Kamala Harris created all sorts of catastrophic moments for herself and her campaign in her interview last night with Bret Baier. What moment created the most clarity for voters? In retrospect, the worst response of the night related to her 'nomination,' and the need for her to do this interview at all. 

Democrat primary voters elected current incumbent president Joe Biden to be the nominee. In an unprecedented maneuver, Democrat leadership pressured Biden into withdrawing and anointed Harris as the new 'nominee' without any process or procedure. It's the first time that this has happened in American history, and it came because Joe Biden's cognitive decline got exposed on national television -- after months if not years of evidence accumulating over it.

In the interview and on the campaign trail, Harris claims that Donald Trump is "mentally unstable." Baier used that to ask Harris why Biden is not the nominee and when she noticed his decline, and ... Harris refused to admit that Biden had declined at all:

.@BretBaier asks Harris: You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?

*brief pause*

Harris: Joe Biden, I have watched, from the Oval Office… pic.twitter.com/eRiGALuHYM

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 16, 2024

Bret Baier asks Harris: You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?

*brief pause*

Harris: Joe Biden, I have watched, from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgement and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people. 

Baier: So no concerns raised?

Harris: Bret, Joe Biden is not on the ballot and Donald Trump is.

That was merely one of the 21 times that Harris invoked Trump's name in this 26-minute interview. Almost every answer Harris gave related to Trump rather than her own policies and positions, despite Bret Baier's efforts to get Harris to address those points. (I counted each of Harris' Trump references in the rush transcript e-mailed to me by Fox News.)

This goes waaaay beyond the Trump-disqualification strategy that Harris keeps using and which hasn't worked at all. (And why use that strategy with a Fox News audience at all?) This goes to the heart of why Harris is the 'nominee' in the first place. As we have repeatedly covered, questions have been raised for at least two-plus years based on Joe Biden's public behavior about his cognitive capacity, and perhaps in some circles for longer than that. Harris, the White House, and Democrat party leaders insisted that Biden ran intellectual circles around his staff and had more stamina than anyone in the West Wing, and all of them publicly assured voters that Biden had the capacity to serve another four years. 

And then Joe Biden debated Trump on June 27. His obvious decrepitude exposed the cover-up perpetrated by Harris et al, forcing Democrats to throw out the results of 50 state primaries and caucuses to make sure Joe Biden would not be on the ballot. 

The only reason Harris is the nominee is because Biden no longer has the capacity to campaign, let alone handle the office. So when did that happen, and why didn't Harris speak up about that? Those are legitimate questions, and in fact constitutionally critical questions. The US has a president who is functionally incapacitated and has just been removed from a elected nomination by his own party because of the exposure of that incapacity. 

Harris refuses to even address the situation that made her the nominee. She insists at first that Biden has full capacity, which then begs the question of why Biden isn't still the nominee. Baier tries to press for an answer to the question, and Harris then starts chanting a mantra about Trump. Here's the full exchange from the transcript:

BAIER: -- you told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?

HARRIS: Joe Biden. I have watched in from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experiment -- and experienced to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people.

BAIER: There were no concerns raised?

HARRIS: Bret, Joe Biden is not on the ballot.

BAIER: I understand, but --

HARRIS: And Donald Trump is.

BAIER: But you talked about it.

HARRIS: And Donald Trump is --

BAIER: After George Clooney said, within a few minutes of talking to President Biden at a fundraiser that he thought this was not the same Joe Biden that we saw on the debate stage.

HARRIS: Donald Trump is on the ballot.

BAIER: I understand. You met with him at least once a week for three and a half years. You didn't have any concerns?

HARRIS: I think the American people have a concern about Donald Trump, which is why the people who know him best, including leaders of our national security community have all spoken out. Even people who worked for him in the Oval Office, worked with him in the Situation Room and have said he is unfit and dangerous and should never be president of the United States again, including his former vice president, which is why the job was open for him to choose another running mate. So, that is a fact. That is a fact.

Joe Biden's not on the ballot, but Harris is, and she either participated in a cover-up or an unwarranted counter-democratic action in removing the elected nominee from the ballot. Trump is on the ballot because he won the competitive GOP primary; why is Harris the nominee without having won a single vote in any state for that position while Biden remains president?

That is the real question and issue Harris keeps dodging with her Trump Trump Trump mantra -- and one that the Protection Racket Media refuses to raise. It's astounding that it took three months after the unprecedented removal of a primary-winning incumbent from the ticket for any reporter to try to get an answer from the chief beneficiary of that quasi-coup. And it's even more astounding to see PRM hacks howl over Baier's attempt to get Harris on the record about it. 

On that note, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features Mary Rooke of the Daily Caller, who answers the question: Just how corrupt has the US media become? Mary Rooke joins me to discuss her new documentary at the Daily Caller titled "Cleaning Up Kamala," and it's a hoot. We discuss what made it into the film, and maybe even more amusingly, what happened since the film got published. I smell a sequel on the horizon!

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!