From the first moments, the interview was controversial.

On Wednesday, US Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with the conservative-leaning network Fox News as her campaign tries to attract voters disenchanted with her Republican rival, Donald Trump.

But host Bret Baier wasted no time in focusing on the focus of their discussion: immigration.

He confronted her with a Trump campaign ad and a video of a grieving mother testifying before Congress about the death of her child, allegedly at the hands of two undocumented immigrants.

However, Harris pointed out that irregular immigration across the US-Mexico border was a concern long before she was elected vice president in 2021 — including under Trump, a former president.

“I honestly think that Trump campaign ad is a bit like throwing stones if you live in a glass house,” Harris said in response to the Trump ad. “You have to take responsibility for what happened in your administration.”

Immigration is a top problem

A Pew Research Center poll last week found that US voters see the economy as their most important issue when they go to the polls on November 5.

But the top five voter issues were rounded out by immigration, with 41 percent of respondents calling it “extremely important” and another 31 percent calling it “very important.”

Immigration has been a prominent pillar of both the Democratic and Republican parties’ platforms, with both parties pledging to reduce the number of irregular border crossings.

But the Pew poll shows that Trump appears to have an edge in this area, with 54 percent of respondents saying he is best placed to implement the country’s immigration policies.

That’s an advantage Republicans have tried to emphasize as the presidential race comes to a close with less than three weeks to go.

Nevertheless, Trump and Harris have remained virtually tied in national voter polls. The poll aggregator, 270toWin, found Harris has a slight lead, with an average of 49.5 percent to Trump’s 47.3 percent.

As it tries to move forward, Harris’ campaign has appealed to mid-level voters, as well as Republicans fed up with Trump’s leadership of the party.

Part of her strategy has been to show support for prominent Republicans such as former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, a vocal critic of Trump on Capitol Hill.

She has also pledged to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if she is elected president.

Earlier on Wednesday, for example, that strategy was on full display in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where Harris touted the bipartisan nature of her campaign as an antithesis to what she characterized as Trump’s divisiveness.

“I am joined today by more than 100 Republican leaders from across Pennsylvania and across our country in supporting my candidacy for president of the United States,” she said to cheers from the crowd. “And I am deeply honored by their support.”

Heated interview

But her reception was much cooler in the Fox News studio, where Baier ripped her record on immigration.

His opening question matched the gist of his interview: “How many illegal immigrants do you estimate your government has released into the country over the past three and a half years?”

Outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration, under which Harris serves, has been under constant criticism for overseeing a spike in illegal border crossings.

For example, US Customs and Border Protection recorded a record 2,475,669 “encounters” along the US-Mexico border during fiscal year 2023, although the most recent statistics indicate a significant decline in border crossings.

Nevertheless, Biden has taken steps to limit access to asylum to those who cross the border without authorization.

“Bret, let’s get to the point,” Harris replied, as she and Baier struggled to talk over each other. “The point is, we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed.”

She blamed Trump for scuttling a bipartisan immigration bill in January that would have marked the first comprehensive reform in that area in decades.

“They want a president of the United States who doesn’t play politics with the issue, but actually focuses on solving it,” Harris said.

She also played up her record as “former attorney general of a border state,” prosecuting “the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people.”

But Baier continued to go after Harris about the high number of border crossings under the Biden administration — and the crimes he alleged were a result.

Research has consistently shown that undocumented immigrants commit fewer violent crimes than U.S.-born citizens. But members of the US right, especially Trump and his running mate JD Vance, have reinforced unfounded fears that migrants pose a widespread threat to public safety.

Baier also made a similar argument. “Jocelyn Nungaray, Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, these are young women who were brutally attacked and murdered,” Baier said, suggesting immigration policies were to blame. “Do you owe those families an apology?”

“Let me first say that these were tragic cases. There’s no doubt about that,” Harris replied. “I cannot imagine the pain that the families of these victims have experienced because of a loss that should not have happened.”

“It is also true that if a border security law had been passed nine months ago, it would have taken nine months before we would have had more border agents at the border.”

Distancing yourself from Biden

Baier also confronted Harris with criticism that her administration, if elected, would be a continuation of Biden’s.

He noted that Harris indicated last week on the talk show The View that she was aligned with the outgoing president. When a panelist on The View asked her if she would have done anything differently than Biden, Harris replied, “Nothing comes to mind.”

Harris was unequivocal in her response to Baier.

“Let me be very clear. My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” she said. “And like any new president who comes to power, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership.”

Harris, 59, spent much of her career as a prosecutor before becoming San Francisco’s district attorney in 2002 and California’s attorney general in 2011.

It wasn’t until 2017 that she arrived in Washington, D.C., to serve as a U.S. senator, leaving office early to become vice president. During Wednesday’s interview, she tried to use that relatively short experience to her advantage.

“For example, I am someone who has not spent most of my career in Washington DC. “I invite ideas, whether from the Republicans who support me, who were on stage with me just minutes ago, and the business community and others who can contribute to the decisions I make,” she said.

Baier himself was criticized after the interview. A former Harris aide, Symone Sanders Townsend, denounced his questioning on social media afterward.

“The interviewer was not himself,” she wrote. “Instead, he was rude and misleading and lifted questions straight from a proverbial Trump/Vance press release.”