Playbook: Kamala Harris goes Baier hunting

By RACHAEL BADE and EUGENE DANIELS

10/17/2024 06:28 AM EDT

With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

“MALE CALL — “Both Parties Are Getting Men Wrong,” by Richard V. Reeves for POLITICO Mag: “There is a real political opportunity right now for a party to craft an agenda that speaks to men — and addresses their real problems.”

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Washington Crossing Historic Park, Oct. 16, 2024, in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP 

HARRIS’ FOX TEST — Since she replaced President JOE BIDEN atop the ticket, the most pervasive knock on VP KAMALA HARRIS has been that she’s too buttoned up, employing a risk-averse strategy that hews toward friendly interviewers who lob softball questions and don’t challenge her enough. 

After her Fox News sitdown with BRET BAIER last night, you can forget that.

There are 19 days left in the election. And with no debate and DONALD TRUMP playing it safe, Harris is showing that she understands she needs to take more risks in order to control her campaign narrative — and, despite some hiccups, she managed to do that.

Yes, there was something of an ink-blot quality to the interview: Republicans thought it was a disaster for her (see Trump’s own reaction), and Democrats thought it was a pugilistic triumph.

But set aside those knee-jerk responses, and you can see the bigger truth: This was a snapshot of a presidential candidate who knows she has work to do to close the deal, and is willing to take chances, play aggressively and, frankly, get comfortable with the street-fight mentality she’ll need to eke out a win.

As NYT’s Michael Grynbaum wrote last night: “Harris may not get another debate with former President Donald J.Trump, but on Wednesday, she got one with Bret Baier.”

Gone was the friendly chit-chat about workout routines and music preferences. Baier hit Harris with some of the toughest questioning we’ve seen this cycle, including:

• When she noticed that Biden was mentally “diminished.”
• Whether she thought Trump’s supporters were “stupid.” 
• How many immigrants she thinks have entered the country illegally under the Biden administration.
• Whether she wants to apologize to the parents of a 12-year-old who was murdered by undocumented migrants.

But Harris came ready to rumble. She fairly smoothly responded to all of the above — even if she didn’t always answer his questions outright. She asserted herself as Baier frequently interrupted her (“But I’m not finished” … “I was beginning to answer” … “May I finish responding, please?”). She pivoted to attacking Trump on the right-leaning network that rarely broadcasts such criticism, emphasizing, for instance, all the former Trump administration officials who say he’s too dangerous to lead again. And she got her points across to Republican viewers — some of whom she’ll need as part of her electoral coalition — even if most won’t agree with her.

And she landed some blows. 

One of her strongest moments came when she took Baier to task for playing a watered-down version of Trump’s recent comments threatening to sic the U.S. military on his political foes. Baier instead played a clip of Trump cleaning up the comments at the Fox News town hall that had aired earlier in the day: “I’m not threatening anybody. They’re the ones doing the threatening.”

Harris wasn’t having it. “Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the ‘enemy within,’” she said, before delivering a fiery answer about Trump’s proposal to start “locking people up because they disagree with him.”

Yes, there were plenty of tough questions that exposed Harris’ weak spots.

• She ducked inquiries about giving taxpayer-funded benefits to undocumented immigrants — as, Baier noted, running mate TIM WALZhad as governor. 
• She refused to say if she had “regrets” for ending Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy at the beginning of the Biden administration.
• She defended Biden’s fitness for office when Baier pressed her on the president’s ability to do his job — then quickly pivoted.
• And while some Democrats cheered that Harris finally answered a question about how she’d be different from Biden, she was pretty damn vague about it. (“I, for example, am someone who has not spent the majority of my career in Washington, D.C.”)

But even in difficult moments, Harris found a landing. When Baier played clips of Americans whose loved ones had been killed by an illegal immigrant and asked the VP whether she owed those families an apology, Harris showed empathy and admitted that illegal immigration was a big problem before pivoting to Trump: “But let’s talk about … an individual who does not want to participate into solutions.” 

She also found a response to the flurry of GOP attacks on transgender issues — with the help of a just-breaking scoop from NYT’s Glenn Thrushabout Trump’s own administration had allowed gender-affirming care for federal prison inmates. That teed up her accusation that Republicans are spending millions to create a sense of fear over a secondary issue because Trump has no plan to meet the needs of the American people.

