Harris interview on Fox News gets testy — but also gives her a makeover: NPR

Vice President Harris speaks at a campaign rally at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.

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Ryan Collerd/AFP via Getty Images

In her first-ever formal sit-down interview with Fox News, Vice President Harris repeatedly clashed with host Bret Baier as he pressed her on immigration policy and the positions she took while running for president in 2019 that she no longer holds.

About halfway through the intense 30-minute interview, Baier asked Harris a question that she didn’t answer very well in friendlier interviews last week The view and further The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: What would she do differently than President Biden? This time she was prepared.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president who takes office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas,” Harris said. “I represent a new generation of leaders.”

Harris ventured into the openly pro-Trump network to reach out to moderate Republicans after appearing earlier in the day with more than 100 Republicans, including former Trump administration officials who have supported her.

She took every opportunity to mention those endorsements, citing former President Donald Trump’s recent comments in which he called Democrats “the enemy within.” He has also said that he may have to use the military to deal with this enemy.

In a town hall with women voters that aired on Fox News earlier in the day, Trump doubled down on his statement, saying: “It’s the enemy within, and they’re very dangerous; They are Marxists, communists and fascists and they are sick.”

But Baier played a different part of Trump’s response for Harris, one in which Trump insisted he wasn’t threatening anyone.

“They are the ones who are threatening,” Trump told Fox host Harris Faulkner. “They are conducting false investigations. I was investigated more than Alphonse Capone.”

This sparked an outraged reaction from Harris.

“With all due respect, that clip was not what he said about the enemy within,” Harris said, his volume rising.

“You and I both know that he has talked about using the American military against the American people, he has talked about persecuting people who are peacefully protesting,” Harris said. “He 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 deal with criticism without saying he would lock people up for it.”

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the interview a “train wreck.”

“Kamala was angry, defensive and once again denied any responsibility for the problems facing Americans.”

The Harris campaign, for its part, called the interview a success.

“We feel like we definitely accomplished what we set out to do in the sense that she was able to reach an audience that probably wasn’t aware of the arguments that she was making on the ground,” said Brian Fallon, a top Harris campaign aide. “And she was also able to demonstrate her toughness by standing up to a hostile interviewer.”

Harris accused Trump of sinking a border security law

On immigration, Harris expressed sympathy for the parents of young women killed in the U.S. by undocumented immigrants, but did not accept blame as Baier urged her. She repeatedly pointed to a bipartisan border security deal that collapsed after Trump urged Republicans to block it.

Regarding federal funding of gender reassignment surgeries for trans prisoners or detained migrants, something Trump has spent millions of dollars on ads demonizing Harris for supporting, she said she would abide by federal law. Harris also pointed to evidence that the Trump administration followed the same law.

“He spent $20 million on these ads to create fear among voters because he doesn’t actually have a plan in this election that focuses on the needs of the American people,” Harris said, describing gender transition surgeries for prisoners are considered “really quite remote” compared to the biggest issues affecting American voters.