Fox News declined to air Vice President Kamala Harris's first presidential campaign speech in its entirety, pulling the plug soon after she attacked Republican nominee Donald Trump.
During an event in Wisconsin, Harris said she would challenge Trump's record "any day of the week."
"So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type," she asserted. "As Attorney General of California, I took on one of our country's largest for-profit colleges that was scamming students. Donald Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students."
"As a prosecutor, I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse," she pointed out. "Well, Trump was found liable for committing sexual abuse."
Harris said that the presidential race was "about two different visions for our nation."
But only minutes after the speech began, Fox News cut back to its anchors in the studio while other networks, including CNN, MSNBC and Newsmax, ran it in its entirety.
"All right, she said she'll put her record up against Donald Trump's record any day," Fox News host Sandra Smith told co-host John Roberts. "Very little mention, John, of her accomplishments while vice president, while in the White House."
"Yeah, critics would say if she was to base a speech on her accomplishments in the White House, it would be a very short speech," Roberts opined. "But now we know at least what her major line of attack is going to be."
"So she's going to, it's going to be the prosecutor versus the convicted felon thing," he added, rolling his eyes.
Republicans are scrambling to regain their footing after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election campaign and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
The 81-year-old president ended his campaign Sunday following weeks of mounting pressure from other Democrats over concerns about his age, and Barack Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Donald Trump and his GOP allies were left grasping at straws following the shakeup.
"I've been impressed by Kamala's interviews the last few weeks," Plouffe said. "She's a prosecutor, he's a criminal – I like the matchup.
"Listen, let's not forget, the biggest issue in this campaign was Joe Biden's age. If Donald Trump gets elected, he'll be older than Joe Biden [was] on Inauguration Day. This guy is showing serious signs of unfitness — yes, in terms of character and the positions he holds, but in terms of his decline. He is really, really having trouble reading the Teleprompter. Obviously, the [Republican National Convention] speech was bad in tone, but he couldn't follow instructions there. This should give us great pause."
The former president had been counting on a rematch with his 2020 rival, and although his team has been preparing for the possibility that Biden would drop out, Plouffe made fun of Trump adviser Jason Miller for coming out of the chute by attacking Harris for supporting a ban on plastic straws for environmental reasons.
"I'm excited about this," Plouffe said. "I think the Trump campaign doesn't seem like they were as prepared for this switch as perhaps they might have been. They seem like they're kind of grasping. I guess they're talking about plastic straws and whatnot – not a compelling message."
The absence of the presidential seal on President Joe Biden’s letter announcing his exit from the presidential race proves “this wasn’t Biden’s choice.”