Needless to say, the Harris folks are happy. 

“Constant interruptions and 20 straight minutes of attempted Fox-style gotchas, and she schooled him, shut him down, and got hits in that Fox’s audience literally never gets to hear,” one person close to Harris texted us last night.

Baier, on the other hand, seemed frustrated. “I tried to redirect numerous times without interrupting too much, but at some point, you kind of have to redirect to get back in the game,” he said on Fox News after the interview aired.

Good Thursday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook.”

Elon Musk removes X block button as users fear return of ‘creeps’

Musk removes X block button as users fear return of ‘creeps’

Anthony CuthbertsonTuesday 24 September 2024 10:56

(Elon Musk is a creep. I left Twitter after over 46 thousand Tweets because I could not morally justify staying on Musk’s platform)

Elon Musk during a visit to Paris, on 16 June, 2023, alongside the X logo (Getty Images)

Elon Musk is facing a backlash after announcing that the block button on X(fomerly Twitter) will no longer prevent people from viewing posts.

The billionaire, who took over the social media app in 2022, said the update was long overdue, having previously claimed that the feature “makes no sense” and should be removed entirely.

“High time this happened,” Mr Musk wrote on X. “The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.”

His post received thousands of comments, with many X users fearing that the update will make X more toxic and open to harassment.

“With respect, I think this is a bad idea,” wrote X user Nzube Udezue, also known as the musician Zuby. “There are many reasons somebody may not want certain individuals from easily seeing all their public posts. There are some really bad actors on social media, sadly.”

Another user replied: “I don’t want the creeps I’ve blocked seeing my posts at all.”

It is not clear when X plans to roll out the update, though some users have reported that it has already come into effect for their accounts.

The update is one of a number of changes introduced to the app since Mr Musk’s acquisition nearly two years ago, with multiple organisations reporting that the takeover has coincided with a rise in hate speech. 

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League both found that racist slurs had increased newaly three times since October 2022, while the Institute of Strategic Dialogue reported that anti-semitic posts had doubled.

Separate studies have also reported a rise in misinformation, Islamaphopia, mysogynistic hate and anti-LGBT rhetoric on the platform, with media monitoring group GLAAD claiming in 2023 that X is “the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ people”.

Lawrence: Bret Baier lied, and Kamala Harris forcefully responds

Georgia Sets Early Voting Record | Trump: Tariff Is My Favorite Word | W...

Netanyahu crosses every red-line and yet is rewarded with more weapons. Why? | Mohamad Bazzi | The Guardian

Netanyahu crosses every red-line and yet is rewarded with more weapons. Why? | Mohamad Bazzi

"For the past year, as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, eviscerated one US-imposed “red line” after another in Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, Joe Biden and his feckless administration insisted that they did not want the conflict to spread to neighboring Lebanon and beyond. But over the past month, Netanyahu and his government launched an all-out war against Lebanon, with intensive airstrikes throughout the country and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. More than 1 million people have been displaced, as Israel expands its assault on what it claims are Hezbollah “strongholds”.

And how has Biden responded to Netanyahu’s latest obstinacy and constant humiliation of the US administration? Biden keeps sending more US weapons and military support to Israel. On Sunday, the Pentagon announced that it was deploying one of its most advanced missile defense systems to Israel, along with about 100 American troops to operate it. This will be the first time that Washington has openly deployed US forces to Israel since Netanyahu’s government launched its war on Gaza after last October’s attack by Hamas militants.

Biden is sending US forces into a foreign conflict three weeks before a US presidential election, where his vice-president and Democratic successor, Kamala Harris, is facing the former president Donald Trump, who has made gains with swing state voters by pledging to scale back US military involvement overseas. By deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, and its crew to Israel, Biden is embroiling the US more deeply in a regional conflict that Netanyahu has largely instigated over the past year. The system is designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles, and it’s intended to help Israel defend against potential Iranian missile attacks.

It’s the latest example of Biden failing to impose any consequences on Netanyahu as he expands the Gaza war into a regional one – with an invasion of Lebanon and a new confrontation with Iran. On 1 October, Iran launched a barrage of more than 180 ballistic missiles against Israel, with Tehran saying it was retaliating for a series of devastating Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, the linchpin of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” and the most powerful militia and political party in Lebanon. Israel killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike on southern Beirut on 27 September.

