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      Key lines from Kamala Harris vs. Fox News
    











			Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN
		



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  Updated
        3:34 PM EDT, Thu October 17, 2024
    





















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CNN
         — 
    


            Vice President Kamala Harris has not submitted to many interviews with journalists during her short presidential campaign, and certainly none with conservative media.
    

            In fact, when she sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier for nearly a half-hour on Wednesday, it was her first interview with the conservative network, part of a concerted effort to reinvigorate her campaign in the final sprint to Election Day and reach out to Fox News watchers leery of a vote for former President Donald Trump.
    









A poll worker hangs up signs at an early in-person voting site at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College on October 16 in Marshall, North Carolina.

Stephanie Scarbrough/AP




Related article
What are your questions about the election?




            The interview got off to a hot start with an exchange on immigration that went on for some time. Baier, continually interrupting, tried to get Harris to put a number on how many undocumented immigrants have been released into the country, while Harris instead tried to frame immigration as a larger problem that needs to be addressed.
    

BAIER: So, your Homeland Security secretary said that 85% of apprehensions …


HARRIS: Well, I’m not – but I’m not finished. I’m not finished. We have – but we have an immigration system that needs to be fixed.


BAIER: It’s a rough estimate of 6 million people have been released into the country. And let me just finish. I will get to the question. I promise you.


HARRIS: I was beginning to answer.


            Harris pointed out that President Joe Biden’s White House offered up an immigration bill as its first legislative proposal after taking office in 2021. Baier countered the House and Senate, then both controlled by Democrats, didn’t consider the bill.
    

            Harris pivoted to talking about a more recent bipartisan effort to pass a new immigration law that was torpedoed in Congress by opposition from Trump.
    

            Baier also asked if she’d like to apologize to three women, including Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who were killed by undocumented immigrants in recent years. Harris responded first with sympathy but no apology: 




        Let me just say, first of all, those are tragic cases. There’s no question about that. There’s no question about that. And I can’t imagine the pain that the families of those victims have experienced for a loss that should not have occurred. So, that is true.
    




            But then Harris added on:
    



        It is also true that if a border security had actually been passed nine months ago, it would be nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks who are working around the clock, trying to hold it all together …
    




            Baier interrupted Harris to play video of Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn Nungaray, was killed in Houston. The suspects, who have been charged with murder, are both Venezuelan and were in the US illegally. Nungaray says her daughter is dead because the men were not detained at the border.
    

BAIER: So, do you owe them an apology is what I’m saying?


HARRIS: I will tell you that I am so sorry for her loss. I am so sorry for her loss. Sincerely. But let’s talk about what is happening right now with an individual  (Trump) who does not want to participate in solutions. Let’s talk about that as well, in all fairness.


            Baier continued to hammer away on immigration, a top issue for many voters, particularly Republican and Republican-leaning voters. He asked when Harris, who at the outset of the Biden administration would say the border was secure, began to realize there was a problem. She said the immigration system and the border have been broken for multiple presidencies.
    



        We’ve had a broken immigration system transcending, by the way, Donald Trump’s administration, even before. Let’s all be honest about that. I have no pride, and saying that this is a perfect immigration system, I’ve been clear, I think we all are, that it needs to be fixed.
    




            Baier asked why the border agents union is supporting Trump. Harris responded:
    



        I think they’re frustrated, and I get it. They want support. They want support. And that’s what that border security bill would have done. These guys down at the border – these men and women, they’re working hard. They’re working around the clock. I get it.
    




            Despite her prior position of being open to decriminalizing undocumented border crossings as a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2019, Harris said she does not support that now.
    



        I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings, and I’ve not done that as vice president. I will not do that as president.
    




            When Baier asked if this was an evolution in her thinking, Harris pointed to her record as a prosecutor taking on transnational criminal organizations.
    



        I have spent a significant part of my career going after people who present a threat to the safety of the American people, and cross our border with the intent of doing us harm and cross our border illegally, and I will do that work as vice president. I take that work quite seriously.
    




            From immigration, Baier pivoted to the wedge topic of gender. He noted that Trump’s supporters have invested heavily in commercials that show Harris, again during that 2019 Democratic primary and in comments unearthed by CNN’s KFile, expressing a willingness to enable prisoners who need gender-reassignment surgery to obtain it.
    

BAIER: So, are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?


            Harris had clearly prepared for this question and responded by pointing at federal law in place during the Trump administration:
    



        I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed. You’re probably familiar with – now, it’s a public report, that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to, on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system. And I think frankly that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of like throwing, you know, stones when you’re living in a glass house.
    




            Baier said Trump didn’t advocate for that law and that no gender-transition surgeries occurred during his presidency.
    



        Well, you know what? You got to take – responsible for what happened in your administration.
    




            She’s right. That’s the cruel reality for presidents. It’s also going to be true for her as she defends the Biden administration’s economic and immigration record on Fox News. Harris said the ads about gender reassignment for prisoners, something that does not affect many voters, is a distraction.
    



