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PoliticsBiden administrationThe FixThe BriefsPollingDemocracy in AmericaElection
2024
PoliticsBiden administrationThe FixThe BriefsPollingDemocracy in AmericaElection
2024


FIVE KEY MOMENTS FROM KAMALA HARRIS’S HEATED FOX NEWS INTERVIEW


KAMALA HARRIS TOOK PART IN AN ADVERSARIAL INTERVIEW WITH FOX NEWS DISCUSSING
ISSUES FROM IMMIGRATION TO GENDER-AFFIRMING SURGERY. HERE ARE SOME OF THE KEY
MOMENTS.

6 min
2166

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a rally in Washington Crossing, Pa.,
on Wednesday. (Michelle Gustafson for The Washington Post)
Skip to main content
 1. Immigration clash
 2. Gender surgery for prisoners
 3. What she’d do differently from Biden
 4. Trump’s rhetoric
 5. Biden’s mental acuity

By Adela Suliman
October 17, 2024 at 9:55 a.m. EDT

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for her first formal appearance on the Fox
News Network on Wednesday night, hoping to reach voters across the aisle weeks
before Election Day.

The 30-minute interview with Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier often got
combative, with the pair speaking over each other at times, as they tangled over
topics from immigration to what Harris would do differently from President Joe
Biden, to former president Donald Trump.



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Here are five key moments from the interview.


IMMIGRATION CLASH

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Baier began with the hot-button issue of immigration — a key topic for many
Republican voters — asking Harris to estimate “how many illegal immigrants” the
Biden administration had “released into the country” and asking Harris if she
would apologize to the families of women who were killed by undocumented
immigrants. He also showed a video of a woman blaming the Biden administration
for her daughter’s death.

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“I’m so sorry for her loss — sincerely,” Harris said. She acknowledged that the
American immigration system needed “to be fixed,” while highlighting several
times that Trump had blocked a tough bipartisan border security bill, framing
Trump as someone who “preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a
problem.”

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She also said, “I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings, and I’ve
not done that as vice president, and I will not do that as president.”

The interjections from the host were thick and fast, something Harris addressed
pointedly several times. At one point, as she and Baier spoke over each other,
she said, “You have to let me finish, please,” and, “I’m in the middle of
responding to the point you’re raising, and I’d like to finish.”


GENDER SURGERY FOR PRISONERS

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Baier played a Trump campaign ad that featured remarks Harris made earlier in
her career expressing support for using taxpayer dollars for gender-affirming
surgeries for prison inmates. He asked Harris if she still supported the policy.

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“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,”
Harris responded.

“Under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a
medical-necessity basis to people in the federal prison system,” she said,
likening his campaign ad to “throwing … stones when you’re living in a glass
house.”

She accused Trump of trying to “create a sense of fear in the voters” and said
this is a “remote” issue for most Americans.

Baier noted that Trump’s aides said he’d never advocated for that prison policy,
and pressed Harris on whether she would still support using public funds for the
policy. Harris sidestepped, retorting that Trump would rather waste money on
that ad than focus on issues affecting Americans.

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with Fox News for an interview on Oct. 16.
Here’s what she said. (Video: HyoJung Kim/The Washington Post)


WHAT SHE’D DO DIFFERENTLY FROM BIDEN

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Baier pressed Harris on how her policies would differ from Biden’s, playing a
clip from her recent interview on ABC’s “The View” when she said there was “not
a thing that comes to mind” she would do differently than Biden did. Later in
the same interview, she reiterated a promise to appoint a Republican to her
Cabinet if elected.

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He noted that one of her campaign slogans said it was time to “turn the page,”
and asked: “You’ve been vice president for 3½ years. What are you turning the
page from?”

Harris sought to differentiate herself from Biden more firmly than she had
previously, saying, “Let me be very clear, my presidency will not be a
continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency.”

She added that she had not spent the majority of her career in Washington, and
would bring her own personal and professional experiences as well as “fresh and
new ideas” to the White House.


TRUMP’S RHETORIC

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Harris was impassioned as she sparred with Baier over Trump’s rhetoric, which
she said had left much of the public feeling “exhausted.”

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Baier asked: “Why, if he’s as bad as you say, half of this country is now
supporting this person?” He then asked whether she believed his supporters were
“misguided” or “stupid.”

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Harris replied that she would “never say that about the American people” and
that “he’s the one who talks about an ‘enemy within’ … suggesting he would turn
the American military on the American people.”

Baier then played a clip he described as Trump’s response to that claim — an
earlier town hall with Fox, where Trump accused the government of “phony
investigations” against him.

Harris accused Fox of cherry-picking the video. “I’m sorry and with all due
respect, that clip is not what he has been saying about the ‘enemy within’ that
he has repeated … That’s not what you just showed.

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“You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on
the American people. … He has talked about locking people up because they
disagree with him,” she said.


BIDEN’S MENTAL ACUITY

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Baier asked Harris when she had first noticed that Biden’s “mental faculties
appeared diminished” and why she had said he was capable of continuing to do the
job of president before he dropped out of the race.

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She did not directly answer the question, instead saying she had “watched from
the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the
experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on
behalf of the American people.”

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“Joe Biden is not on the ballot, and Donald Trump is,” she added, flipping the
conversation back to Trump and calling him “unfit” for office.

The interview remained heated even as it came to a close. As they sparred over
her position on Iran, Baier said, “We’re talking over each other, I apologize,”
later adding: “I hope you got to say what you wanted to say about Donald Trump.
There are a lot of things that people want to learn about you and your
policies.”

Harris, meanwhile, said: “I would like that we would have a conversation that is
grounded in full assessment of the facts. … I think this interview is supposed
to be about the choices that your viewers should be presented about this
election, and the contrast is important.”

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