Even Fox News’s Bret Baier Admits Harris Outsmarted Him in Interview
Fox News’s Brett Baier went on the offensive during an interview with Kamala Harris Wednesday night, but even he had to admit she got the best of him.
In a segment reacting to his own contentious interview, Baier conceded that Harris may have gotten exactly what she wanted from that interview.
“I think she had a … a mission, that she wanted to do. And maybe, she wanted to have a viral moment, she wanted to have a pushback,” Baier said. “She came to Fox News and she wanted to have a ‘go after Donald Trump’ viral moment that plays on other channels, and on social media. And I think she may have gotten that.”
During the interview, Baier pushed Harris to respond to several copy-pastes of Trump’s talking points, asking her about gender-affirming care in prisons and if she’d apologize to the family of a child killed by an immigrant. When she responded, Baier interrupted Harris’s answers and, appearing frustrated, formatted his follow-ups like debate rebuttals. Baier later offered a thin defense for his bad form in the interview, saying that he thought Harris would be “tough to redirect without me trying to interrupt,” and complaining that he hadn’t gotten the full time with Harris he’d expected.
At one point Harris even called out Baier for playing a truncated clip of Trump brushing off his “enemy from within” remark, instead of the actual clip itself from earlier this week—perhaps the “viral moment” Baier had referred to.
“You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they don’t agree with him. This is a democracy!” Harris said.
WOW -- Kamala Harris forcefully calls out Bret Baier for playing a deceptive clip whitewashing Trump's comments about "the enemy within" pic.twitter.com/JmIwSQXVjv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2024
While some on air at Fox News, such as Martha MacCallum and Dana Perino, complimented Baier’s performance and criticized Harris’s, it seems that not everyone thought that Baier did a great job—even former Fox News employees.
One former Fox producer sent an anonymous statement to Zeteo’s Justin Baragona, who posted it on X.
“Baier showed, again, he’s not a ‘straight news’ anchor. He’s a hack who’s no different than Hannity or Watters. He bowed to the pressure from his MAGA fans because he doesn’t care as long as they don’t change the channel,” the ex-producer said.
Baragona posted another statement from another former producer for Fox News. The second ex-producer said that it was “interesting to see Bret Baier for who he really is now that I’m on the outside looking in.” They added that Baier is “just so completely in the tank it’s hard to believe anyone sees him as a real journalist.”
Other journalists weren’t too pleased, either.
“I’d like to congratulate Kamala Harris on her victory in the Presidential Debate against Bret Baier despite Baier’s compulsive interruptions,” wrote Keith Olbermann in a post on X.
Writer Peter Wehner also gave his two cents in a post on X. “My take: Bret Baier has rarely looked as bad (or tendentious) as he did in his interview with Kamala Harris,” Wehner wrote. “On the flip side, this was one of her best interviews. She dominated Bret. All in all it was quite a bad day for MAGA world’s most important media outlet.”
For his faultless regurgitation of Trump’s talking points, Baier did earn the approval of the former president, at least.
“Great job by Bret Baier in his Interview with Lyin’ Kamala Harris,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social before ranting about Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Again, congratulations to Bret Baier on a tough but very fair interview, one that clearly showed how totally incompetent Kamala is. For the good of our Nation, her inferior Cognitive ability must be tested at once!”