On Fox News, Harris Proves She’s Tough

 

Jonathan Alter

Oct. 16, 2024, 9:00 p.m. ETOct. 16, 2024

Jonathan Alter Contributing Opinion Writer

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/15/opinion/thepoint#kamala-harris-fox-news-interview

 

On Fox News, Harris Proves She’s Tough

 

What does anyone ever remember after an important interview? Certainly not the specifics of what was discussed. Most people — especially swing voters — don’t watch live. They see clips and get a general sense of how it went.

 

By that standard, Kamala Harris did just fine in her Fox News interview with Bret Baier on Wednesday. She didn’t close the deal, but she did show that she could go into the lion’s den and come out looking tough, which was the whole point of agreeing to go on Fox in the first place.

 

Harris should have been better prepared to answer certain predictable questions. When shown the clip of her expressing support for federally financed gender-affirming surgery for migrants in prison, she said she was just following the law, as Donald Trump did in allowing such surgery. “Like throwing stones when you’re living in a glass house,” she said of his attacks.

 

Going on offense was necessary, but her response was insufficient. Baier backed into the question with the excuse that he was merely asking about a TV ad; he knew it had nothing to do with being president of the United States. Describing the issue as “really quite remote,” as Harris did, was too oblique of an answer to satisfy a skeptical audience.

 

But throughout most of the interview, Harris appeared forceful and in charge, which is what Americans want to see in their president. As Baier showed, she had struggled last week to answer the question of where she and the incumbent differed. Her new and better answer — “my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency” — will be the sound bite that lingers. It’s a serviceable one on a critical question for many voters.

 

Similarly, on immigration, she kept returning to Trump killing the bipartisan border deal earlier this year. This answer won’t win her the debate over immigration, but it does help cut into Trump’s significant polling advantage on the issue.

 

Harris did best when she reinforced the point that Trump is unfit to be president. When Baier showed a clip of Trump trying to back away from his attacks on fellow Americans as “the enemy within,” she pounced and drove home her point by forcefully arguing that Trump’s vice president and his national security team when he was president don’t want him anywhere near the Oval Office again. When she cited the concerns of Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I wished she had repeated his full comment about Trump: “He’s a fascist to his core.”

 

Even Americans who don’t know much history surely have heard of the guys grandpa fought against.

 

Most important, Harris reinforced her theme that she’s strong and that Trump, by dodging tough interviews and kissing up to dictators, is weak. Drawing that contrast is a good closing argument. On some level, people know that underneath their bluster, bullies are cowards.