Israel vowed to retaliate for the recent Iranian missile strike, risking a wider regional war that could draw the US into a direct conflict with Iran and its network of allied militias in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. The Biden administration has tried to impose new “red lines” on Netanyahu and his rightwing government, urging Israel not to attack Iran’s oil production or nuclear enrichment sites, which could trigger a harsh Iranian response and spiral into a larger confrontation. Israeli officials reportedly told the US that they would avoid targeting Iran’s oil, infrastructure and nuclear sites.

But over the past year, Netanyahu has broken multiple promises to Biden to restrain Israeli attacks on Gaza, and more recently in Lebanon. The Israeli premier repeatedly sabotaged negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas in Gaza, and backed out of an agreement last month with the US and France for a temporary ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Pentagon’s decision to deploy its THAAD missile defense system, along with US troops, in Israel could embolden Netanyahu to yet again undermine the Biden administration with an extensive Israeli attack on Iran. Despite insisting he doesn’t want a wider war, Biden keeps rewarding Netanyahu for broadening the conflict and assuring him that the US will bail out Israel no matter what it does.

The costs of US military support for Israel since last October are staggering – and have been largely shielded from public scrutiny as the Biden administration used various methods to speed up arms shipments and avoid review by members of Congress. Washington has sent Israel nearly $18bn in weapons and other assistance over the past year, according to a reportcompiled by Brown University’s “Costs of War” project. On top of direct aid to Israel, the US has incurred $4.8bn in additional military spending in the Middle East due to the conflict.

That the Biden administration has spent at least $22.7bn in its efforts to bolster Netanyahu’s government might surprise many US taxpayers who are footing the bill at a time when Washington is struggling to tame inflation – and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) lacks enough funding to make it through the rest of this year’s hurricane season. By far, Washington is the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, providing at least $3.8bn in military aid per year. Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of American foreign aid in the world, having received about $310bn (adjusted for inflation) since the Jewish state was founded in 1948.

After last year’s Hamas attack, Biden declared his absolute support for Israel and its leaders. But it quickly became apparent that Biden’s “bear hug” strategy – where the US president hoped to influence Netanyahu behind the scenes – would fail spectacularly, as the Israeli leader undermined and humiliated Biden at every opportunity. For most of that time, Biden avoided the most direct path to averting a wider conflict: using US weapons transfers to pressure Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly 90% of the population.

But Biden consistently refused to use the leverage he had over Netanyahu – and when you don’t use leverage, you lose it. Biden allowed Netanyahu to checkmate him ahead of a US presidential election, and to seize on unconditional US support to launch a devastating war against Lebanon in an effort to destroy Hezbollah. Israel is using the same playbook it has used in Gaza to wreak havoc on Lebanon, a country smaller than Connecticut: large-scale aerial bombardment and displacement of civilians, followed by a ground invasion.

A day after last October’s attack by Hamas, Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones into northern Israel, in what the group’s leaders described as an effort to lend support for Palestinians and divert Israeli military resources from Gaza. Israel retaliated with heavy airstrikes and artillery shelling across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, largely Shia Muslim areas where Hezbollah draws its base of support. While the near daily exchange of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border ebbed and flowed, Hezbollah tried to calibrate its attacks to avoid instigating a wider conflict with a far more powerful and technologically advanced Israeli military.

But Hezbollah’s leaders, including the assassinated Nasrallah, miscalculated the Israeli government’s appetite to take advantage of Biden’s blank check and expand the Gaza war into Lebanon. Last month, Israel set off a series of explosions over two days, detonating thousands of pagers and hand-held radios of Hezbollah members, killing dozens and wounding more than 3,000 people. The indiscriminate attacks, which went off in hospitals, grocery stores and on crowded sidewalks, spread fear and terror throughout Lebanon.

And they marked the opening of Israel’s latest war on Lebanon – supported by a US administration that insists it doesn’t want a regional conflict but continues sending the weapons that make it deeply complicit in Israel’s actions.

• Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University"

Netanyahu crosses every red-line and yet is rewarded with more weapons. Why? | Mohamad Bazzi | The Guardian

Kamala Harris clashes with host in contentious Fox News interview - The Washington Post

Harris clashes with host in contentious interview on Fox

Maeve RestonUpdated October 16, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. EDTPublished October 16, 2024 at 2:03 p.m. EDT

Vice President Kamala Harris waves before a rally in Washington Crossing, Pa., where she appeared with Republicans who are supporting her presidential campaign. (Michelle Gustafson for The Washington Post)

"WASHINGTON CROSSING, Pa. — Vice President Kamala Harris, under pressure to broaden her appeal to Republicans and conservatives with Election Day fast approaching, sat for a contentious interview with Fox News where she said more bluntly than before that her presidency would not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s.

The interview with Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier, which also featured a testy back-and-forth on immigration, represented a calculated gamble for Harris, given Fox’s role as a conservative-leaning network that is one of the top news sources for Republicans. It offered her a chance to refashion a recent comment on ABC’s “The View” that she could not think of anything she would do differently from Biden, a remark that even many Democrats strategists viewed as a misstep.

“Let me be very clear — my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes in to office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas,” Harris said. “I represent a new generation of leadership.”

From the first few minutes of the interview, Baier sought to put Harris on the defensive with aggressive questions about the Biden administration’s record on immigration, a top issue for many Republican voters. Baier repeatedly asked if she would apologize to the families of women who were killed by undocumented immigrants after the Biden administration eased President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies. Baier played a clip of one of the mothers blaming the Biden administration for her daughter’s death.

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with Fox News for an interview on Oct. 16. Here’s what she said. (Video: HyoJung Kim/The Washington Post)

Harris called the crimes “tragic cases” and said she could not imagine the pain those families felt “for a loss that shouldn’t have occurred.” But she sought to shift the focus to Trump’s move to torpedo a tough bipartisan border security bill that would have funded 1,500 additional agents and allowed the president to essentially shut down the border if illegal crossings reached a certain point.

Had Trump allowed that bill to pass nine months ago, Harris said, “It would be nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks who are working around-the-clock trying to hold it all together to ensure that no future harm would occur.”

Harris said she does not support decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings in the United States: “I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings. I’ve not done that as vice president. I will not do that as president.”

And asked about the criticism that she has received from the Border Patrol officers union, which is supporting Trump, Harris said she understood their concerns about the current state of the immigration system.

“They’re frustrated, and I get it,” the vice president said. “They want support, and that’s what that border security bill would have done.”

The interview represented an extraordinary moment in an already turbulent campaign, as a Democratic nominee who has been criticized for avoiding unscripted moments sat down with a network that has made its name with sometimes-fiery hosts who often attack Democrats and embrace conservative causes.

Harris is not the first Democrat to try to flip the script by agreeing to an interview with Fox in hopes of reaching voters who might otherwise be unlikely to hear their perspective. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has repeatedly sparred with the network’s hosts, earning him plaudits from fellow Democrats. And Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has appeared on “Fox News Sunday” two weekends in a row.

The Harris campaign believes the vice president has an opportunity to win over at least some Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who are alarmed by Trump’s rejection of the 2020 election results, his threats to unleash government powers against his political opponents, and his unusual behavior in some of his recent appearances.

Earlier on Wednesday, Harris appeared with more than 100 Republicans who have endorsed her campaign at an event in Bucks County, Pa., where she argued that Trump is not worthy of the support of Republicans who care about democracy. Noting that the former president at one point suggested terminating the Constitution as he falsely insisted he was the winner of the 2020 election, Harris argued that a person who makes that threat should never stand behind the presidential seal.

“If you share that view, no matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time, there is a place for you in this campaign,” Harris said. “The coalition we have built has room for everyone who is ready to turn the page on the chaos and instability of Donald Trump. And I pledge to you to be a president for all Americans.”

At the afternoon rally, Harris repeated new lines that she has tried out this week that Trump is “increasingly unstable” and “seeking unchecked power.” Harris argued that the hallmarks of her leadership as president would be an effort to build consensus among people of different political persuasions and a focus on making Americans’ lives better. Trump, she said, “will sit in the Oval Office plotting retribution, stewing in his own grievances, and think only about himself and not you.”

She was joined onstage at the “Country Over Party” event by an array of Republican leaders including former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan and former members of Congress such as Barbara Comstock of Virginia, James C. Greenwood of Pennsylvania, Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Denver Riggleman of Virginia, Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Dave Trott of Michigan.

