Kamala Harris confronts Fox News host in tense interview

(CNN)- Vice President Kamala Harris turned questions about her nearly four years in office into attacks on her Republican rival Donald Trump’s record during a heated interview on Fox News on Wednesday, her first appearance on the conservative network to woo voters. Was .

Under pressure about violent crimes committed by border crossings and undocumented immigrants during Joe Biden’s presidency, Harris repeatedly criticized Trump for opposing a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year. When questioned about Biden’s mental acuity, he called Trump “unstable” and said, “We should all be concerned.”

Harris also accused Fox News of ignoring Trump’s most inflammatory rhetoric, including when the former president called his political rivals the “enemy within.”

“The thing is: He’s said it many times, and you and I know it. And you and I know that he has talked about using the American military against the American people. He has said that action will be taken against the people participating in peaceful protests. He’s talked about sending people to jail because they don’t agree with him,” an aggressive Harris said after Fox News host Brett Baier played a clip of Trump complaining about political harassment.

“This is a democracy,” he said. “And in a democracy, the president of the United States should be prepared to deal with criticism — without saying he’s going to send people to jail for doing so.”

The interview comes as Harris seeks to appeal to the small segment of undecided voters who have supported Republicans in the past but are unhappy with Trump. His campaign has focused its attention on those voters in recent days, with the vice president campaigning alongside former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, veterans of the Trump administration and others in the party who have distanced themselves from him because of the former president’s efforts. Have removed. 2020 elections.

Harris held an event Wednesday morning in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from the site where George Washington led 2,400 Continental troops across the Delaware River on Christmas night in 1776, a symbolic milestone in the American Revolution. The moment came as more than 100 Republicans endorsed his candidacy, including former Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and former Lieutenant Governor of Georgia Geoff Duncan.

In the Fox News interview, itself a window into how the vice president’s campaign is trying to reach a conservative-leaning audience, Harris distinguished herself more clearly than before from President Joe Biden, Said Byer that he would bring new ideas and experience to the White House.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris said.

“I represent a new generation of leadership,” he said. “For example, I am someone who has not spent most of my career in Washington. “I invite views from those Republican supporters who were on the stage with me a few minutes ago, and from the business sector and others who can contribute to the decisions I make.”

Baer asked Harris about the Trump campaign ad, which noted that Harris had said she supported providing gender-affirming care to prisoners in 2019, when she was a California senator and the Democratic presidential candidate. Were.

Asked whether she supported using taxpayer money to fund gender-affirming care of transgender prisoners, including currently undocumented immigrants, Harris said she would “follow the law.”

“I will follow the law, and this is a law that Donald Trump has actually followed. “You’re probably familiar with this, it’s now a public report that under the Donald Trump administration, these surgeries were available to people in the federal prison system out of medical need,” Harris said.

Harris was referencing a New York Times report that the Bureau of Prisons had provided gender-affirming services under the Trump administration.

“Frankly, I think the Trump campaign ad is a bit of a throwback to, you know, the thing that rocks when you live in a glass house,” he said.

Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told the Times: “Kamala Harris has strongly advocated for transgender prisoners to be able to undergo transition surgery, something President Trump has never done.”

Pressed again by Baer on whether she would advocate using taxpayer money for “gender reassignment surgery”, Harris again said she would “follow the law, as I think Donald Trump will say he did.”

When Harris repeatedly pointed to the bipartisan border security bill blocked by congressional Republicans earlier this year, when asked about the Biden administration’s handling of the US-Mexico border, she echoed her earlier Took a tough stance while remaining vague about some positions.

Baier pressed Harris on the Biden administration’s decision to repeal Trump-era policies, leading to a tense exchange between the two, sometimes speaking at the same time.

The host asked Harris’ estimate of how many undocumented immigrants the administration has released into the United States during Biden’s presidency.

“Just a number. Do you think it’s 1 million, 3 million?” Byer asked.

“Brett, let’s get to the point, okay? The issue is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed,” Harris said.

In many administrations, migrants have been released from custody after assessment when resources are limited because border facilities are not equipped to hold people for long periods of time. This situation has become more serious due to the increase in the number of migrants crossing the border in recent years.

Baier asked Harris about Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who died while jogging in February. The incident has often been cited by Republicans as an example of the administration’s handling of border security.

The suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, was arrested after illegally entering the United States in 2022, but was released pending further processing.

“First of all, these are tragic cases. There is no doubt about that. There is no doubt about that, and I cannot imagine the pain that the families of those victims must have experienced over a loss that should not have happened,” Harris said.

“It is also true that if border security had been approved nine months ago. “It would have been nine months had we had more border agents at the border, more support for the people who are working day and night trying to put everything together,” he said.

Harris said throughout the interview that the immigration system is broken, a position shared by Democrats and Republicans.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a perfect immigration system,” he said. “I’m clear, I think we all are, that this needs to be fixed.”

When asked about policy positions she held while running for president in 2019, including barring undocumented immigrants from benefits like health care, Harris remained vague, saying only that : “I am very clear that I will follow the law.”

Harris also said that if elected she would not decriminalize illegal border crossings.

“I do not believe in decriminalizing cross-border infiltration, and as Vice President, I have not done so,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that as president.”