Flailing aides prove unable to save Kamala Harris from absolute 'TRAIN WRECK' Bret Baier interview

Kamala Harris has historically kept her unscripted engagements with the fourth estate to a bare minimum. In the handful of instances in which Harris has actually sat down for interviews as a presidential candidate, they have nearly all been with friendly talking heads from sympathetic networks — such as CBS News, which apparently radically edited footage to make her seem more coherent.

Harris sat down Wednesday with Fox News' Bret Baier for a nearly 30-minute interview in an attempt to broaden her reach and offset the loss of voters Democrats have long alienated.

It did not go well.

It went so poorly, in fact, that Harris' staffers apparently pulled the plug and the Trump team later posted the interview in its entirety as a campaign ad.

Speaking to a panel of his peers after the sit-down, Baier revealed that Harris arrived nearly 20 minutes late and that her team frantically tried to cut the interview short, sparing the Democratic candidate from having to dodge additional questions.

"I'm talking, like, four people waving their hands like, 'It's gotta stop!'" said Baier. "I had to dismount there at the end."

Baier can be seen roughly 26 minutes into the interview referring to Harris' flailing aides, telling Harris, "Madam Vice President, they're wrapping me very hard here. I hope you got to say what you wanted to say about Donald Trump. ... There are a lot of things that people want to know about you and your policies. That's why we invited you here."

While Harris appeared frazzled throughout the interview, there were several moments in particular that may have prompted her aides to seek a quick exit.

'What are you talking about?'

"More than 70% of people tell [pollsters] the country is on the wrong track," Baier managed to say during one of Harris' filibusters, referring to a new Marquette Law School national survey. "If it's on the wrong track, that track follows three and a half years of you being vice president and President Biden being president. That is what they're saying — 79% of them. Why are they saying that if you're turning the page? You've been in office for three and a half years."

"And Donald Trump has been running for office," said Harris.

"But you've been the person holding the office, Madam Vice President," responded Baier.

"Come on," said Harris, smiling. "Come on. You and I both know what I am talking about. You and I both know what I am talking about."

Baier, genuinely confused as to Harris' meaning, responded, "I actually don't. What are you talking about?"

Harris, ostensibly unsure herself, pivoted into another attack on President Donald Trump, saying, "Over the last decade, people have become — but listen, over the last decade, it is clear to me and certainly the Republicans who are on stage with me, the former chief of staff to the president, Donald Trump, the former defense secretaries, national security adviser, and his vice president, one, that he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader who spends full time demeaning and engaging in personal grievances."

When asked to estimate how many illegal aliens have stolen into the country during her time as America's border czar, Harris proved unable or at the very least unwilling to answer. Instead she tossed another word salad.

"I'm glad you raised the issue of immigration, because I agree with you, it is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have," said Harris. "And you know what I'm going to talk about."

"Do you think it's 1 million, 3 million?" said Baier.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection data indicates that over 2 million illegal aliens have so far entered the country in fiscal year 2024.

"Bret, let's just get to the point, okay? The point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired," said Harris.

Baier noted between interruptions that the Biden-Harris administration dismantled Trump-era policies that helped secure the border and prevent the release of illegal aliens into the U.S.

Harris responded by listing several unrelated initiatives she and Biden pushed upon taking office, then suggested she had also advanced "a bill to fix our immigration system."

Baier, who wasn't buying what Harris was selling, noted that the vice president was referring to the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. The bill, which failed despite a federal Democratic trifecta, would have both provided a path to citizenship for tens of millions of illegal aliens and weakened various immigration policies.

When the interviewer began to highlight the nature of the bill, Harris cut him off and resumed talking around the question.

'She couldn't give a straight answer to a single question because she has no answers.'

In another instance that might have worried Harris' aides, the vice president demonstrated difficulty reconciling her newfound ability to diagnose Trump's supposed instability from afar with her years-long failure to recognize Biden's decrepitude up close.

After noting that Harris previously called Trump "misguided," "unstable," "not well," and "mentally not stable," Baier said, "You told many interviewers that 'Joe Biden was on his game,' that [he] 'ran around circles on his staff.' When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?"

Even though Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic candidate because of the widespread recognition of the president's decrepitude, Harris suggested to Baier that there actually was no problem, stating, "Joe Biden I have watched in from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experiment — and experience — to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people."

"You met with him at least once a week for three and a half years. You didn't have any concerns?" asked Baier.

Harris refused to answer and instead attacked Trump.

Trump responded to the interview on Truth Social, writing, "She has a massive and irredeemable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME - So bad, in fact, that she is barely able to talk about any subject other than the man who had the best economy ever, the strongest border in history, and who just got the UNANIMOUS ENDORSEMENT OF THE U.S. Border Patrol, ME!"

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) tweeted, "To my Democratic friends: maybe you should consider swapping Kamala Harris for Joe Biden."

"Kamala Harris' interview with Bret Baier was a TRAIN WRECK," wrote Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for the Trump campaign. "Kamala was angry, defensive, and once again abdicated any responsibility for the problems Americans are facing. She couldn't give a straight answer to a single question because she has no answers."

Brian Fallon, a top Harris campaign aide, told NPR, "We feel like we definitely achieved what we set out to achieve in the sense that she was able to reach an audience that's probably been not exposed to the arguments she's been making on the trail."

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