Harris holds up during rude questioning on Fox
Was she wise to do the interview?
There’s never been any doubt about what a sham news operation Fox is, but if there is, which there isn’t, all doubt was removed last night.
Vice-president Kamala Harris – to her credit – sat down for a half-hour interview on Fox. It’s remarkable that less than three weeks before the election, she took the risk of sitting for an interview her campaign knew would be hostile.
And boy was it hostile. And rude. And contentious. And, at times, heated.
Why did she do it? Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg goes on Fox all the time and is skilled at jousting with the biased questions he gets. When asked why he goes on Fox, Buttigieg said recently that Americans who rely solely on Fox News can’t be blamed for not knowing about Democratic priorities if they never hear about them. So, he sees going on Fox as an opportunity to tell Fox fans facts they may not know.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier is reportedly as close to a “legitimate” news anchor as Fox News has in its stable of GOP sycophants. But it’s clear that he saw his job last night as being the bully who would push around Kamala Harris and then retire to the neighborhood bar for a round of high-fives with his Trump-loving fans. “You showed her, Bret! Let me buy you a beer.”
Questions straight from the Trump playbook
What a pathetic excuse for a journalist. I’m all for hard-hitting interviews with those seeking political office, but that doesn’t give a journalist the right to repeatedly interrupt a candidate who’s trying to answer his questions. It doesn’t give him the right to ask every single question straight from the Trump playbook.
In a 30-minute interview, the first 12 minutes focused on immigration – the issue that Trump has always wanted to run on.
Baier’s first question was to ask her how many illegal immigrants she supposes have entered the country during the past three-and-a-half years. Before she could even complete her first sentence, he interrupted to ask yet another question. Harris asks him calmly to let her finish her answer and before those words are barely out of her mouth, he interrupted a third time to ask yet a different question. This is all in the first minute of the interview!
Good interviews are supposed to be about the candidate, not the interviewer. It was so clear that all Baier was interested in was pushing her around and trying to get her flustered.
Harris stood up for herself
Harris is not a wallflower. She can stand up for herself. And she did – frequently trying to push through with her answer despite the constant interruptions. That’s a loss for viewers since it’s impossible to hear when two people are trying to talk over each other.
Every single question was framed to embarrass or fluster the candidate. He played a tape of a grieving mother who blames Biden and Harris for the death of her daughter at the hands of an illegal immigrant. “Do you owe her an apology?”
He quotes a poll showing the race essentially tied. “Are 50% of the American people misguided? Are they stupid?” he asked. Harris is way too smart and did not take the bait on that loaded question, which was clearly designed to try to get her to say something akin to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” quote from 2016.
Yet one more inane question from Baier: “When did you first notice President Biden’s mental facilities had diminished?” What does that have to do with anything three weeks prior to an election where Biden is not on the ballot?
Harris finally had enough near the end of the interview when Baier played a Trump clip where he denied having said he would use the military against Democrats, whom he called “the enemy within.” That led to Harris’ strongest answer of the night, delivered with volume and with just a little bit of anger in her voice.\
“The president of the United States should be able to handle criticism…”
She accused Baier of not playing clips where Trump has made such threats to use the military, and said, “This is a democracy. In a democracy, the president of the United States should be able to handle criticism without saying he’d lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake…”
She would have continued but Baier interrupted, again.
I interviewed thousands of political candidates in my career. My goals were to be prepared, to ask tough but fair questions, to gently interrupt if a candidate ventures off into canned speeches we’ve all heard before, and to be professional. Be polite. Let viewers get a sense of who this candidate is. It’s okay to ask uncomfortable questions but there should also be a question or two that lets a little of the candidate’s humanity come through. Try to get at their personality. None of that happened last night.
Who knows what the typical Fox viewer thought of Harris? Did they learn anything? Or did they just take delight in Harris struggling to wrestle with a rude interviewer? Did female viewers resent Baier’s rude interruptions? I doubt Harris changed any MAGA minds. At a bare minimum, the interview should quell all media criticism that she hasn’t done enough interviews lately, or that she was only doing friendly interviews.
If Harris wins, I wouldn’t blame her if she never granted Fox another interview for the next four years. Their complete lack of professionalism proves they do not deserve it.
This week’s edition of “Iowa Down Ballot”, a political podcast from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative has just been released. This week, hear from Laura Belin, Dave Price, Kathie Obradovich, moderator Julie Gammack and me as we discuss early voting in Iowa and the 2nd Congressional District debate. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
WHEN Harris wins, she should not grant FOX any interviews. Agreed. 🤞🤞🤞
You nailed it, Dave, with this comment: “What a pathetic excuse for a journalist.” Fox News is a fitting name as it truly is faux news. To second what Hillary once so aptly stated, MAGAs are deplorable.