Looking at the Republicans with her onstage and in the audience, she laughed and noted that in any normal election, it would be strange for them to be with her at a campaign event, “but not in this election.”

Over the past few months, the Harris campaign has been reaching out to voters who supported former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. In an effort to signal that Harris merits Republicans’ votes, her aides have also highlighted her support from prominent Republicans including former congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who urged Americans during a recent appearance with Harris to reject the “depraved cruelty” of Trump.

Kinzinger, who like Cheney was a member of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, spoke before Harris at the Bucks County event Wednesday.

He called Trump a “whiny, weak, small, tiny man who is scared to death.”

Trump, as the GOP presidential nominee, is expected to win Republican voters by large margins in every state. But if Harris can improve her standing among these voters even slightly in hard-fought battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania, it could make the difference between winning and losing, according to analysts on both sides.

In the Fox interview, Baier pressed Harris on when she first noticed that Biden’s “mental faculties appeared diminished” and why she had said he was capable of continuing to do the job of president before he dropped out of the race.

She did not directly answer the question. “I have watched in from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people,” Harris replied. “Joe Biden is not on the ballot, and Donald Trump is.”

Harris sidestepped questions about a position that she took earlier in her career supporting the use of taxpayer dollars for gender-affirming surgeries for prison inmates. Trump has prominently featured those remarks in some of his ads, which Harris described as a scare tactic.

“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said when asked whether she still supports using public funds for those surgeries. “Under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical-necessity basis to people in the federal prison system. And I think, frankly, that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of like throwing, you know, stones when you’re living in a glass house.”

Kamala Harris clashes with host in contentious Fox News interview - The Washington Post

U.S. Bombs Houthi Weapons Caches in Yemen - The New York Times

U.S. Stealth Bombers Attack Houthi Weapons Caches in Yemen

"Air Force B-2 bombers struck five underground weapons facilities in what may be a signal from the Biden administration to Iran.

The U.S. military struck five underground weapons facilities in areas of Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia on Wednesday, using warplanes that included B-2 stealth bombers in an attack that could also serve as a warning to Tehran.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said President Biden had ordered the strikes to “further degrade the Houthis’ capability” to attack ships and disrupt the flow of commerce in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Mr. Austin made no mention of Iran, but the rare use of the B-2, the only plane capable of striking Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities, against the Houthis was notable at a time of tensions between Israel and Iran that threaten to spill into full-blown war.

“This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened or fortified,” Mr. Austin said in a statement late Wednesday night. “The employment of U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate U.S. global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”

A statement from U.S. Central Command on Wednesday night said that U.S. Navy “assets” also took part in the attack, which the unit, based in Tampa, Fla., said was launched against “various advanced conventional weapons used to target U.S. and international military and civilian vessels navigating international waters.”

Attacking so-called hardened buried sites generally requires the use of specially built bombs that have much thicker steel cases and contain a smaller amount of explosives than similarly sized general-purpose bombs. The heavy casings of such “bunker buster” bombs allows the munition to stay intact as it punches through soil, rock or concrete before detonating.

The B-2 is the only warplane that can carry the largest of this class of weapon in the Pentagon’s inventory: A 30,000-pound GPS-guided munition called the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, that contains the equivalent of about 5,600 pounds of TNT. A Pentagon spokesman declined to say whether that weapon was used in the attack on Wednesday.

The Air Force had only acknowledged building 20 such bombs as of 2015, according to publicly available documents, and five were expended in testing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in 2012. According to an Air Force site, the weapon is capable of reaching targets up to 200 feet underground before exploding.

The U.S. arsenal also includes 5,000-pound and 2,000-pound penetrator bombs that can be dropped by other warplanes.

The Air Force is believed to have just 19 operational B-2 bombers, all of which are permanently based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, though the Pentagon has occasionally deployed some for exercises in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.

For B-2 bombers to take part in Wednesday’s attack, the aircraft would have either had to fly round-trip from Missouri to Yemen and refuel midair, or take off from a base much closer to their targets.

“Due to operational security, we won’t discuss our operating locations within the region,” Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said in response to a question about where the B-2s were launched for Wednesday’s attack.

The Houthis started targeting civilian tankers and cargo ships at sea in solidarity with Hamas last year. U.S. forces have shot down dozens of Houthi attack drones and anti-ship missiles launched at commercial merchant vessels since mid-November and have also frequently launched airstrikes against Houthi missile and radar sites."

