The Memo: Harris heads to Fox, facing threats and opportunities

Vice President Harris faces another critical moment in her campaign Wednesday, when she will sit for an interview with Fox News.

The interview will be conducted by Bret Baier, one of the network’s most widely respected anchors. It will air at 6 p.m. EDT during his regular show, having been recorded immediately beforehand.

On social media on Tuesday, Baier pushed back against critics who cast aspersions over the fact that the interview was not live. He insisted that the conversation would air “as live” — meaning without edits and uninterrupted.

The bigger question, of course, is how the exchange will go for Harris.

Her performances in unscripted settings can be uneven.

One of the high points of her campaign to date was her performance in the Sept. 10 debate with former President Trump, which she was widely seen as having won. 

On the other hand, her showing in a spate of recent television interviews — most notably CBS News’s “60 Minutes” — was adequate at best, and brought back some memories of her underwhelming run for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

There are two schools of thought on her decision to do an interview with Fox News.

One is that Harris is attempting to reach and convert conservative voters who are skeptical of Trump, perhaps because of his personal comportment, hyperbole and belligerent rhetoric.

The other theory is that Harris doesn’t realistically think many members of the Fox audience can be won over to her cause but has calculated that, by sitting down with Baier, she can defang attacks that she avoids rigorous or adversarial interviews.

After President Biden decided to abandon his reelection bid on July 21, Harris did not do a major sit-down TV interview until Aug. 29 — a mild exchange with CNN’s Dana Bash.

Among sources who spoke with this column, there was near unanimity that Harris would have real difficulty swaying Fox-watching conservatives in her direction.

“It’s hard” for Harris to win over those voters, said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “It’s possible to switch voters, but it’s more of an attitude that she is pushing. It’s pushing back on the allegation from Trump that she is not smart and doesn’t have the courage to do these interviews.

“She is going into the lion’s den,” Sheinkopf added approvingly.

Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican strategist, said there were opportunities for Harris in showing her willingness to do a Fox interview — so long as it goes acceptably from the vice president’s perspective. 

But he also questioned whether the strategy would work for her if she is really hoping to win over Trump-skeptical conservatives.

“Is she going to make arguments against Trump? And if she does, how do those arguments resonate with the audience that tunes into that channel? The arguments she makes on MSNBC are not going to be the arguments that would work on Fox,” Mackowiak noted.

“Are there Trump skeptics tuning into Fox to begin with? I think the number there is probably pretty low,” he added.

Still, the Fox interview is only one part of a broader strategy from the Harris campaign — one that has showcased Trump-critical Republicans at every opportunity.

Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) was given a prime speaking slot on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — perhaps the most ardent critic of Trump within the GOP during her time on Capitol Hill — endorsed Harris and appeared on the campaign trail with the vice president earlier this month.

Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, also endorsed Harris — a startling move to those who remember the elder Cheney’s role as a staunch conservative and a leading promoter of the Iraq War during former President George W. Bush’s time in the White House.

But the Harris campaign is plainly holding out hope that peeling away even a modest number of Republicans from Trump could make all the difference in such a tight election. 

Neither candidate currently has an advantage of more than 2 percentage points in any of the seven battleground states, according to polling averages maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ. 

By contrast, advocates of Harris’s “courting-the-center” approach note that former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley continued to rack up support in the double digits in some GOP primaries this year, even after she had suspended her campaign. If the vice president were even to win 1 Haley voter in 10 to her side, that could prove vital.

Outside observers note that Harris might win some brownie points with such voters simply by giving an interview to Fox News.

“This one makes a lot of sense,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor emeritus who specializes in political communications, referring to the decision by Harris to grant the interview.

“Bret Baier is in many ways a traditional anchor and newscaster, and so she’ll get a fair break from him. And she can score points by saying she showed up on Fox.”

At the same time, Berkovitz emphasized, there are considerable risks for Harris, given that she has not always shone in sit-down interviews. 

Early in her vice presidency, an awkward and defensive interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt made headlines for all the wrong reasons for Harris.

Baier “seems fair and rational,” Berkovitz noted. “On the other hand, he is hopefully going to ask her some real questions — and she tends to not do so well with real questions.”

When all is said and done, the decision to do a Fox interview is a calculated risk for Harris.

We’ll know soon enough if it pays off.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.