Vice President Kamala Harris’ Fox News gambit failed.

With just a few weeks left until Election Day, the presidential race remains a back-and-forth affair; However, according to many reputable polls, it is former President Donald Trump who is riding the wave of momentum. And given that the polling industry has underestimated Trump’s chances in each of his two previous campaigns, Harris will need to make significant gains to have any confidence in her chances.

It’s unlikely that Harris’ conversation with Bret Baier on Wednesday will lead to anything like that.

Harris certainly had some strong moments. In particular, she did well when she denounced Trump’s character and fitness for office. She’s right that Trump blew up a bipartisan border bill that would have done some good. She is right that Trump’s rhetoric is divisive. She is right that many members of his last government are warning against entrusting him with another term. And she’s right that Trump’s re-election is a big risk.

But that’s pretty much all she was right about. The ability to point out Trump’s flaws is something almost no one, let alone a leading progressive politician, should lack. It’s less than the bare minimum Democrats should expect from their candidate. And yet it’s apparently the only trick Harris has.

Harris’ broadsides against Trump would resonate more if she occasionally avoided them in favor of substantive answers to the questions she was actually asked. But her record is so bad and her ideas so unpopular that she avoids speaking directly about either.

Baier asked about specific decisions by the Biden-Harris administration to reverse Trump-era immigration policies and release migrants into the United States while they await trial. Harris responded by announcing an amnesty law and attacking Trump.

When asked about her previous advocacy for taxpayer dollars to be spent on gender reassignment treatments for prisoners and on the treatment of illegal immigrants, she made the ridiculous claim that Trump supports the same thing.

And when asked about how her recent identification of Iran as the United States’ top foreign adversary deviates from the rapprochement she and Biden were seeking, she attacked Trump for withdrawing from the crazy Iran nuclear deal .

If the goal was to convince persuasive independents and moderate Republicans that she is not the far-left bogeyman her 2020 campaign platform would paint her as, the interview was a colossal flop.

The vice president wants to have both. She is trying to gain a foothold in the mainstream of the electorate without offering any real concessions that could anger her base. That’s why she relies on obscure statements like this: “My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency… I invite ideas, whether from the Republicans who support me, who were on stage with me just a few minutes ago , and…” the corporate sector and others who can contribute to the decisions I make.”

But Baier cut through the fluff and exposed their hollow promises. The question he asked, eliciting a series of platitudes from her, was: “So you’re not Joe Biden, you’re not Donald Trump, but you can’t think of anything you would do differently?”

And when she answered without answering, he asked the obvious: “Your campaign slogan is ‘A new way forward’ and ‘It’s time to turn the page.'” You’ve been vice president for three and a half years, so what are you turning the page on? ?”

“We are turning the page on the last decade of being burdened with the rhetoric of Donald Trump…” she replied.

The public as a whole may not have much of an affinity for Donald Trump the man, but almost all the indicators we have suggest that they have a far greater affinity for his administration than the current one.

Kamala Harris keeps trying to say rather than show how her own presidency would be different from Biden’s disastrous one. Finally, on Wednesday, someone called her out on it.