Here's What Puzzles Me About Kamala's Fox Interview

Up to a few weeks ago, astute observers had been saying that Kamala's real campaign manager was Brian Fallon, who was the architect of the strategy that kept her away from press conferences and interviews. And up to a few weeks ago, it's hard to argue that this wasn't a success. The polls were stuck with her leading by about 3 points in the popular vote, for instance.

Then, out of the blue, a sudden consensus emerged that Kamala had a problem with black men, and whether it was in response to that or for some other reason, she began to give softball interviews to friendly outlets. The problem was, though, what the Brian Fallon faction of the campaign recognized, that no matter how friendly the interviewer or the format, she performs poorly, often offering up soundbites like "not a thing that comes to mind" when asked how she'd differ from Biden policies -- which promptly make their way into Trump commercials.

Given a week or more of that kind of experience, the powers behind the scenes in her campaign -- presumably not Brian Fallon at this stage -- decided to play to that weakness. If she did poorly on The View, they'd put her on Charlemagne tha God and Fox. What on earth did tney have in mind? Here's a take that gets things at least partly right:

In what was widely seen as a Hail Mary move by Kamala’s campaign, the vice president agreed to an extended interview on Fox News, one of the exceedingly few national TV interviews she’s done since she was anointed the Democrat Party’s post-Biden nominee.

She "agreed to an extended interview" with Fox, but that wasn't what Fox got: she showed up 15 minutes late, and her handlers ended it early with what Baier called a "hard wrap". So it sounds like her handlers had a plan to minimize her potential weaknesses by keeping things as short as possible while hoping she could filibuster her answers and run out the clock, but at best, this didn't work out as well as they expected. One commentator gave the best-case interpretation:

The vice president has been slipping in the polls over the past couple of weeks. Although sitting for an interview with Fox was a risky move for Harris, she had hoped that a strong performance might help jumpstart her campaign and even bring back some of the joy and good vibes she had going over the summer.

Unfortunately for her, it’s unlikely that she attracted many – or even any – new supporters on Wednesday evening – and may even have driven some independent and undecided voters away.

All in all, not a good night for Harris.

The question I have is what problem the Harris campaign was rying to solve by doing the Fox interview. A web search on "kamala fox interview hail mary" brings results that suggest that indeed, this was a risky move by the Harris campsign to reverse declining polls and regain momentum -- as would be a Joe Rogan interview the campaign has also been mooting. The UK Daily Mail summarized the post-debate spin from pro-Harris commentators:

[S]upporters of Harris accused Fox News of conducting an 'ambush' interview and argued that she did well.

'Kamala Harris (strong) handled an ambush Fox interview light years better than the hash Donald Trump (unstable) made of the Fox pep rally disguised as a town hall,' Harris campaign advisor David Plouffe wrote on X.com.

Brian Stelter, a media analyst from CNN described the interview as a positive result for Harris.

'A lot of viewers are going to come away saying, "Wow, she's willing to do that. That's a sign of toughness and strength,"' Stelter said in a clip shared by the Harris campaign on social media.

But did it do what the campaign needed it do do -- change the narrative and regain momentum? I don't think so. The figure who got the biggest boost was Bret Baier, who was universally expected to be his normal tepid self, soft on Harris, when his forceful approach turned out to be a surprise. From the Daily Mail,

'Kamala Harris just ran into a Bret Baier buzzsaw when asked about the number of illegal aliens in the country,' wrote conservative communicator Steve Guest as the interview aired.

Baier's interview style drew praise from former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly.

'Bret is crushing this and she is incapable of defending her deadly border policies,' she wrote.

. . . Others who were not big fans of Baier indicated they were impressed by his performance.

'I forgive Bret Baier. He's literally ending Kamala Harris's campaign before our very eyes!' wrote Vince Langman, a supporter of Trump.

The one who changed the narrative and regained momentum was Bret Baier, whatever the outcome for Kamala. The campaign did a very poor job of understanding and managing risk, and I'm wondering who's in charge now.