6 Takeaways From Harris’s Combative Interview on Fox News

Pressed and often interrupted by Bret Baier, the vice president opened up a little more distance from President Biden and defended her position on immigration and border security.

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Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign rally earlier on Wednesday. Her Fox News interview that ran later was her first on the network.

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.

But Ms. Harris — giving her first interview on Fox News in an attempt to reach millions of voters, especially conservative-leaning women, who have probably not heard much of her message — largely steered the conversation in her preferred direction.

Here are six takeaways from the interview.

She broke with Biden (a little).

Ms. Harris made her clearest effort to separate herself from Mr. Biden after she was asked how her administration would be different.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” she replied, adding that she represented a different generation of leadership and would address issues like housing and small businesses in different ways.

Republicans have seen Ms. Harris’s unwillingness to articulate differences from the unpopular president as a political gift. In an interview on ABC’s “The View” last week, she said there was “not a thing that comes to mind” when asked what she would have done differently from Mr. Biden.

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