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By James Bickerton
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CNN anchor Anderson Cooper challenged Vice President Kamala Harris over the Biden administration's record on illegal immigration and her personal attitude toward a border wall during the network's town hall on Wednesday. However some commentators were skeptical of her performance, saying she "focused a lot more on Donald Trump" than her own policies.
Cooper asked Harris to explain her support for a bipartisan immigration deal that included $650 million in spending on a border wall—though she previously "criticized the wall more than 50 times" and labeled a wall "stupid," "useless" and "a medieval vanity project."
Harris responded: "So let's talk about Donald Trump and that border wall. Remember Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it? Come on, they didn't. How much of that wall did he build? I think the last number I saw is about 2 percent. And then when it came time for him to do a photo op you know where he did it? In the part of the wall that President Obama built."
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Harris has taken a harder line on immigration as exclusive polling for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies showed 53 percent of Democrat-leaning voters support a stronger approach to the issue.
Philip van Scheltinga, of Redfield & Wilton Strategies, told Newsweek: "When even Democratic voters are overwhelmingly unhappy with the situation as it has developed, then it is time for the Democratic Party to revisit their position."
Harris also used her CNN appearance to call former President Donald Trump a fascist, echoing comments from John Kelly, Trump's former White House chief of staff who said Trump had praised Adolf Hitler's generals. The former president's team strongly denies the allegation. The Republican nominee hit back on Truth Social, writing that Harris is "a Threat to Democracy" and "not fit to be President of the United States."
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According to the fact-checking website PolitiFact, the Trump administration built 52 miles of new primary border wall and 406 miles of secondary border barriers to support existing defenses. In August, Trump posed in front of a section of the border wall in Montezuma Pass, Arizona, which was built under the Obama administration, The Washington Post reported.
Cooper asked Harris why she pledged to reintroduce the bipartisan border bill if she won in November, considering her past opposition to a border wall. The Democratic nominee replied, "I'm not afraid of good ideas where they occur."
The CNN host then said, "So you don't think it's stupid anymore?" Harris, referring to Trump, replied, "I think what he did and how he did it did not make much sense because he actually didn't do much of anything."
There was some criticism of Harris' performance after the debate, with CNN host Jake Tapper saying she "focused a lot more on Donald Trump...than she did on many of the specifics in terms of what she would do."
Referring to swing voters, CNN journalist Dana Bash added: "If her goal was to close the deal, [undecided voters] aren't sure she did that."
On X, Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid said: "At the CNN townhall, Kamala Harris shows herself to be completely unable to address questions about U.S. complicity in Gaza's destruction. She says too many civilians have been killed but refuses to say anything about America's role in the supplying the weapons that kill them."
However author Lisa Guerrero on X saluted the Democrat's performance, saying: "Kamala Harris did an extraordinary job in this CNN Townhall. She came across as intelligent, empathetic, pragmatic, and patriotic. And guess what... She never once praised Hitler."
Newsweek contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment on Thursday via email outside regular office hours.
The Trump War Room, an account affiliated with Trump's presidential campaign, posted a clip of the exchange on X, formerly Twitter, where it received more than 250,000 views.
The account also posted another clip from the town hall, which has been viewed more than 220,000 times. In the video, Cooper asked Harris about "record border crossings" in 2022 and 2023 before President Joe Biden issued an executive order in June 2024 that placed limits on the number of asylum-seekers allowed across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The host questioned why the administration didn't issue such an order in previous years. Harris replied, "Because we were working with Congress and hoping that actually we could have a long-term fix to the problem instead of a short-term fix."
According to the latest analysis by the polling website 538, the election remains too close to call, with Trump having a 51 percent chance of victory on November 5 against Harris' 49 percent.
Update 10/24/2024 10:36 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information for context.
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