By Tyler O'Neil, The Daily Signal | October 16, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, repeatedly dodged questions from Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday. Baier pressed her on immigration, taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries, and President Joe Biden’s mental acuity, among other key issues.
Here are four key takeaways.
1. Immigration
Baier began the interview by asking Harris about immigration policy. He directly asked her whether she regretted Biden’s reversal via executive orders of his former President Donald Trump‘s border policies.
“When you came into office, your administration immediately reversed a number of Trump border policies, most significantly the policy that required illegal immigrants to be detained through deportation, either in the U.S. or in Mexico, and you switched that policy. They were released from custody [while] awaiting trial,” he noted. “Included in those were a large number of single men, adult men, who went on to commit heinous crimes.”
“So, looking back, do you regret the decision to terminate Remain in Mexico at the beginning of your administration?” Baier asked.
Harris declined to answer the question, instead emphasizing the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, a bill Biden championed that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. That bill did not progress to the House or Senate floor.
Baier attempted to return to the question. He named women and girls who have died at the hands of illegal aliens who had been released into the country under the Biden-Harris administration. Harris replied that these “tragic cases … should not have occurred,” but she then immediately pivoted to touting the immigration bill Biden supported early this year—a bill that critics say would have cemented Biden’s open-border policies into law.
Baier responded by quoting Harris’ previous statements that “the border is secure” and asked her when she thought immigration became a crisis. She responded by claiming the crisis predated Trump, which suggests that she was lying when she had previously called the border “secure.”
The Fox anchor proceeded to ask her about her 2019 policy positions, when she ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primary. “You supported allowing immigrants in the country illegally to apply for driver’s licenses, to qualify for free tuition at universities, to be enrolled in free health care,” he noted. “Do you still support these things?”
Harris again dodged the question, saying, “I will follow the law.”
Baier asked her why she selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has signed some of those same provisions into law, if she does not support them. She again repeated, “We must support and enforce federal law.”
2. Transgender Surgeries for Prisoners
Baier played a clip from a Trump campaign ad attacking Harris for supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for federal prison inmates.
“Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” he asked.
“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris replied. She was referencing a New York Times report that Trump appointees at the Bureau of Prisons, a Justice Department division, provided cross-sex hormones for inmates who requested them. The report cites a February 2018 memo to Congress in which bureau officials wrote that federal law obligated them to pay for a prisoner’s surgery if it were deemed medically necessary.
That report notes, however, that a legal battle postponed the first surgery done on an inmate until 2022, when Biden and Harris were in office.
“The Trump aides say that he never advocated for that prison policy and no gender transition surgeries happened during his presidency,” Baier responded.
“You’ve got to take responsibility for what happened in your administration,” Harris replied.
Baier twice pressed her on the issue, and she again dodged, saying she would “follow the law.”
3. Not ‘a Continuation’ of Biden
Baier played clips from previous interviews in which Harris said she would not have done anything differently than Biden in the past 3-1/2 years. He then asked her, “Nothing comes to mind that you would do differently?”
“Let me be very clear: My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris replied. “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.”
Yet Harris declined to mention any specific policy she would change, besides repeating her plan for giving down payment assistance to first-time home buyers and extending a tax deduction for small businesses.
4. Biden’s ‘Mental Faculties’?
Baier asked Harris about Biden’s mental acuity, a particularly salient question given Biden’s late-stage withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. It appears that Biden, who repeatedly insisted he would not leave the race following a poor debate performance against Trump in June, had been pressured to withdraw in favor of Harris.
“You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game,” Baier noted. “When did you first notice that President Biden’s mental faculties appeared diminished?”
“I have watched from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people,” she replied.
When pressed again, Harris said, “Joe Biden is not on the ballot, and Donald Trump is.”
“You met with him at least once a week for 3-1/2 years. You didn’t have any concerns?” Baier pressed.
“The American people have a concern about Donald Trump,” Harris replied.
Tyler O'Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of two books: "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center," and "The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government."
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