It’s hard to fathom what the Harris-Walz campaign was thinking when it booked Kamala Harris for an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News. From the outset, it was painfully clear that she was unprepared and out of her element. And the only person she has to blame is herself.
The interview quickly unraveled, with Harris floundering over even the most straightforward questions — and her supporters know she bombed. CNN's Brian Stelter lamented that Kamala “essentially walked into a Trump campaign field office’ by doing the interview." Over at MSNBC, Symone Sanders Townsend, a former top aide to Kamala Harris thought the questions were "straight out of a proverbial Trump/Vance press release."
The questions were completely fair, and they were the types of questions one would expect any network with a smidge of journalistic integrity would ask her. Instead of delivering direct answers, she resorted to evasive tactics and rambling filibusters, attempting to run out the clock and bloat the interview with her word salads to limit Baier’s ability to ask more questions in an interview that lasted just over 25 minutes.
Harris is hardly the first Democratic to deign to go on Fox News, but she’s been sheltered by putting herself in a bubble and doing only friendly interviews on friendly networks with interviewers who attack her opponent daily.
Interviewers rarely, if ever, fact-check Kamala when she lies or give her many follow-ups. She regurgitates her talking points — most of which we’ve heard her say on the stump in her campaign speeches — and that’s it. She doesn’t have a command of the material; she’s just repeating lines like an actress on stage, deflecting every question with an attack on Donald Trump.
Related: Team Harris Knows the Fox News Interview Was a Disaster
The contrast with Trump couldn’t be sharper. This week, he did an interview with Bloomberg’s John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago, during which he showcased how to handle tough questions with confidence and clarity.
When Micklethwait pushed him on the potential negative effects of tariffs, Trump acknowledged the risks but framed the issue positively, explaining how tariffs incentivize companies to return to the U.S. and create jobs. Even under pressure, Trump remained focused on his message, showcasing his success in job preservation and explaining to Micklethwait that his tariff threat resulted in John Deere abandoning plans to build a plant overseas.
This stark difference underscores the confidence and poise that Harris desperately lacks. Trump has done enough hostile interviews to know how to handle himself. Kamala, however, has been shielded from real, unscripted interviews, and as a result, she struggles even with basic questions — something any presidential candidate should expect.
In contrast, Trump has engaged with the liberal media head-on, participating in over 79 interviews since August. The same people on the left who think Trump deserves tougher interviews believe Kamala is entitled to softball interviews that never hold her accountable. Had Kamala done more interviews right away with people who weren't actively trying to help her win, she would have done better.
And that's the fault of her and her campaign.
