Vice President Harris can quiet criticism that, unlike President Trump, she speaks only to favorable press. Viewers of Wednesday’s performance with the Fox News Channel host, Bret Baier, see a combative figure who — pausing her “joy” campaign — stuck to the message that her opponent is “unstable,” “unfit,” and “dangerous.” Americans, she said, are “exhausted” by him.

Following the interview, the former Democrat from Tennessee, Congressman Harold Ford Jr., declared it a “win” for both Ms. Harris and Mr. Baier. On the losing end, thought, were viewers tuning in to learn what a President Harris would do. The focus was as much on the person asking the questions as the one answering them.

Ms. Harris grew up at Berkeley, California, and attended high school in the tony Westmount neighborhood of Montreal. Yet she styles herself as a “daughter of Oakland,” home of the NFL’s Raiders when they were feared on the gridiron. It was this version of Ms. Harris who suited up for Fox: The brawling prosecutor bent on convicting President Trump in the court of public opinion.

Mr. Baier didn’t try to put his guest at ease to lower her guard. Not that he got the chance. Ms. Harris’s body language when she sat down was defensive: Legs and arms crossed, elbows on her knees. Having worked at Fox News during and after its launch in 1996, I’d say he missed an opportunity. He talked over Ms. Harris far too much.  

Mr. Baier played several clips, which meant less time for Ms. Harris on the hot seat. TV personalities like to hear themselves talk and interviews turn into monologues. In my time at Fox, we’d have edited the rambling down to short, punchy questions and tried not to ask what the guest had faced dozens of times already.

The preambles gave Ms. Harris time to draft her plays. By the time Mr. Baier got around to, “How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country?” he’d laid out so much flotsam that she was able to choose any number of things as her focus.

Ms. Harris said illegal immigration was “a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have, and you know what I’m going to talk about.” This telegraphed that she would recite her canned response, that Trump opposed a border bill which she framed as a panacea. When again asked for a number, Ms. Harris stuck to Trump.

Mr. Baier rolled video of a mother testifying about her daughter’s murder at the hands of a man with no legal right to be in America and who held the Biden-Harris Administration responsible. Mr. Baier asked if Ms. Harris wanted to apologize to her. “I’m so sorry for her loss,” Ms. Harris said, “sincerely,” before returning to her case against Trump.

Ms. Harris described Trump for the jury watching as “an individual who does not want to participate in solutions.” The immigration section ate up over ten minutes. Next, Mr. Baier asked if the vice president maintained her support for “taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender.”

Ms. Harris said that her administration had followed the law passed by Congress, as Trump had. While inflation, the deficit, abortion, expanding the Supreme Court, energy, Ukraine, and education were all absent, this topic — impacting a tiny fraction of the electorate — somehow earned a prime-time spotlight. Iran and Israel were brushed past with, again, Ms. Harris blaming Trump.

“When did you first notice that President Biden’s mental faculties appeared diminished?” Mr. Baier asked. Yet the timing is not of paramount importance. Rather, it’s why Ms. Harris vouched for his sharpness until the truth was laid bare in the debate.

Ms. Harris said Mr. Biden has “the judgment and the experience” to serve but that he’s “not on the ballot.” Why he’s not if he remains capable, and why voters ought to trust her after joining the coverup on his behalf, was again lost in the crosstalk. More minutes ticked off the game clock.

“I’ve been clear,” Ms. Harris said in some form nine times. It’s a rhetorical crutch common to politicians but here it reinforced the impression that Mr. Baier was not letting her speak. As the allotted time expired, Mr. Baier began saying, “They’re giving me a hard wrap.”

After the interview, Mr. Baier said, “four people” from the Harris campaign were “waving their hands, like, ‘it’s gotta stop.’” He might have asked if the vice president wanted to overrule her staff and stay longer or have invited her back, since she said she was there to reach the Fox audience.

That the interview was live-to-tape — recorded with only what Mr. Baier called “light editing” — means Fox had no time constraints. Regardless, after that abrupt end and all the interrupting, Ms. Harris has a reason not to appear on Fox again, either in the campaign’s final days or as president.