It shouldn't be considered incredibly brave for Vice President Kamala Harris to consent to an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News. J.D. Vance has been doing hostile Sunday shows for months while Harris resorted to the basement strategy.
Then, once Team Kamala booked a "media blitz," they bizarrely went on offense. Mediaite posted this headline: "Kamala Harris Hammers Trump Avoiding Debate and Tough Interviews: He'd 'Rather Cocoon Himself in Safe Spaces' of Conservative Media." This was after she appeared in a cavalcade of cocoon interviews with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and the unanimous Democrats on "The View."
On the Oct. 16 "Special Report," Bret Baier brought facts and numbers on tough subjects like immigration, and she didn't want to deal with the substance. She wanted to repeat her usual pat answers about how everything that's gone wrong is somehow still former President Donald Trump's fault.
Democrats and their media enablers quickly denounced Baier as "rude," as if they've never watched a hostile "mainstream media" interview with Trump or Vance or any Trump-backing Republican. He tried to be respectful, but not let her uncork her usual five-minute nonanswers. This was "rude" because you're supposed to let her blather on and avoid the question.
While Fox News prime-time hosts painted the interview as a disaster, CBS reporter Robert Costa comically relayed, "Democrats are feeling very good about" how she did. Earth to Costa: They would say that no matter how they thought she did.
The most revealing comment came from Alyssa Farah Griffin on "The View," who slammed Baier for asking "the questions Fox News viewers want answers to." Others have said the questions were "Trump talking points." So when Baier asked about young American women and even 12-year-old girls who were raped and/or murdered by illegal immigrants, only Fox viewers care about that?
Any negative news about crime by illegal immigrants has been buried by the media, with the "Trump talking point" excuse. The relatives mourning their losses have been dismissed. Their pain doesn't matter. They're just talking points. Nobody needs to know.
Then there is the obvious point that Farah Griffin & Co. asked Harris the soft-serve questions their audience wanted to hear on Oct. 8. Farah Griffin asked about the "perception among voters that the Biden administration dragged its feet and waited too long to act to address the border crisis. Can you speak to why voters may feel that way?"
A massive wave of illegal immigration is downgraded to a "perception"?
Another "Trump talking point" was Baier asking about free government benefits for illegal immigrants. As a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris favored illegal immigrants getting driver's licenses, free tuition at universities and free health care: "Do you still support those things?"
"That was five years ago," she said.
Then Baier followed up by noting her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, "signed those very things into state law. So do you support that?" She kept repeating she would follow "the law."
My favorite Baier question was about President Joe Biden's mental decline, which no one else has asked. "You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that he ran around circles [sic] on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?" She failed to acknowledge Biden is currently deficient in any way.
CNN's Brian Stelter summarized the event: never mind her answers, "normies will just hear that she went into enemy territory and survived/thrived." If you think she thrived in this interview, you're definitely not a "normie." They want to give her extra credit just for showing up.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.