Vice President Kamala Harris distanced herself from President Joe Biden in a combative and at times tense interview with Fox News on Wednesday, her first formal sit down with the conservative-leaning network.
“My presidency would not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency. Like every new president, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences and fresher new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership,” Harris told Fox News host Bret Baier on his program Special Report.
Harris has vowed to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if she is elected president in November and pledged to welcome bipartisan input into her policies. Earlier in the day, she appeared with dozens of anti-Donald Trump Republicans at an event in Pennsylvania to highlight Republican support for her campaign.
“We want to turn the page from the last decade in which we have been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump that has been designed to divide our country,” Harris told Fox News when asked about her slogan, “A new way forward.”
The 30-minute interview, which was recorded in Pennsylvania, opened on a combative note when Baier asked Harris how many undocumented immigrants had been released into the United States under the Biden administration.
As Harris tried to highlight her support for the bipartisan border bill that Republicans blocked from passage earlier this year, Baier cut her off and repeated the question.
“Let me just finish,” Harris replied. “I’ll get to the question. I promise you I was beginning to answer.”“May I finish responding? You have to let me finish,” Harris said as Baier again interjected during another point in the exchange.
Despite Baier’s best efforts to draw some blood, Harris held her own, avoiding pitfalls regarding progressive stances she took during her short-lived 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The vice president said she opposed decriminalising border crossings and said she would “follow the law” regarding the use of taxpayer dollars for gender-reassignment surgeries. She also got in many attacks on Trump, railing about his morals and character, and calling him too unfit and “unstable” to return to the Oval Office.
“This is a democracy, and in a democracy, the president of the United States should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he’s going to lock people up for doing it,” Harris said, referring to comments Trump has made threatening retribution against political enemies if he is elected.
“He spent $20 million on those ads trying to create a sense of fear in voters because he has no plan on focusing on the needs of the American people,” she added at another point, referring to Trump’s multimillion-dollar anti-trans ad blitz.