5 takeaways from a contentious Bret Baier, Harris interview

Vice President Harris sat for her toughest interview yet since becoming the Democratic nominee, getting peppered with questions from Fox News’s Bret Baier on Wednesday.

The two sparred frequently, at times speaking over each other on the matters of immigration, President Biden’s mental fitness, transgender prisoners and cases involving alleged murders by migrants.

Harris took a risk by appearing on the conservative network just three weeks before Election Day as part of a recent media blitz in which she’s trying to cobble together enough of a coalition to beat former President Trump in November. 

Here are five takeaways from the Baier interview.

Harris faces toughest interview so far

Harris and Baier sparred from the outset when Baier asked about the number of migrants who have entered the country illegally since the start of the Biden administration. The Fox News host followed up several times with questions related to immigration, a subject that took up nearly half the airtime.

Multiple times throughout the interview, they had a back-and-forth over Harris not responding to a question or pivoting on an answer, at times talking over each other. 

At one point, Baier asked Harris what she made of such a large contingent of Americans expressing support for Trump, while the two candidates remained largely neck and neck in polling, asking her, “Are they stupid?”

“Oh God, I would never say that about the American people,” she responded. “He’s the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people.”

Harris also pushed back when Baier tried to move on from a question regarding Trump’s “enemy from within” remarks about his own rivals at home.

Baier played a clip from a town hall that aired earlier Wednesday on Fox News’s “The Faulkner Focus,” during which Trump said, “I’m not threatening anybody.”

“That clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy from within. … That’s not what you just showed,” Harris told Baier. “You didn’t show that, and here is the bottom line: He has repeated it multiple times, and you and I both know that, and you and I both know he has talked about turning the military on the American people.”

Harris was referring to Trump’s remarks in another interview in which he called his Democratic opponents the “enemy within” and suggested the military could quell unrest, which drew backlash and became a centerpiece of one of Harris’s campaign rallies.

Baier puts Harris on defense over immigration

Baier pressed Harris on the Biden administration’s decision to end a Trump-era policy that forced potential asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico to wait out the results of their case in U.S. immigration court, to which Harris responded by noting the first proposed piece of legislation by Biden was an immigration bill. 

Baier also brought up Rachel Nungaray, Laken Riley and Rachel Morin, who were all young women whose alleged killers are men who entered the country illegally, and he asked the vice president if their families are owed an apology.

“Those are tragic cases, there’s no question about that,” Harris responded, adding that she was “sincerely” sorry for the families’ losses.

Baier also asked about her 2019 stance that border crossings should be decriminalized, one of several issues the vice president has been accused of flip-flopping on. She told Baier she does not believe in decriminalizing border crossings.

“I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings, and I have not done that as vice president, and I would not do that as president,” she said.

Harris addresses tenure as VP, ‘turning the page’

Baier played a clip from Harris’s interview on “The View,” during which she said there was nothing that “comes to mind” when it comes to what she could have done differently from Biden in the last nearly four years.

“Let me be very clear: My presidency would not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency. And like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences and fresh new ideas,” she told Baier. “I represent a new generation of leadership.”

She noted that she has not spent the majority of her career in Washington, as Biden has.

When Baier pressed her on why one of her campaign promises is to “turn the page” when she has been the sitting vice president for more than three years, Harris pivoted to talking about Trump.

“Well first of all, turning the page from the last decade in which we’ve 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,” she said.

Baier then reiterated that she has been vice president for three and a half years, questioning why people think the country is on the wrong track. 

“Come on, you and I both know what I’m talking about,” she said.

Baier responded, “What are you talking about?”

“Over the last decade it is clear to me … he is unfit to serve, he is unstable, he is dangerous and people are exhausted,” she said, referring to Trump.

Harris fields question on transgender prisoners

Baier played a Trump campaign ad that argues Harris supports taxpayer-funded gender-affirmation surgeries. He then asked if she still supports inmates having access to medical procedures to transition to another gender.

“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” she said, referring to a New York Times report that people in the federal prison system were provided gender-affirming care under the Trump administration.

“I think, frankly, that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of throwing stones when you’re living in a glass house,” she added. “You have to take responsibility for what happened in your administration.”

When Baier pressed her on whether she would advocate for taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries, she said, “I would follow the law.” She added that the Trump ads are an effort to “try to create a sense of fear in the voters.”

Harris sidesteps Biden’s mental acuity

Baier asked the vice president about when she first noticed Biden’s “mental facilities appeared diminished.” 

Harris, in turn, defended the president by saying “he has the judgment and experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people.”

But, she quickly added that Biden is not on the ballot, while Trump is, suggesting that it is instead the former president who is unfit for office.

Harris has been criticized by Republicans for staying loyal to Biden while he was facing a pressure campaign from other top Democrats to drop out of the 2024 race, which he ultimately did.

“Trump is on the ballot,” she said.

Baier replied, “You met with him at least once a week for the past three and a half years. … You didn’t have any concerns?”

She sidestepped the question, saying, “I think the American people have a concern about Donald Trump,” adding that Trump critics, including those who worked for him, have said he is unfit and dangerous.

Brett Samuels contributed.