On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for her first interview with Fox News since becoming her party's presidential nominee. And it was not without its contentious moments.
In one of their more tense exchanges, Harris called out Fox host Bret Baier for trying to whitewash Donald Trump's comments delivered on Sunday to Maria Bartiromo in which he called Democrats the "enemy from within."
When the former President was asked if foreign agitators would incite violence on Election Day, he said he was more concerned about "radical left lunatics" here at home, and said "it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military."
Harris slammed her presidential opponent's remarks during a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on Monday, calling him “increasingly unstable and unhinged" and that he was "out for unchecked power."
Trump defended his comments during a town hall with an all-female audience, hosted by Fox's Harris Faulkner, and when Baier played a clip from the town hall in an attempt to whitewash the remarks, VP Harris was not having it.
In the edited clip, Trump claimed he wasn't threatening anybody and that it was his political opponents who were the ones targeting him.
Trump also quipped that he'd been investigated more times than prohibition-era gangster Alphonse Capone as an apparent "weaponization of government" tactic against him.
Harris saw through Baier's deceptive narrative and she railed into him, saying:
“Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about ‘the enemy within,’ that he has repeated when he is speaking about the American people."
"That’s not what you just showed."
The VP was just getting started.
You can watch a clip here.
As Baier fumbled with his argument about Trump just responding to a question about his previous comments, Harris cut him off and said:
“Here’s the bottom line: He has repeated it many times, and you and I both know that."
"And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people."
She continued:
"He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him.”
"This is a democracy," stressed Harris, and expressed that an American president should "be able to handle criticism without saying he would 'lock people up' for doing it."
Social media users lauded Harris for not letting the interviewer off the hook.
After Wednesday's heated interview, Baier lamented that he was "hoping it was going to be this civil back-and-forth" and that he was "just trying to get through the talking points."
"It was a little bit of, you know, interrupting," he told his colleagues, adding:
"It could be that this is meant for a viral moment and essentially, this is practice for a debate and so I need to be able to get my questions as much as I can in a respectful but tough way and hope that she comes back when she’s in a different, talkative mood and we learn more.”
Because he is the real victim here.
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