Kamala Harris, in her hostile interview on Fox News: ‘My presidency will not be a continuation of Biden’s presidency’

Kamala Harris had never faced such a dog-eat-dog interview as the one she gave to Fox News on Wednesday. From the outset, the host, Fox News’ chief political anchor Bret Baier, went for the Democratic candidate’s throat on the subject of immigration. He repeatedly interrupted her and raised issues that regularly crop up on the Trumpist agenda, sometimes resorting to videos prepared for the occasion, which included a few ambushes.

In addition to immigration, Baier underlined her ties to the current president, Joe Biden. The vice president hit back and delivered a good part of her own messages. “My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” she said, before attacking Donald Trump: “He’s not stable,” she said of him, highlighting how he refers to his political rivals as “the enemy within” and even hints that he will use the military to crush them.

While Trump is toughening his rhetoric and trying to mobilize his supporters, Harris is attempting to win over centrist voters and even Republicans who disagree with the former president. On Wednesday, she held an event in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, with former Republicans who support her. It was after that that she truly entered hostile territory: Fox News, the network that relentlessly broadcasts Trump’s most extremist messages.

In fact, Trump was furious when he learned that Fox News was going to interview his rival. The Republican candidate considers the network almost like his home, and he’s got a direct line to its star hosts. He calls unannounced at special moments, including the day when the Chicago Democratic convention crowned Harris as the party’s candidate. When the interview was announced, he said that Fox News had “totally lost its way” and stressed that the interviewer was one of the channel’s softer-on-the-left hosts.

The interview began with a spat about immigration, with the host continually interrupting the candidate. The first question was how many illegal immigrants had entered the country during Joe Biden’s term. Harris did not give a figure, but she could hardly explain herself in the face of the constant interruptions.

When she finally did, accusing Trump of boycotting a bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year that would have boosted border funding, the network hit back with the video of the mother of a murdered girl, Jocelyn Nungaray, who blamed it on the “open border policy of Biden and Harris.” “I am so sorry for her loss, sincerely,” she said. “But let’s talk about what is happening right now with an individual who does not want to participate in solutions.”

After immigration, the presenter moved on to trans people, another favorite topic for Fox News and Trump supporters, who shamelessly flaunt their transphobia and have launched advertising campaigns as if it were the country’s primary problem. Baier brought up some statements in which Harris supported gender transition surgeries for prisoners and asked her if she was still in favor of using taxpayers’ money on these treatments for inmates, including illegal immigrants. Harris said she would follow federal law and noted that this is a law that Trump actually applied while he was in office.

Harris then attacked the Republican campaign. “He spent $20 million on those ads trying to create a sense of fear in the voters, because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people.”

Harris then tried to outline some of her economic proposals. “My plans for the economy will strengthen the economy,” she said, citing support from 16 Nobel laureates and other experts. “[Trump’s] would make them weaker, would ignite inflation and invite a recession by the middle of next year.” The interviewer then asked her why the polls say that voters trust Trump more than her on the economy. Harris took refuge in the fact that experts prefer her plan and said that her rival’s plan would grant tax cuts to billionaires and the largest corporations.

Turn the page

“I do believe the American people are ready to turn the page on the divisiveness and the type of rhetoric that has come out of Donald Trump,” Harris said, to which the journalist tried to hit back with another weak point in her argument, showing her answers from previous interviews in which she said she could not think of anything she would have done differently from Biden.

“Let me be clear. My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency. Like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, and my professional experiences and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership,” she replied, pointing out that she has not spent most of her career in Washington, something that is demonized by the conservative media. The journalist replied: “You have talked about turning the page, but if you have been vice president for three and a half years, what do you want to turn the page on?”

Harris was quick to react: “First, turning the page from the last decade in which we have 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. A rhetoric and an approach to leadership that suggests that the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down rather than on who you lift up,” she said.

Pressed by the interviewer, Harris went on the attack against Trump. She recalled that senior members of his administration have publicly stated that he is unfit for office, unstable, and dangerous. “People are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader and who spends full time demeaning and engaging in personal grievances,” she said.

The host asked her why it is that so many people support him. “Are they stupid?” he said. “I would never say that about the American people,” Harris replied. “He’s the one who talks about an enemy within… suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.”

The interview ended with questions about Iran, which the Democrat describes as the United States’ main enemy. She defended U.S. assistance for Israel to defend itself from the latest Iranian missile attack. “I was there, in the crisis room,” she stressed. Harris is presenting herself as a candidate for change, but she also wants to demonstrate that she has experience in international crises.

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