Sparks fly as Kamala Harris gives her first Fox interview

Democratic White House candidate Kamala Harris conducted her first interview with Fox News, repeatedly arguing with the host about transgender prisoners, illegal immigration and President Biden's mental fitness.

During the combative 25-minute session, the US vice president and Bret Baier frequently interrupted each other, with Harris saying at one point: “I'm just about to respond to the point you're making and I would like to finish.” become.”

Their push into a network that hosts some of their most vocal media critics comes at a time when opinion polls show that a majority of male voters support their Republican rival Donald Trump ahead of next month's election and that this gender gap is even theirs Core constituency affects coalition, including younger voters, blacks and Hispanics.

Trump, meanwhile, appeared on Fox on Wednesday at a town hall-style event with an all-female audience as he worked to address his own political vulnerability with female voters.

The vice president's interview began on the topic of immigration, with Baier playing her an emotional clip showing the mother of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl who was killed by a migrant who illegally crossed the border into and out of the United States the country was released arrest.

Asked whether she should apologize to the families of Americans killed by illegal immigrants, Harris replied: “I'm so sorry for your loss.”

“These are tragic cases,” she added. “There’s no question about that.”

Baier also asked about her position in 2019 that border crossings should be decriminalized. This is one of several issues on which the vice president has been accused of changing his mind.

Harris said, “I don't believe in decriminalizing border crossings and I didn't do that as vice president and I wouldn't do that as president.”

She continued to blame Trump for persuading Republicans in Congress to vote against a border deal earlier this year, saying, “He chose to address a problem rather than solve a problem.”

Harris was asked about taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for prisoners, a policy she has said she supports in the past.

Asked whether as president she would advocate for taxpayer money to be used for this purpose, she replied: “I will follow the law.”

When asked for more details, she said such operations on prisoners were possible during Trump's time in office.

However, no transgender surgeries took place in the federal prison system during Trump's presidency.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons told BBC Verify that two federal inmates underwent gender reassignment surgery – the first in 2022 and the second in 2023.

When Harris was running as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2019, she checked a box in a civil rights group questionnaire that said that as president she would use her authority to ensure that transgender detainees in prisons and immigration facilities had access to “treatment in connection with sexual transition, including all necessary surgical measures”.

The Harris campaign said this is “not what she is proposing or running for in the 2024 election.”

After Fox played a clip from an interview she gave last week in which she said she wouldn't change “anything” about the Biden-Harris administration's actions, Harris went further than before and tried to maintain some distance to create between herself and her boss.

“Let me be very clear that my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” she said Wednesday, without elaborating.

Baier pressed Harris on her belief that American voters do not want to “go back to Trump” and whether people who continue to support the former president are “stupid” or “misinformed.”

“I would never say that about the American people,” Harris replied.

Baier also pressed her on why one of her campaign promises is to “turn the tide” when she has been vice president for more than three years.

Harris turned to criticism of Trump.

Harris deflected questions from Baier about Biden's mental state.

Asked when she first noticed that Biden's mental abilities “seemed diminished,” Harris said: “Joe Biden, I've watched from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment … and the experience “To do exactly what he has done to make very important decisions on behalf of the American people.”

As Harris elaborated on the issue, he responded, “Joe Biden is not on the ballot, but Donald Trump is.”