It was a gamble for Kamala Harris to agree to this interview – Fox News is the place where no Democrat likes to go.
But in an election so unbelievably close, and with less than three weeks to go, she knew it was a gamble she needed to take.
She needs to reach a new audience. There are undecideds out there. They will decide this election.
Many are staunch Republicans who can’t stomach Donald Trump. Fox News is where she will find many of them.
Was it worth it? Did it pay off?
It was combative for sure. The interviewer, veteran Fox host Bret Baier, gave her a hard time; the sort of grilling she has consistently avoided through this campaign.
And at times you could see why. She was not agile in her answers. She was evasive. She did not articulate clear policy that will improve Americans lives. She deflected to Trump.
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Immigration was a dominant focus; the chaos that’s worsened on the southern border through her time as vice president.
Harris dodged a direct question on how many undocumented migrants had entered America.
She had no decent answer when asked about the three young women murdered by undocumented migrants over the last few years.
She could have seen this coming- apparently she didn’t.
There were moments where Harris looked like she knew it wasn’t going well. She lost her temper a few times. That reflected discomfort at the questions, but also allowed her to show her spikiness.
She stood up to many of Baier’s tough questions, often deflecting, yes, but with answers as combative as the lines thrown at her.
To the Fox viewer who’s heard she isn’t tough – she might have surprised. Her prosecutorial side came through, and remember, many of Fox News’ audience won’t have seen her perform like this.
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However, her defence of her record at the heart of the incumbent administration was tricky for her.
She was rattled and deflected – throwing it back on Trump.
“More than 70% of people think the country is on the wrong track,” Baier put to her.
“Why are they saying that if you are turning the page? You have been in office for three and a half years.”
Picking up on his sentence, Harris said: “And Donald Trump has been running for office since…”
Baier interrupted her: “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
She replied: “What I am talking about is that over the last decade… it is clear to me, and certainly the Republicans who are on stage with me, the former chief of staff to the president Donald Trump, former defence secretaries, national security advisor, and his vice president warn that he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous”.
“If that’s the case,” Baier interjected, “why is half the country supporting him? Why is he beating you in a lot of swing states? Why, if he’s as bad as you say, that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening?”
“This is an election for president of the United States. It’s not supposed to be easy.” Harris replied.
It was hardly a robust response.
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Her unwillingness to distance herself from President Biden partly reflects her lack of agility, but is also partly because she believes admitting faults would be damaging (I don’t think it would at this stage) – as well as the fact that she is proud of core Biden achievements.
Under the Biden-Harris presidency, inflation is down, unemployment is down, crime is down, record legislation has been passed.
That’s the Biden legacy she naturally wants to attach herself to.
Her deflections to Trump exposed insecurity of her own track record but also allowed her to warn of the dangers she sees in Trump.
This was interesting and reflects an urgent shift in strategy by the Democrats.
When she became the candidate, she moved away from Biden’s looped warnings about Trump being a “threat to democracy”. Instead, with her, it was all about “joy” and the future.
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Now, with less than three weeks to go and the polls so tight, she has pivoted back to the core of Biden’s “Trump’s a grave danger” argument.
The net outcome of this interview? Anyone she pulls in from the Fox News demographic is a win for her. She may have pulled some with her tough combative style.
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But against that, her answers on immigration and her record as vice president will have cemented some other Fox News waverers to Trump.
My hunch? She didn’t gain from this interview.
