(AFP) – Kamala Harris was set to reach out to hesitant Republican voters in an interview Wednesday on conservative Fox News, while slamming Donald Trump for branding himself the “father of IVF” on the same network. Democratic nominee Harris will sit down with the right-wing broadcaster in the battleground state of Pennsylvania in a bid to court Republicans who have tired of Trump’s dark rhetoric. The White House race is neck-and-neck with less than three weeks to go, and both candidates are looking for ways to hit their rival and gain even the slightest advantage.
Harris sent a message to Republicans in a rally in Pennsylvania ahead of the interview, as she quoted a report that Trump’s former top military officer General Mark Milley had described Trump as “fascist to the core.” “To those who are watching, if you share that view, no matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time — there is a place for you in this campaign,” Harris said. Harris also repeated her description of former president Trump as “unhinged” for threatening to use the military against internal enemies.
Harris will be quizzed by Fox anchor Bret Baier — regarded as a tough but fair interviewer — in a show screening at 6:00 pm (2200 GMT), as she gambles to break the deadlock with a sortie into unfamiliar ground.
Fox News has played a key role in Trump’s political rise, and he blasted the network over the Harris interview, accusing Baier of being “very soft.” He sat down with the network ahead of Harris’s appearance, in a pre-recorded town hall with an all-female audience, where the conversation turned to vitro fertilization (IVF), a fertility treatment that Democrats say is threatened by his policies. Despite being on home turf, it was a challenging topic as women have been turned off by Trump’s statements on reproductive rights and by his campaign more broadly.
He was cheered as he told his audience in the swing state of Georgia that Republicans were the party championing the procedure. “I want to talk about IVF. I’m the father of IVF, so I want to hear this question,” he said. Harris, who has made the defense of reproductive rights a centerpiece of her election platform, called his comments “bizarre.” “Couples who are praying and hoping and working toward growing a family have been so disappointed and harmed by the fact that IVF treatments have now been put at risk,” she told reporters on her plane.
Reproductive rights have been a major vulnerability for Trump since the Supreme Court, featuring three Trump-picked justices, gutted federal protections for abortion access in 2022. Many in the anti-abortion movement also want to see IVF curbed. The Harris campaign hosted a press call highlighting the case of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old mother-of-one who died in Georgia in August after delays in receiving care for complications related to a medical abortion.
Trump’s town hall in Georgia was filmed on Tuesday, the first day of early voting in the closely-watched state, with voters casting a record number of 328,000 ballots. Trump has been charged with election tampering in the state, pushing for Georgia officials to “find” enough votes to overturn President Joe Biden’s narrow win there in 2020.
Harris at least knows she has one vote in the bag for 2024. Former president Jimmy Carter cast his vote by mail on Wednesday, just days after turning 100. The Democrat was fulfilling what his family said was a wish to live long enough to back Harris in the election.
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
