Kamala Harris struggles in a heated interview with the Fox News host

CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris turned questions about her nearly four years in office into attacks on Republican rival Donald Trump's record in a heated interview Wednesday on Fox News, her first appearance on the conservative network as she courts disaffected Republican and independent voters.

Harris has come under pressure over border crossings and violent crimes committed by undocumented immigrants during Joe Biden's presidency and repeatedly criticized Trump for opposing a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year. When asked about Biden's mental state, she called Trump “unstable” and said, “We should all be worried.”

Harris also accused Fox News of glossing over Trump's most inflammatory rhetoric, including the former president calling political rivals “the enemy within.”

“Here’s the bottom line: He’s repeated it many times, and you and I both know it. And 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 protest peacefully. “He talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” an animated Harris said after Fox News host Bret Baier played a clip of Trump complaining about political persecution.

“This is a democracy,” she said. “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.”

With the interview, Harris wants to appeal to a small group of undecided voters who have supported Republicans in the past but are uncomfortable with Trump. Her campaign has targeted those voters in recent days — the vice president campaigned alongside former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, veterans of the Trump administration and other members of the party who have clashed with the former president over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election to tilt, separate.

Harris held an event earlier Wednesday in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania – a site not far from where George Washington led 2,400 Continental soldiers across the Delaware River on Christmas Night 1776, a symbolic moment of the American Revolution – with more than 100 Republicans attending they supported candidacies including former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and former Georgia Gov. Geoff Duncan.

In the Fox News interview — itself a window into how the vice president's campaign has tried to reach a right-leaning audience — Harris also differentiated herself more clearly than in the past from President Joe Biden and told Baier that they were bringing new ideas to the table would experiences in the White House.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris said.

“I represent a new generation of leadership,” she said. “I, for example, am someone who hasn't spent most of my career in Washington, DC. I invite ideas, whether from the Republicans who support me and who were on stage with me just a few minutes ago, or from business and others who can contribute to the decisions I make.”

Baier asked Harris about a Trump campaign ad that noted that Harris supported gender-equitable care for prisoners in 2019, when she was a California senator and the Democratic presidential candidate.

Asked if she currently supports using taxpayer dollars to fund gender-affirming care for transgender inmates, including undocumented immigrants, Harris said she would “follow the law.”

“I will follow the law, and it is a law that Donald Trump actually followed. You probably know that there is now a public report that under the Donald Trump administration, these surgeries were available to people in the federal prison system when medically necessary,” Harris said.

Harris was referring to a New York Times report that outlined that the Bureau of Prisons provided gender-affirming services under the Trump administration.

“I think, honestly, this ad from the Trump campaign is a little like throwing stones when you live in a glass house,” she said.

Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told the Times: “Kamala Harris has advocated vigorously for transgender prisoners to be able to receive transition surgeries, something President Trump never did.”

Baier pressed again on whether she would support using taxpayer money for “sex reassignment surgery,” and Harris again said she “would follow the law, just as I think Donald Trump would say he would.”

When asked about the Biden administration's handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, Harris repeatedly turned to the bipartisan border security bill that was blocked by Republicans in Congress earlier this year.

Baier pressed Harris early on the Biden administration's decision to repeal Trump-era policies, which amounted to a heated exchange between the two that at times involved cajoling.

He asked how many undocumented immigrants Harris would estimate the administration has released into the United States during Biden's presidency.

“Just a number. Do you think it’s 1 million, 3 million?” Baier asked.

“Bret, let’s just get down to business, okay? The point is we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed,” Harris said.

In several administrations, migrants have been released from detention after review when resources have been stretched because border facilities were not equipped to hold people for long periods of time. This has been exacerbated in recent years by the flood of migrants crossing the border.

Baier asked Harris about Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed while jogging in February. The incident was often cited by Republicans as an example of the administration's handling of border security.

The suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, was arrested in 2022 after illegally entering the United States but was released pending further processing.

“Firstly, these are tragic cases. That is beyond question. There is no doubt about that, and I cannot imagine the pain that the families of these victims have suffered over a loss that should not have happened,” Harris said.

“It is also true if border security had actually been passed nine months ago. It would have taken nine months before we would have had more border guards at the border, more support for the people working around the clock to hold everything together,” she added.

Harris insisted throughout the interview that the immigration system is broken – a position held by both Democrats and Republicans.

“I’m not proud to say this is a perfect immigration system,” she said. “It was clear to me — I think it’s clear to all of us — that the problem needed to be fixed.”

When asked about the policy positions she took when running for president in 2019, including whether undocumented immigrants would be excluded from benefits like health care, Harris remained vague, saying only: “I'm fully aware of that that I will abide by the law.”

Harris also said that if elected, she would not decriminalize illegal border crossings.

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