CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris turned questions about her nearly four years in office into attacks on Republican rival Donald Trump’s record in a heated interview Wednesday on Fox News, her first appearance on the conservative network, as she addressed disgruntled Republican and brought independent voters to justice.

Pressed on border crossings and violent crimes committed by undocumented immigrants during Joe Biden’s presidency, Harris repeatedly hammered Trump for opposing a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year. Asked about Biden’s mental acuity, she called Trump “unstable” and said “we should all be concerned.”

Harris also accused Fox News of condoning Trump’s most inflammatory rhetoric, including the former president calling political rivals “the enemy within.”

“The bottom line is this: He’s repeated it many times, and you and I both know it. And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military against the American people. He has spoken about pursuing people involved in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” a feisty Harris said after Fox News host Bret Baier played a clip of Trump complaining about political persecution.

“This is a democracy,” she said. “And in a democracy, the president of the United States – in the United States of America – should be willing to take criticism without saying he would lock people up for it.”

The interview came as Harris wanted to appeal to a small group of undecided voters who have supported Republicans in the past but are uncomfortable with Trump. Her campaign has focused on these voters in recent days — with the vice president campaigning alongside former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, veterans of the Trump administration and others in the party who were divided with the former president over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Harris held an event earlier Wednesday in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania — a site not far from where George Washington led 2,400 Continental soldiers across the Delaware River on Christmas night 1776, a symbolic moment in the American Revolution — with more than 100 Republicans supporting her. candidacy, including former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan.

In the Fox News interview — itself a window into how the vice president’s campaign has tried to reach a right-leaning audience — Harris also distinguished himself more clearly from President Joe Biden than in the past, telling Baier that she would come up with new ideas and ideas. experiences to the White House.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris said.

“I represent a new generation of leadership,” she said. “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 and who were on stage with me just minutes ago, and the business community and others who can contribute to the decisions I make.”

Baier asked Harris about a Trump campaign ad in which Harris said she supported providing gender-affirming care to prisoners in 2019, when she was a California senator and Democratic presidential candidate.

Pressed about whether she currently supports the use of taxpayer dollars to fund gender-affirming care for transgender inmates, including undocumented immigrants, Harris said she would “follow the law.”

“I will follow the law, and it is a law that Donald Trump has actually followed. You are probably familiar with the fact that it is now a public record that under the Donald Trump administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis to people in the federal prison system,” Harris said.

Harris referenced a New York Times report that described the Bureau of Prisons providing gender-affirming services under the Trump administration.

“Honestly, I think that Trump campaign ad is a bit like throwing rocks if you live in a glass house,” she said.

Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told the Times: “Kamala Harris has strongly advocated for transgender prisoners to be able to undergo transition surgery, but President Trump has never done that.”

Pressed again by Baier about whether she would advocate using taxpayer money for “gender reassignment surgery,” Harris again said she would “follow the law, just like I think Donald Trump would say he did.”

Harris repeatedly turned to the bipartisan border security bill that was blocked by Republicans in Congress earlier this year when asked about the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Baier pressed Harris early on on the Biden administration’s decision to roll back Trump-era policies, in what amounted to testy exchanges between the two, sometimes talking over each other.

He asked how many undocumented immigrants Harris would estimate the government has released into the United States during Biden’s presidency.

“Just a number. Do you think it’s 1 million, 3 million? Baier asked.

“Bret, let’s get to the point, okay? The point is, we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed,” Harris said.

Several governments have released migrants after screening because resources have been scarce because border facilities are not equipped to hold people for extended periods of time. That has been exacerbated in recent years by a wave of migrants crossing the border.

Baier asked Harris about Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed while jogging in February. The incident has often been cited by Republicans as an example of the administration’s handling of border security.

The suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, was arrested in 2022 after illegally entering the United States but was released for further processing.

“First of all, these are tragic cases. There’s no doubt about that. There is no doubt about that, and I cannot imagine the pain that the families of these victims have experienced for a loss that should not have happened,” Harris said.

“It is also true that if border security had actually been passed nine months ago. It would take nine months before we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the people working around the clock to keep it all together,” she added.

Harris claimed during the course of the interview that the immigration system is broken — a position held by Democrats and Republicans.

“I’m not proud to say this is a perfect immigration system,” she said. “I have made it clear – I think we all have – that it needs to be resolved.”

Asked about policy positions she held when she ran for president in 2019, including not excluding undocumented immigrants from benefits such as health care, Harris remained vague, saying only: “I am very clear that I will follow the law .”

Harris also said she would not decriminalize illegal border crossings if elected.

“I don’t believe in decriminalizing border crossings, and I haven’t done that as vice president,” she said. “I will not do that as president.”