3 takeaways from Kamala Harris’ heated Fox News interview

As part of a media blitz over the last two weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for numerous interviews, whether on “60 Minutes” or “The Late Show,” where Harris appeared friendly with the media. But her latest sit-down with Fox News host Bret Baier on Wednesday was a tense conversation about the border and Harris’ criticism of her opponent.
The interview lasted 27 minutes, and Harris and Baier talked over each other several times. Their exchange was especially fiery on immigration policy. Harris dodged certain questions, and resorted to pointing fingers at her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Trump has also been invited to sit down with “60 Minutes,” but he declined. In a Truth Social post Monday, he named Fox News guests and contributors and accused them of being mouthpieces for the Democrats. He said this negatively impacts the presidential election.
Here are three highlights from Harris’ interview on Fox News.
Fox News played a clip of Harris’ recent interviews, where she failed to distinguish herself from President Joe Biden. In her interview with “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” earlier this month, Harris, in response to whether her administration would be different from the current administration, said, “I’m obviously not Joe Biden.”
“So that would be one change … but also, I think it’s important to say, with 28 days to go, I’m not Donald Trump,” she added.
In response to this criticism, Harris told Fox News anchor Baier, “Let me be very clear: My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency.”
The vice president continued, “And, like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership.”
Baier asked Harris about the estimated number of migrants released into the U.S. over the last three and a half years. Harris refused to say a number and attempted to blame it on “a broken immigration system” in need of repair.
Baier further pressed her, saying her administration reversed several Trump-era border policies, including doing away with the “Remain In Mexico” policy that requires a migrant to wait for a hearing in Mexico.
In response, Harris said the first bill the Biden-Harris admiration offered Congress was the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. Dismissing interjections from Baier, the vice president said that while Democrats are actively working to find solutions, Republicans, led by Trump, voted against a bill that would hire 1,500 new border patrol agents. The bill would also provide resources for judges taking on asylum cases.
Baier refuted her statement and said that a handful of Democrats also voted against the bill in question, which, he added, wouldn’t have solved the issue of the overwhelming number of migrants crossing the border.
The vice president, contrasting herself with her opponent, said her administration will turn a page “on rhetoric that people are frankly exhausted of.”
“Turning the page from the last decade in which we’ve been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump that has been designed and implemented to divide our country and have Americans literally point fingers at each other,” she said.
The way Trump uses rhetoric “suggests that the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down.”
Harris then painted Trump as the enemy from within, and suggested he is “dangerous” and “unfit to serve.”
“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. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” Harris told the Fox News host.
“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’d lock people up for doing it,” she said.