There are a lot of social media-based comedians out there doing very well at the moment out of the parody political interview, but none of them have turned in quite such a perfect performance as Kamala Harris on Fox News.
If it was meant as a piece of performance art it was a straight up masterpiece.
She did the interview because, somewhat remarkably, there are still some undecided voters left in America. At the end of 26 excruciating minutes, one doubts they’re undecided any more but, at least from Harris’s point of view, not in a good way.
Unusually for these things, it was a train wreck from the very first second. The first question was about immigration and she responded by saying: “I’m glad you raised the subject of immigration because I agree with you that it is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have.”
And then, when she was not unreasonably interrupted by her interlocutor, Bret Baier, she had the almost admirable nerve to say: “Bret, let’s just get to the point, OK.”
It hardly needs to be stated that Mr Baier was not providing any obstruction between the vice-president and the point. If “the point” was the ultimate destination then the vice-president looked like she’d picked up her phone to put “the point” into Google Maps but spent 20 minutes reading her WhatsApps instead.
Sensing there was only so much of this that he or his viewers could take, Baier came in with another polite interruption. “I’m not finished. I’m not finished,” came the answer. No, you haven’t finished. You haven’t actually started.
• Fox News interview leaves Harris bruised but battle-hardened
As it rolled on it became harder to work out whether to scream at the television or just stand and applaud. I’ve accidentally built a life out of watching politicians not answer questions but I’ve never seen the like, and I lived through the Theresa May years.
Having been vice-president for four years, Baier wanted to know, what had she been doing to tackle illegal immigration?
“The first bill that we offered Congress,” she said, “before the Inflation Reduction Act, before the Chips and Science Act, before the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act … ” I think you get the picture. It was the kind of thing that would get you blacklisted from Just a Minute.
It went on and on like this while various geological eras came and went, and then, again: “Can I finish? I’m not finished. I’m in the middle of responding.” If she were anywhere even approaching the middle, she might have been permitted to reach the end. She was, very deliberately, nowhere near the beginning.
By halfway through it would have come as no surprise to see her begin her answers by reciting the Gettysburg Address and pivoting to “Can I finish?” right around the bit about the last full measure of devotion.
With no discernible answer of any kind to consider, Baier just stated how the Trump administration had done things differently on illegal immigration, most notably via the “Remain in Mexico” programme. That’s right up their street. At that point, Harris must have realised she might have been better off just getting up and walking out.
Her purpose had become solely to remind those undecided voters that, actually, that crazy Trump guy had done a lot of things they liked. That maybe, you know, we should just put up with the crazy. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s got to be better than watching this.