        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, whereas – $20 million on that ad on an issue that – as it relates to the biggest issues that affect the American people is really quite remote.
    




            Baier played clips of Harris saying she would not change anything in Biden’s presidency and asked how hers would be different.
    



        Let me be very clear. My presidency will 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 and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership.
    




            Harris said most of her career has been outside of Washington and she will invite ideas from Republicans in office and focus on housing and small businesses.
    

            There was an extended exchange on Harris’ argument that her campaign represents an opportunity for Americans to “turn the page.” Baier pointed out she’s been in the current administration for more than three years. She said it would be a shift from the era in which Trump loomed over politics.
    



        “That is about turning the page on rhetoric that people are, frankly, exhausted of, Bret. People are exhausted.
    




            Baier interrupted her to point out that more than 70% of Americans in some polling say the country is on the “wrong track.” Isn’t part of that the Biden administration? Harris had been at an event with Republicans who are supporting her campaign, and she said exhaustion is bipartisan and it has to do with Trump.
    



        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 defense secretaries, national security adviser and his vice president – one, that he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader who spends full time demeaning and engaging in personal grievances, and it being about him instead of the American people.
    




            Why, then, Baier asked, does about half the country support Trump?
    



        This is an election for president of the United States. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s not supposed to be – it is not supposed to be a cakewalk for anyone.
    




            To which Baier tried to get her to insult the people who support Trump. “Are they misguided, the 50%? Are they stupid? What is it?”
    



        Oh, God, I would never say that about the American people. And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people. He’s the one who talks about an enemy within. An enemy within, talking about the American people. Suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.
    




            That was a reference to Trump’s recent insistence that the threat from Democrats, whom he calls the “enemy from within,” is greater than the threat from China or foreign actors. Baier played a short clip of Trump that seemed to downplay those words, but Trump has repeated them several times.
    

            Baier then turned to Harris’ recent argument that Trump is unstable, a flip of the script after earlier in the year when Republicans were attacking Biden for not being fit for another four years in office.
    



        (Trump’s) not stable. And we should all be concerned.
    




            To which Baier asked, “When did you first notice that President Biden’s mental faculties appeared diminished?” It was a question that seemed to shock Harris, whose jaw dropped. She then defended Biden as having the judgment and experience to make decisions. When Baier asked if there were concerns about Biden’s abilities raised, Harris said:
    



        Bret, Joe Biden is not on the ballot. And Donald Trump is.
    




            Harris said more people who worked with Trump in the White House have raised concerns about him.
    



        Even people who worked for him in the Oval Office, worked with him in the Situation Room and have said he is unfit and dangerous and should never be president of the United States again, including his former vice president, which is why the job was open for him to choose another running mate. So, that is a fact. That is a fact.
    




            After a brief exchange on foreign policy and how the US should keep Iran in check, the clock was ticking, and Baier started to wrap things up.
    

            “Madam Vice President, they’re wrapping me very hard here,” he said, adding, “I hope you got to say what you wanted to say about Donald Trump, there are a lot of things that …”
    



        There’s more to say, I have a lot more to say …
    




            But that was about it for the interview.
    



Harris confronts repeated interruptions during Fox interview

































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From the Article:

"Let me just say, first of all, those are tragic cases. There’s no question about that. There’s no question about that. And I can’t imagine the pain that the families of those victims have experienced for a loss that should not have occurred. So, that is true.

It is also true that if a border security had actually been passed nine months ago, it would be nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks who are working around the clock, trying to hold it all together…"

...

"We’ve had a broken immigration system transcending, by the way, Donald Trump’s administration, even before. Let’s all be honest about that. I have no pride, and saying that this is a perfect immigration system, I’ve been clear, I think we all are, that it needs to be fixed.

Baier asked why the border agents union is supporting Trump. Harris responded:

I think they’re frustrated, and I get it. They want support. They want support. And that’s what that border security bill would have done. These guys down at the border – these men and women, they’re working hard. They’re working around the clock. I get it."

...

"Despite her prior position of being open to decriminalizing undocumented border crossings as a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2019, Harris said she does not support that now.

I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings, and I’ve not done that as vice president. I will not do that as president.

When Baier asked if this was an [evolution in her thinking](https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/29/politics/kamala-harris-tim-walz-cnntv/index.html), Harris pointed to her record as a prosecutor taking on transnational criminal organizations.

I have spent a significant part of my career going after people who present a threat to the safety of the American people, and cross our border with the intent of doing us harm and cross our border illegally, and I will do that work as vice president. I take that work quite seriously."

...

*"BAIER: So, are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?*

Harris had clearly prepared for this question and responded by pointing at federal law in place during the Trump administration:

I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed. You’re probably familiar with – now, it’s a public report, that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to, on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system. And I think frankly that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of like throwing, you know, stones when you’re living in a glass house."

...

"Baier played [clips of Harris](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/08/politics/video/kamala-harris-the-view-interview-ana-navarro-digvid) saying she would not change anything in Biden’s presidency and asked how hers would be different.

Let me be very clear. My presidency will 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 and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership."