surgery for federal inmates, as she did in 2019? "I will follow the law," she said flatly, insisting Trump had done the same. (The Trump camp shot back that the first such surgery took place in 2022, during her tenure.)
Didn’t she know that Joe Biden had been diminished? She danced around that one.
Why hasn’t she made progress on these issues during her time as vice president?
"My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency," she said, pointing out that she hasn’t spent most of her life in Washington. That was a cleanup of her disastrous response on "The View" that she couldn’t think of a single thing where she differed from the president.
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The Fox anchor spent the first chunk of the interview on immigration, following up again and again to pin her down.
At first Harris conceded the obvious: "We have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired."
Why didn’t you fix it? Trump killed their most recent attempt at a bipartisan bill, though nothing was accomplished when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.
Had she changed her position since her 2019 campaign, when she said border crossings should be made legal?
"I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings," Harris responded, without explaining the change.
Asked about crimes committed by illegal immigrants, such as the murder of Laken Riley, Harris called them "tragic cases" and said her heart went out to their families.
There were times when her answers seemed thin, and other times when she slipped in a litany of her proposals.
The confrontational session was Harris’ first of this short campaign, after a series of softball sitdowns with people openly supporting her candidacy.
Fox News got the exclusive, and Harris got what she wanted: A defiant half hour in which she could try to change minds among the largest audience by far in cable news.
She should abandon her friends like Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert and do more tough interviews, because that’s how you show voters you can take the heat.
