Kamala Harris went on Fox News. It went how you might expect

Kamala Harris came fishing for Republican votes in choppy waters — the airwaves of Fox News. Fox News, meanwhile, sought to sink her boat.

The unusual encounter speaks to the crude electoral math in this U.S. campaign: Harris needs to add some of these viewers to offset potential losses of other voters.

Her message to normally right-leaning voters is that she's a safe bet who will protect American democracy, many Republicans endorse her, she's more stable than Trump, and she's focused on moderate, bread-and-butter issues. 

In other words, she hoped to penetrate the Fox News fog with the same messages of her summer convention speech, and another event she held Wednesday with Republicans. 

It was an extraordinary programming choice given how rarely Harris sat for interviews early in her campaign, let alone in the proverbial lion's den; Trump himself has done way more adversarial interviews, albeit not so much lately.

Her interviewer was Bret Baier, a news anchor who has occasionally golfed with Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Trump's golf buddy teed off on Harris.

The interviewer pressed her a way she's never been pressed before as a presidential candidate: Unrelentingly, on topics seemingly custom-built to remind Fox News viewers why they shouldn't like her. 

Illegal migration; publicly funded sex changes for prisoners; her past left-wing promises; President Joe Biden's mental decline. The Fox host pressed her on these topics — and, unlike a recent CNN interviewer, he kept following up.

It started with Baier asking how many illegal border-crossers had been released, pending their asylum cases; when Harris started delivering her customary answer, that Trump sabotaged an immigration bill, he pushed back, citing scores of actions the current administration itself took, early on, to loosen the border. 

"May I finish responding please? You have to let me finish," Harris replied, when Baier cut her off, to interrupt her Trump-blaming.

That essentially set the pattern for the ensuing 25 minutes.

Baier then played a video of a grieving mother whose daughter was killed by an undocumented migrant and asked if she would apologize. Harris said she was sorry for the loss; Baier pressed again for an apology; Harris repeated that she felt awful.

On the topic of when Harris realized Biden had lost a step, cognitively, Baier asked: "You didn't have any concerns?" Harris defended her boss, and turned the topic to Trump.

Harris tried referring to how unsuited Trump is for power, and referred to the numerous Republicans, including military members, and members of Trump's team, who have endorsed her, or who even refer to Trump as a fascist.