Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier made a stunning admission about a mistake he made during his conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Baier spoke with Harris in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday after she held an event with Republicans supporting her presidential bid.
The controversial interview received the highest ratings (nearly 8 million viewers) of any Fox News Channel segment of the entire 2024 campaign cycle.
During Thursday night’s episode of his show, Special Report, Baier told panelists Harris Faulkner and Harold Ford Jr. that there had been one big mistake.
“Harold, I made a mistake. And I wanted to say I made a mistake,” Baier said. “When I called for a sound bite, I expected a piece on the ‘enemy from within’ from Maria Bartiromo’s interview to be linked to the piece from your town hall, Harris, where you asked the former president about ‘the enemy from within’. “‘
Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier made a stunning admission about a mistake he made during his conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris
Instead, Baier admitted, what unfolded was just “the City Hall part.”
“Just listen to what I wanted to roll,” he told viewers.
Former President Donald Trump had said during his conversation with Fox’s Bartiromo on Sunday, “I think the bigger problem is the enemy within.”
“Not even the people who came in and [are] destroy our country. We have some sick people, radical left-wing lunatics. And I think it is – and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, the National Guard, or, if really necessary, by the military,” Trump said.
That comment was widely criticized, with Harris even playing it to her audience Monday night when she held a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, making it all the more obvious, even though that wasn’t what was going on during the sit-down with Baier.
What Baier played up during the Harris interview was the opportunity Faulkner gave Trump to clean up his act.
“I’ve heard about that,” Trump said during Faulker’s town hall. ‘They said I was threatening. I don’t threaten anyone. They are the ones who threaten.”
Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier (left) spoke with Vice President Kamala Harris (right) in Pennsylvania on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, he told viewers he planned to play a fuller segment when he questioned her about recent comments from former President Donald Trump
‘They do research by telephone. More research has been done on me than on Alphonse Capone. He was the biggest gangster,” the ex-president continued. ‘No, it’s true. No, but think about it. It’s called arming the government. It’s a terrible thing.’
When Harris heard this clip played and not Trump’s initial “enemy from within” comments, she became incredulous.
“Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that segment was not what he said about the enemy within, what he repeated when he talked about the American people,” Harris said. “That’s not what you just showed,” she argued.
At the time, Baier defended playing that clip.
“Well, he was asked about that particular…” Baier began to say.
“No, no, no, that’s not what you just showed, in all fairness and respect to you,” Harris shot back.
“I’m telling you that was the question we asked him,” Baier said.