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    • VP pushed for Harris and immigration
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    VP pushed for Harris and immigration

    Kathleen William Posted on

    Vice President Kamala Harris and Fox News host Bret Baier delivered a heated interview on Wednesday, 20 days before the election.

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    WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris said during a combative interview Wednesday on Fox News that if elected, her presidency would “not be a continuation of Joe Biden's,” as the Democratic nominee steps up her outreach to Republican voters.

    20 days before the election, Harris tried to defend his record on immigration and the economy in her first-ever official appearance on Fox News, known for its conservative commentators. At several points, Fox News political host Bret Baier and Harris talked over each other, leading to tense exchanges during the roughly 30-minute segment.

    Harris joined Baier in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, shortly after speaking at an afternoon rally in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, where she was joined by more than 100 Republicans supporting her campaign.

    Here are five key moments from her interview:

    Fierce exchange of blows about migration at the southern border

    Right off the bat, Harris and Baier engaged in a heated back-and-forth when the Fox News host asked how many undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. illegally under the Biden-Harris administration. Harris did not give a number.

    “Just a number: Do you think it’s a million? Three million?” asked Baier.

    Election updates: Harris sits down for an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier

    Harris responded: “Bret, let’s just get to the point, OK? The point is we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed.”

    Baier interrupted and pointed to estimates that about six million undocumented immigrants have been released in the county.

    “I started answering,” Harris said as Baier spoke about the vice president, referencing executive actions President Joe Biden took early in his term to reverse former President Donald Trump’s border policies.

    Migration at the southern border — which Harris visited while campaigning in Arizona last month — remains one of the most important issues of the election. Harris said, “I'm so sorry for your loss” as Baier showed a video of a mother detailing how her daughter was killed by an undocumented immigrant who was released into the United States

    “Our focus has been on solving a problem,” Harris said, adding that Senate Republicans, at Trump's urging, blocked bipartisan border legislation this year that would have imposed new restrictions on asylum seekers and created additional Border Patrol agents.

    “Just let me finish,” Harris told Baier. “Donald Trump found out about this bill and asked them to kill it because he preferred to address a problem rather than solve a problem.”

    Harris walks back some immigration positions

    Harris signaled that she no longer supports some of the left-leaning immigration policies she supported as a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, such as allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for driver's licenses and receive taxpayer-funded health care.

    “That was five years ago, and I am very clear that I will follow the law,” Harris said when Baier asked if she still supported those proposals.

    She also said she no longer supports decriminalizing illegal border crossings — a policy she also supported as a candidate in 2019 before dropping out of the primary.

    “I don’t believe in decriminalizing border crossings, and I didn’t do that as vice president. As president, I won’t do that either,” Harris said.

    “It has to be studied”: Harris Says She's Still Open to Making Amends in Charlamagne Tha God Interview: 5 Moments

    Transgender surgeries for people in prison

    Harris said she would follow the law when Baier pressed her about past comments — recently featured in a Trump campaign ad — in which she offered help for people in prison to access medical care for gender-affirming surgeries.

    “I will follow the law, and it is a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said.

    Harris was referring to a New York Times report published Wednesday that detailed how Trump appointees at the Bureau of Prisons provided various gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, to some detainees who requested them. In a letter to Congress in 2018, bureau officials said they are required by federal law to pay for an incarcerated person's surgery if it is deemed medically necessary.

    The Trump ad ends with the line: “Kamala is for she/her. President Trump is for you.”

    “Honestly, this ad from the Trump campaign is a bit like throwing stones when you live in a glass house,” Harris said.

    The Trump campaign responded to the Times report by arguing that the former president never advocated for the operations.

    “Well, you have to take responsibility for what happened in your administration,” Harris said.

    A break from Biden

    Harris delivered her most forceful break with Biden in the 2024 campaign, arguing that if elected she would not be a continuation of the outgoing president.

    Baier played video clips from Harris' appearances last week on “The View” and Stephen Colbert's “The Late Show” in which she offered no specific answers about how her presidency would differ from Biden's four-year term.

    “Let me be very clear: my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris told Baier. “And like every new president who takes office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences and fresh new ideas.”

    Harris said she represents “a new generation of leadership” and noted that she has not spent most of her career in Washington. She said she was inviting “ideas” from both Republicans and the business community. And she pointed to her campaign policies that differ from Biden's, such as her plans to promote affordable housing, offer tax breaks for small business owners and provide $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.

    Harris defended her campaign slogan, “Turning the Page,” as Baier suggested the message wasn’t coming from a sitting vice president.

    “We are turning the page on the last decade of being burdened with the kind of rhetoric from Donald Trump that was designed and implemented to divide our country and have Americans literally pointing fingers at each other,” Harris said.

    Harris, pressed about Biden's fitness, is sticking with Trump

    Harris on Wednesday defended Biden's mental capacity, saying he has the “judgment and experience” to carry out the president's duties when Baier asked Harris about his mental abilities.

    “Joe Biden is not on the ballot. Donald Trump does,” Harris said.

    Biden, 81, dropped out of the 2024 election in July after a disastrous debate performance raised concerns about his mental fitness and age.

    “They met with him at least once a week for three and a half years. “Didn’t you have any concerns?” asked Baier.

    “Thinking about sitting outside?”: Obama calls on black men to hesitate over Harris

    But Harris returned to Trump. The vice president has increasingly characterized him as unfit for office, unstable and dangerous. The Harris campaign has seized on Trump's previous refusal to release his medical records and his unwillingness to debate Harris a second time.

    In the vice president's most passionate moment of the interview, she fired back at Trump for repeatedly threatening to go after the “enemy from within.”

    “He talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” Harris said. “This is a democracy, and in a democracy the president of the United States should be willing to deal with criticism without saying he would lock people up for it.”

    The Trump campaign immediately criticized Harris' appearance on Fox News, saying she “can't give a clear answer to a single question because she has no answers.”

    “Kamala Harris’ interview with Bret Baier was a train wreck,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said in a statement.

    But Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign's communications director, told reporters the campaign achieved what it hoped for.

    “She was able to reach an audience that probably didn't know the arguments she was making on the ground, and she was also able to demonstrate her tenacity by standing up to a hostile interviewer,” Fallon said.

    Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison

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    Kathleen William
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