U.S. Bombs Houthi Weapons Caches in Yemen - The New York Times

Election Live Updates: In Contentious Fox News Interview, Harris Spars With Anchor

“Vice President Kamala Harris battled with Bret Baier, who repeatedly interrupted her and pressed her using former President Donald J. Trump’s talking points. Mr. Trump, earlier Wednesday, took questions in a town hall with Latino voters.

Updated 

Oct. 16, 2024, 10:06 p.m. ETJust now

Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at a campaign event in Washington Crossing, Pa., on Wednesday.Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Pinned

Vice President Kamala Harris sat for a contentious interview on Fox News on Wednesday evening in which the anchor, Bret Baier, repeatedly interrupted her and pressed her using former President Donald J. Trump’s talking points.

Mr. Baier challenged Ms. Harris on the border, on her willingness to spend taxpayer dollars on gender-transition surgery for prison inmates, and on whether she could draw any differences between the Biden administration and how she would govern. “My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Ms. Harris said, in one of her clearest efforts yet to put distance between herself and Mr. Biden.

media memo

Bret Baier, shown at the Democratic National Convention in August, asked Vice President Kamala Harris questions on Wednesday that echoed former President Donald J. Trump’s attacks against her. Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Vice President Kamala Harris may not get another debate with former President Donald J. Trump, but on Wednesday, she got one with Bret Baier.

In an interview that turned contentious almost the instant it began, Mr. Baier, Fox News’s chief political anchor, repeatedly pressed the Democratic presidential nominee on illegal immigration, taxpayer support for gender-transition surgery and other areas that closely aligned with Mr. Trump’s regular attacks against her.

Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign rally earlier on Wednesday. Her Fox News interview that ran later was her first on the network.Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Vice President Kamala Harris sat for the most adversarial interview of her campaign on Wednesday, sparring with the Fox News anchor Bret Baier over the border, President Biden’s mental fitness and whether former President Donald J. Trump is a threat to American democracy.

For a Democratic presidential candidate, appearing on Fox News is about as close as going into the lion’s den as it gets. On Wednesday, the lion was Mr. Baier, who repeatedly interrupted the vice president and tried to talk over her.

A meeting of the Georgia State Election Board in the state’s Capitol in Atlanta earlier this year.Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated Press

A local judge on Wednesday delivered a sweeping ruling that rejected multiple new rules governing elections in Georgia, describing them as “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”

Most of the rules knocked down by the court closely aligned with the priorities of right-wing activists and were approved by the Georgia State Election Board in recent months. They included mandates to count election ballots by hand, expand the monitoring of ballot drop boxes, require new identification for delivering absentee ballots and provide expanded access for poll watchers, along with new requirements and procedures that could disrupt the election certification process.

“Our campaign is not a fight against something — it is a fight for something,” Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday at a rally in Washington Crossing, Pa.Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday made her most direct and expansive pitch yet to conservative and moderate voters, appearing in Pennsylvania with a phalanx of Republican elected officials who have set aside their party loyalties to try to defeat former President Donald J. Trump.

At a campaign event in Bucks County, Pa., Ms. Harris tried to strike a unifying tone even as she castigated her opponent, casting her campaign as one that embraced anyone who believed that Mr. Trump should not serve a second term.

Senator JD Vance, Republican of Ohio and former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate, at a campaign event in Williamsport, Pa., on Wednesday.Matt Rourke/Associated Press

Senator JD Vance of Ohio has been dogged by questions over whether he accepts that his running mate, former President Donald J. Trump, lost the 2020 election. But on Wednesday at a rally in Pennsylvania, he gave a crowd of supporters a clear answer: “No.”

Mr. Vance, speaking before a crowd in Williamsport, Pa., was pressed about his reluctance to acknowledge Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss by a reporter, who asked: “What message do you think it sends to independent voters when you do not directly answer the question, did Donald Trump lose in 2020?”

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:42 p.m. ET

Harris’s interview with Bret Baier of Fox News has ended. It was marked by a series of interruptions but allowed Harris to take her message to an audience that might not often hear it unfiltered. The discussion centered on the issues that Republicans largely want to dominate the election: immigration, the threat from Iran and her ties to Biden.

