Kamala Harris talks to Bret Baier about immigration in Fox News interview | 2024 US Election News

From its early days, the interview was controversial.

On Wednesday, the Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with the Fox News network, as her campaign efforts to attract voters were frustrated by her Republican rival, Donald Trump.

But host Bret Baier wasted no time turning to the focus of their conversation: immigration.

He confronted her about a Trump campaign ad and a video of a bereaved mother testifying to Congress about the death of her child, allegedly by two undocumented immigrants.

Harris, however, has indicated that illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border was a concern long before he was elected vice president in 2021 — including under Trump, the former president.

“I think, obviously, that ad from the Trump campaign is throwing rocks if you live in a glass house,” Harris said in response to the Trump ad. “You have to take responsibility for what happens in your administration.”

Immigration is a major issue

Last week’s poll from the Pew Research Center found that US voters are ranking the economy as their top issue as they head to the November 5 election.

But rounding out the top five issues for voters was immigration, with 41 percent of those polled calling it “very important” and another 31 percent ranking it as “very important”.

Immigration has been a prominent pillar of both the Democratic and Republican party platforms, with both parties promising to reduce irregular border crossings.

But the Pew poll found that Trump appears to be in control of the issue, with 54% of respondents saying he has a good handle on the country’s immigration policies.

That’s an advantage Republicans have sought to suppress, as the presidential race draws to a close, with three weeks to go.

Still, Trump and Harris remain tied in the national polls. The polling aggregator, 270toWin, found that Harris has a slight lead, by a ratio of 49.5 percent to Trump’s 47.3 percent.

As he seeks to move forward, Harris’ campaign has appealed to moderate voters, as well as Republicans who are fed up with Trump’s leadership in the party.

Part of his strategy has been to play on endorsements from prominent Republicans such as former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Representative Liz Cheney, who has been a staunch critic of Trump on Capitol Hill.

He also pledged to appoint a Republican member to his cabinet if he is elected president.

Earlier Wednesday, for example, that tactic was on full display in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where Harris expressed his campaign’s split in opposition to what he described as Trump’s split.

“Today I am joined by more than 100 Republican leaders from across Pennsylvania and our country who support my candidacy for president of the United States,” he said to cheers from the crowd. “And I’m very happy with their support.”

Hot discussion

But his reception was much cooler in the Fox News studio, where Baier went into his immigration record.

His opening question got to the point of his interview: “How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has let into the country in the last three and a half years?”

The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden, under whom Harris served, has been criticized for overseeing a spike in unusual border crossings.

US Customs and Border Protection, for example, noted 2,475,669 “encounters” at the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023, although its latest figures showed a significant decrease in crossings.

Still, Biden has taken steps to limit asylum access to those who cross the border without permission.

“Bret, let’s get to the point,” Harris replied, as he and Baier struggled to talk to each other. “The bottom line is we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed.”

He blamed Trump for vetoing the immigration bill in January, which would have marked the first comprehensive reform in that area in decades.

“They want an American president who doesn’t play political games on this issue but focuses on fixing it,” said Harris.

He also played up his record as “attorney general of the border region”, prosecuting “drug, gun and human trafficking”.

But Baier criticized Harris for the high rate of border crossings under the Biden administration — and the alleged crimes that resulted.

Studies have consistently found undocumented immigrants commit fewer violent crimes than US-born citizens. But members of the American right, especially Trump and his running mate JD Vance, have raised unfounded fears that immigrants are a widespread threat to public safety.

Baier also raised a similar argument. “Jocelyn Nungaray, Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, these are young women who were brutally abused and killed,” Baier said, suggesting that immigration policy was to blame. “Do you owe those families an apology?”

“I am not saying, first of all, that these are painful cases. No question about that,” Harris replied. “I do not see the pain of the families of those who died because of a loss that should not have happened.”

“It is also true that, if you are a border guard [bill] it was passed nine months ago, it would have been nine months before we had more personnel at the border.”

He is distancing himself from Biden

Baier also confronted Harris with criticism that, if elected, his administration would be a continuation of Biden’s.

He mentioned that last week on the talk show The View, Harris revealed that he was sitting next to the outgoing president. When a host of The View asked him if there was anything he would do differently than Biden, Harris replied: “Nothing comes to mind.”

Harris was unequivocal in his response to Baier.

“Let me be very clear. “My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” he said. “And like every new president who comes into office, I will bring my life experience, my work experience and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership.”

Harris, 59, spent most of his career as a prosecutor, before being promoted to San Francisco district attorney in 2002 and California attorney general in 2011.

Only in 2017 did he come to Washington, DC, to serve as a member of the United States parliament, leaving his term early to become vice president. During Wednesday’s interview, he tried to turn that brief experience to his advantage.

“I, for one, am someone who has not spent much of my career in Washington, DC. I invite opinions, regardless of whether they come from the Republicans who support me, who just played with me on stage a few minutes ago, and the business sector and others who can contribute to the decisions I make,” he said.

Baier himself faced criticism after the interview. Another former aide to Harris, Symone Sanders Townsend, criticized her line of questioning on social media afterward.

He wrote: “The person he was talking to was not him. “Instead he was dismissive, misleading and answering questions from the Trump/Vance press release.”