‘SAFE CHOICE’

Fox News’ Chris Wallace: Trump Wishes Biden Had Picked Anyone But Kamala Harris

“Think of who he could have chosen and how much easier it would have been for Republicans to make that case,” the Fox News host argued.

By Matt Wilstein & Andrew KirellAug 12, 2020

President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is “the kind of opponent everyone dreams of.” Chris Wallace isn’t buying it.

According to the Fox News Sunday host, Biden’s vice presidential pick is “not far to the left, despite what Republicans are going to try to say” and ultimately a “reasonably safe choice” for the role. “She adds some excitement to the ticket,” he added. “She’s a statement to African-Americans and especially to African-American women, who are the real solid core of the Democratic Party, that the party does not take them for granted.”

When Fox’s Sandra Smith attempted to paint Harris as a “flip-flopper,” asking if her party will “struggle to defend” her evolution on certain issues, Wallace pushed back.

“I don’t think they’re going to have to struggle at all,” he said of the Democrats. “I mean, let’s think of who else Joe Biden could have picked.” If he had picked Susan Rice, then the Trump campaign “would have been all over her” on Benghazi and the Russia investigation. Now “they don’t get to do any of that,” he said. If he had picked Elizabeth Warren, Wallace said they could have much more easily characterized the ticket as “far-left.”

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He went on to explain how much harder it will be for Trump and Republicans to attack Harris.

“Despite the president saying yesterday that Kamala Harris was his number one draft pick, that she’s the one he wanted the most, I promise you that there were a lot of people he would have liked to be running against much more,” Wallace said. Given the other women on his shortlist, he marveled at the fact that the “daughter of an immigrant from India and an immigrant from Jamaica” ended up being the “safe choice” for Biden.

And just because forces on the right are calling her too far left doesn’t change that, he added. “The fact that Liz Cheney and The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal editorial page don’t like her, who among the Democrats would they have liked?” Wallace asked, laughing. “The answer is they’re kind of struggling.”

Reminding Fox News viewers that as a prosecutor Harris was actually “pretty tough on crime,” he said, “That’s going to make it a little bit harder for the Republicans to say that this is a far-left, Defund the Police ticket. Again, think of who he could have chosen and how much easier it would have been for Republicans to make that case.”