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:29 p.m. ET

It seems Baier has taken an aggressive tack in this interview in an attempt to shake Harris off her talking points. But his frequent interruptions remind me of Matt Lauer talking over Hillary Clinton during a televised NBC forum in September 2016.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:25 p.m. ET

Harris is making points that Fox News viewers don’t often hear in the channel’s normal programming, saying that Trump is unfit to serve and pointing out the number of his former administration officials who support her candidacy.

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:20 p.m. ET

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris said, in what is one of her clearest efforts to separate herself from the current president. 

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:21 p.m. ET

Republicans have seen Harris’s inability to articulate differences from Biden, and Baier is giving her a chance to draw some distinctions. She is taking the opportunity, saying that she is a different generation of leadership and that she will bring her own experiences to the White House.

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:20 p.m. ET

Harris was pressed on her position on using taxpayer funds for gender-affirming surgery for transgender inmates, including those who are undocumented. Trump has run millions of dollars on ads on the subject. “I will follow the law,” she said more than once, noting that the Bureau of Prisons provided gender-affirming treatments under Trump. She accused him of “throwing stones when you live in a glass house.”

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:16 p.m. ET

Baier is now playing Trump-Vance campaign attack ads and asking Harris to respond.

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:15 p.m. ET

Ten minutes in, and the entire interview has been about immigration and border security, an issue seen as one of Harris’s biggest weaknesses with undecided voters.

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:19 p.m. ET

Baier’s unrelenting focus on immigration and border security in the opening segment of this interview will most likely be criticized by Harris supporters. But these issues are also top-of-mind for many Republican voters and particularly viewers of Fox News – the channel’s programs feature hours of daily coverage on immigration issues.

Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:11 p.m. ET

Bret Baier is invoking the names of young women that Trump refers to frequently at his rallies as victims of undocumented migrants. They are frequently cited on Fox News programming, too. Baier is asking Harris to effectively answer for those episodes as a representative of the Biden administration.

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:09 p.m. ET

Harris is giving her standard response to questions about immigration by citing Donald J. Trump’s opposition to immigration legislation. 

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:15 p.m. ET

Harris is trying to stake out some common ground by agreeing that the immigration system is “broken.” But she says the solution is legislation passed by Congress, not solely administrative action. She has expressed empathy for border agents and for those who have had family members killed by immigrants in the country illegally.

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:05 p.m. ET

The first question in the Fox News interview of Vice President Kamala Harris is about immigration. Bret Baier asked how many undocumented immigrants have been released into the country during the Biden administration, but he interrupted her before she could answer. 

Oct. 16, 2024, 6:07 p.m. ET

Bret Baier has not come close to allowing Harris to answer a question yet, interrupting her repeatedly. “You have to let me finish, please,” she said. “I’m in the middle of responding ot the point youre raising, and I’d like to finish.”

Former President Donald J. Trump faced blunt questions in both English and Spanish from undecided Hispanic voters throughout the town hall.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Halfway through a town hall hosted by Univision on Wednesday, Ramiro Gonzalez stood in front of Donald J. Trump and told the former president that he had lost his support.

Mr. Gonzalez, 56, a self-described Republican, said he was alarmed when a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He did not like Mr. Trump’s leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, and he was dismayed by the chorus of former Trump administration officials who no longer support him. “I want to give you the opportunity to try to win back my vote,” Mr. Gonzalez, of Tampa, Fla., said.

Oct. 16, 2024, 5:04 p.m. ET

A colorful website created by Cards Against Humanity, the maker of an irreverent party game, to promote an unusual election-season program — promising payments for reluctant Democratic-leaning voters who made plans to vote — has been taken down. The company, which has needled Donald Trump and his allies for years, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the vanished website, apologize.lol, which was replaced by a page focused on a lawsuit Cards Against Humanity has filed against Elon Musk. Election law experts had been divided on whether the payment program was legal.

Oct. 16, 2024, 4:56 p.m. ET

At his rally in Williamsport, Pa., a reporter asked JD Vance about election fairness and misinformation. Vance said that he was “not worried” about the integrity of the 2024 election, though his running mate, Donald Trump, has often claimed the opposite. While Republicans have given mixed messages over the importance of early voting, Vance said he was worried that people who thought there were “too many problems” in the election would just skip voting. “That’s the exact opposite attitude you should be taking,” Vance said.

