Although The Hill certainly can’t be accused of being in Donald Trump’s corner and, as far as I can tell, has leaned left throughout this presidential campaign, its reporters lost no time telling us that Kamala Harris messed up her interview with Bret Baier on Fox News. The Hill’s description of the interview used the word “disaster” several times to underscore the truly appalling character of Harris’ clumsy attempts to grapple with Baier’s questioning.
Contrary to the totally dishonest defense that the vice president received in much of the corporate left-wing media, The Hill further explained that American media was responsible for Kamala’s interview catastrophe.
If Baier seemed to be interrupting Harris repeatedly, he had every reason to do so. She was filibustering.
The legacy media, according to The Hill, never bothered to give our vice president any serious questions. The media avoided asking her those obvious things that Baier brought up in the narrow 20-minute interview that Kamala’s handlers granted him. For example, when exactly did she learn that the president under whom she was serving was afflicted with senile dementia? For years, Harris never let on that she grasped that glaringly obvious reality. She went on praising Joe Biden’s mental acumen, up until the moment Democratic kingmakers installed her as their presidential nominee. The friendly media should have been asking Kamala about why she hid Biden’s frailty. If the media had done its job, she might have had a reasonable response to Baier’s query.
The interview for me raised another question: Why would Kamala’s handlers have permitted her to undergo the ordeal of an unscripted interview?
Their candidate had been running neck-and-neck with and possibly slightly ahead of Trump for about two months, and it might have been possible to run out the clock without exposing Harris to a systematic grilling courtesy of a relentlessly thorough interviewer. By now it’s clear that she doesn’t think fast on her feet; and she’s already “unburdened herself” of multiple, embarrassing word salads when responding to effusively friendly talk show hosts. It might have been best, her advisers should have reasoned, not to put her into a demanding situation that was above her pay grade. (I think we can all agree with Trump that this lady is not very smart.)
The one time Harris apparently ventured out beyond tightly controlled situations was during her debate with Trump in September. But even then, she had been allowed to rattle off memorized lines, mostly depicting her opponent as a fascist ogre. And this debate took place under the aegis of biased moderators, who acted as if they were Kamala’s loving babysitters.
I suspect her handlers agreed to that short interview with Baier because they thought it would be a win-win situation. Her appearance on Fox News would create the impression that she was reaching out to Republicans, just as Trump went into strongly blue areas to appeal to possible voters there. Presumably at least some Fox viewers — anti-Trump Republicans — could be won over to vote blue. Since the time permitted for that interview kept getting whittled down, from half an hour to about 20 minutes, Kamala would not be exposing herself to the unknown for very long.
Her handlers further assumed that Kamala could get by during the abbreviated interview by rehashing the anti-Trump rhetoric that she had dutifully recited for the debate. Please note that the most animated responses that she gave to Baier’s questions were restatements of what she had unleashed against Trump. She, therefore, went back to the same invectives even if they didn’t relate to the questions Baier asked during the interview. If Baier seemed to be interrupting her repeatedly, he had every reason to do so. Harris was filibustering. Instead, she launched into anti-Trump rants as the questioning proceeded, and that made the interview difficult to conduct.
Perhaps the major factor that got Harris and her team to accept the interview was the choice of the interviewer. Although a celebrity on a Republican-leaning channel, Baier is not known to bear any affection for Donald Trump. He has never held back from going after Trump’s claim to have won the 2020 presidential race. He also plays up “bigly” his mediating role in seeking “common ground” with Democrats.
If I were a Democrat deciding to be interviewed on a Republican channel, I would have been truly delighted if Baier were the one asking the questions. What happened, however, was not at all what Harris expected. Baier came out, entirely to his credit, asking tough, well-phrased questions and tried to keep his interviewee from segueing into her anti-Trump invective. That and being for nationwide unrestricted abortion rights for women continue to be Kamala’s only talking points, when she’s not belaboring her listener with unintelligible word salads.
Quite predictably, the leftist media went after Baier for not doing what was expected of him, which was helping to get Harris elected. But Baier wouldn’t release his quarry, a decision for which he should be commended.
Kamala harris interview, Bret baier, 2024 presidential election, Opinion & analysis
