Vice President Kamala Harris had a bad night on Wednesday.

But more interesting than anything she said to Fox News host Bret Baier was what wasn’t said — namely, that until this interview, reporters hadn’t bothered to ask her the most obvious question of 2024.

This is why she seemed so completely blindsided when Baier asked about the role she played in the sweeping, years-long conspiracy to hide President Biden’s declining mental fitness from the public.

The media’s failure so far to address her on this question goes beyond mere incuriosity or sloppiness. It’s outright malpractice.

Harris rambled through her roughly 26-minute conversation with Baier before sneaking off amid complaints that her host had been too aggressive in his questioning.

By any reasonable standard, the interview was a disaster. Don’t take my word for it. The Democratic nominee and her team started the week hoping her performance would help them make inroads with Fox’s male and on-the-fence viewers. By the time the cameras stopped rolling, however, her team had adopted a new line: The interview, they insisted, would go a long way toward bringing together left-wing parties and Democratic loyalists. Nothing says “that didn’t go as planned” like a complete story change.

To reasonable minds, Harris’ gamble backfired. She came across as unprepared, annoying and uninformed. She saw little contrast between herself and her Republican opponent — who, to be fair, also tends to be unprepared, annoying and ill-informed.

While there were many headaches and uncomfortable issues in the Baier interview, the critical moment came when Harris submerged herself in claiming that former President Donald Trump is “unfit” and too “unstable” to be president. This led to obvious follow-up questions about the White House’s previous efforts and its own to address concerns about Biden’s mental and physical fitness.

“You told a lot of interviewers that Joe Biden was playing,” Baier said, “that he was running laps on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden’s mental abilities seemed impaired?

Harris was silent. When she had a moment to think about herself, she simply dodged the question.

“Joe Biden – I have watched the Situation Room from the Oval Office, and he has the judgment and experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people,” Harris said in her trademark speech . salad size.

Baier pressed: “Haven’t any concerns been raised?”

“Bret, Joe Biden is not on the ballot,” Harris said, “and Donald Trump is.”

Yes, but why isn’t Biden on the ballot? This is the question, isn’t it? It turns out Harris knows something about it, even though she went along and played the fool until Biden was forced off his own ticket.

Recall that after Biden’s career-ending debate performance on June 27, Harris was one of the very first administration officials to go on television and reassure voters that all was well with the president.

“The Joe Biden that I’ve worked with every day is someone who, as I said, has performed in a way that’s focused on bringing people into the Oval Office, Republicans and Democrats, to compromise in a way that is extraordinary nowadays. she promised CNN viewers.

In February, she had said of her boss: “We have a very bold and vibrant president in Joe Biden.” She also said that same month: “Our president is in good shape, in good health and ready to lead in our second term.”

Even before that, she asserted, “age is more than a chronological fact… (Biden) is absolutely authoritative not only in halls around the world, but also in the Oval Office.”

When special counsel Robert Hur described Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, older man with a bad memory,” Harris rushed to defend Biden’s honor, all but accusing Hur of lying.

“So the way the president’s attitude was characterized in that report could not be more factually wrong and clearly politically motivated and unnecessary,” she said.

But now the mere fact of Harris’ presidential candidacy explicitly refutes all those previous assurances and promises she made.

A smarter or better-prepared politician could have expected such an obvious question in response to playing the “fitness” and “instability” cards against Trump. But Harris isn’t smarter or better prepared. She invited a natural response to her own attempt to foist an unsuitable presidential candidate on the nation – and she was completely unprepared for the moment.

For this she can blame her own overly intimate relationship with what should be a much more aggressive and hostile media.

“You met (Biden) at least once a week for three and a half years,” Baier emphasized Wednesday night. “You haven’t had any worries?”

“I think the American people are concerned about Donald Trump,” the vice president said, “and that’s why the people who know him best, including the leaders of our national security community, have all spoken out, even the people who support worked with him in the United States. Oval Office, worked with him in the Situation Room and said he is unfit, dangerous and should never again be president of the United States, including his former vice president. Therefore, the job was open to him to choose another running mate. So that is a fact. That is a fact.”

This was it the moment that stood out above all others on Wednesday for its implications. It’s newsworthy that Harris froze. It’s newsworthy that she declined to address his point directly. But the most newsworthy fact is that she had no good answers to the Biden question, because until Wednesday no one had ever forced her to answer this.

It was the only question that needed to be asked, but for her it was uncharted territory.

How is it possible that Baier is one of the few people in this industry who has bothered to ask the Democratic nominee about her role in a plot that ended with the current commander-in-chief being thrown out of his own re-election campaign and made way for her own unlikely entry?

For an industry addicted to the word “unprecedented,” and considering we’re currently living in times where the word actually applies, it’s baffling that journalists aren’t more curious about what Harris knew about Biden’s declining mental acuity when she repeatedly promised that he was as fit as a fiddle.

Is the US president resigning in the middle of a race and the appointment of his vice president – ​​who didn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses when she ran for president in 2020 – not ‘unprecedented’ enough for our media?

If the vice president’s involvement in a White House conspiracy doesn’t clear the bar for “public interest,” nothing does.

It was certainly a bad night for Harris. It was also a bad night for the overly friendly political press, whose child-glove treatment of the Democratic vice president has left it unprepared to answer even the most basic question about the policies or events that secured her own nomination.

Beckett Adams is program director of the National Journalism Center.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports and streaming video, visit The Hill.