Oct. 16, 2024, 4:03 p.m. ET

Vice President Kamala Harris is speaking at a campaign event in Bucks County, Pa., where her crowd includes many Republican supporters, including registered voters and former elected officials. “In a typical election year, you all being here with me might be a bit surprising, dare I say unusual,” she said, chuckling, “but not in this election.” 

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Oct. 16, 2024, 4:26 p.m. ET

As she did a few weeks ago when appearing with former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican, Harris chose a symbolic location for this event: near the site where George Washington crossed the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War. This campaign event, unlike others, also featured the presentation of colors and the Pledge of Allegiance. Her backdrop is a farmhouse lined with American flags and a large banner that proclaims: Country Over Party. 

Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down for an interview with Fox News for the first time on Wednesday evening.Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Vice President Kamala Harris’s interview with Fox News’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, at 6 p.m. Eastern is, by any measure, a risk for her and a test of her ability to handle a potentially contentious interview in an unfriendly setting. This is the first time that Ms. Harris has sat for an interview on Fox, and it follows a series of interviews that the Democratic presidential candidate has given, including one to “60 Minutes.”

But she is hardly making history here.

Oct. 16, 2024, 3:21 p.m. ET

During a rally in Williamsport, Pa., Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, laid into Kamala Harris for agreeing only to “softball” media appearances, but the crowd cheered as he mentioned that she will join Bret Baier on Fox News for an interview tonight. “She’s got probably the hardest interview she’s ever done,” Vance said about her sit-down with Baier.

Matt Rourke/Associated Press

Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he will defeat Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would guarantee abortion rights in Florida.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The organization behind a campaign for an abortion-rights ballot measure sued the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Wednesday, saying that a threat to prosecute television stations for running a political ad was an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights.

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a fight between the group, Floridians Protecting Freedom, and the DeSantis administration, which has leaned heavily on the power of the state to oppose Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would guarantee abortion rights in Florida.

Oct. 16, 2024, 2:19 p.m. ET

Donald Trump’s town hall with Univision, which will air at 10 pm Eastern, just ended. He was asked a number of direct questions by Hispanic men and women on climate change, the Jan. 6 attack, his immigration policy, gun control and abortion rights. Trump often skirted direct answers. He would not say whether he believed climate change was a hoax or stake out a position on abortion rights. But when challenged by voters, he repeated his standard positions, while trying to come across as nonhostile and non-offensive to Latino voters.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Oct. 16, 2024, 2:16 p.m. ET

New Quinnipiac swing state polls show Kamala Harris up slightly in North Carolina while Donald Trump is ahead in Georgia by a fairly wide margin. Trump still polls ahead on the economy in both states. 

Oct. 16, 2024, 1:44 p.m. ET

Donald Trump was asked by an undecided voter from Arizona whether he really believed his baseless and debunked claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets. He blamed what he had read, but didn’t back down, saying, “I was just saying what was reported, that’s been reported, and eating other things too, that they’re not supposed to be.” And he once again said he planned to visit the city, though no campaign trip has been announced.

Oct. 16, 2024, 1:25 p.m. ET

Donald Trump is currently taking part in a town hall in Doral, Fla., hosted by Univision that will air later tonight. Jorge Velaquez, a farmer from California, told Trump that many farmworkers were undocumented immigrants and asked him who would replace them if he carried out his promised large-scale deportations. Trump vaguely insisted he’d make things better for farmers and said that “we want workers, and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally.” But he did not elaborate on how he would change the immigration system to do so, instead returning to his frequent characterizations of undocumented immigrants as violent criminals and mentally ill people.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Donald J. Trump spoke at a town hall focused on women’s issues hosted by Fox News.Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

Former President Donald J. Trump declared himself the “father of I.V.F.” in a town-hall event Tuesday focused on women’s issues, an eyebrow-raising nickname that was his latest attempt to claim an advantage on a matter that has become a political liability.

The Supreme Court justices Mr. Trump appointed enabled the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a ruling that he has praised and that opened the door to possible restrictions on in vitro fertilization.

Former President Jimmy Carter emerged from hospice care to attend a memorial for his wife of nearly eight decades, Rosalynn Carter, in Atlanta last year. Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The longest-lived president in American history has voted again.

Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 on Oct. 1 and has been in hospice care since February 2023, submitted his absentee ballot on Wednesday, according to Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson.“