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“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Vice President Kamala Harris said.
Vice President Kamala Harris presented a vigorous defense of her positions and highlighted the dangers of a second Donald Trump presidency during a contentious interview with Fox News host Bret Baier in an appeal to Republican voters. The Fox News host used much of his 30 minutes to target a tiny subset of Americans — federally incarcerated transgender people.
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Baier kicked off the interview by grilling Harris on immigration, pressing her for a number on how many undocumented immigrants her administration had released.
“At the beginning of our administration, within practically hours of taking the oath, the first bill that we offered Congress before we worked on infrastructure before the Inflation Reduction Act, before the Chips and Science Act, before the Bipartisan Safety Communities Act, the first bill, practically within hours of taking the oath, was a bill to fix our immigration system,” Harris attempted to respond, but Baier interrupted multiple times, eventually pivoting to ask about her administration’s decision to reverse Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. The exchanges were tense, with Harris frequently requesting to finish her responses.
The focus shifted about ten minutes into the interview when Baier brought up the Trump campaign’s attack ads targeting Harris’s support for providing gender-affirming care for incarcerated individuals. “You’ve seen the ads,” Baier said, referring to the Trump campaign’s framing of Harris’s stance on trans rights through a series of transphobic attack ads as an “effective attack.” Baier then asked if she still supported using taxpayer dollars for gender transition surgeries for prisoners and detained migrants.
“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris responded, pointing out that gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy, was provided under Trump’s administration when deemed medically necessary. She emphasized that the government is legally obligated to provide necessary medical care to all individuals in its custody, including transgender people. All major U.S. medical associations have indicated that gender-affirming care is medically necessary for patients with gender dysphoria. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that denying such care violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
“I think [Trump] spent $20 million on those ads trying to create a sense of fear in the voters because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people,” Harris said. “$20 million on that ad, on an issue that, as it relates to the biggest issues that affect the American people, it’s really quite remote. And again, his policy was no different.”
Despite the small number of transgender inmates in the federal prison system—about 1,200 out of 145,000—Trump’s campaign has spent millions on ads attacking Harris on this issue. According toThe New York Times, Trump’s Bureau of Prisons provided gender-affirming care for inmates during his presidency, though the campaign has omitted this detail in its criticism of Harris.
Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf criticized the right’s faux outrage, telling The Advocate: “Vice President Harris is right — Donald Trump is peddling transphobia because he doesn’t even have a concept of a plan for making life better for the American people. Voters are looking for leaders with solutions and a vision for moving this country forward, not a bully who has nothing to offer but division and chaos. It’s time to turn the page on the Trump agenda of hate.”
