Bret Baier Admits Mistake With Trump Clips During Kamala Harris Interview
Fox News host Bret Baier has admitted the wrong clip with Donald Trump talking about his “the enemy from within” claims rolled during his exclusive Special Report interview with Kamala Harris, which prompted a stern rebuke from the U.S. Vice President.
Talking on Thursday with Fox News panelists Harris Faulkner and Harold Ford Jr. during his weeknight newscast, Baier said: “Harold, I did make a mistake, and I want to say I did make a mistake. When I called for a soundbite, I was expecting a piece of the ‘enemy from within’ from Maria Bartiromo’s interview, to be tied to the piece from your town hall, Harris, where you ask the former president about the enemy from within. It just had the piece about the town hall.”
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To show what he originally intended, Baier had the clip from Trump’s original comments during Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures interview roll, followed by a snippet from the Faulkner interview where the former U.S. President, during a Fox News Channel town hall, doubled down on his comments about his political rivals posing a bigger threat to the U.S. than foreign countries.
“My point was that we asked him about the question about that sentence and what he was trying to mean,” Baier added after the two clips rolled.
During her Oct. 16 sit-down interview on Special Report with Bret Baier, Harris shot back after the wrong soundbite aired. “Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within, that he has repeated when he’s speaking about the American people. That’s not what you just showed,” she said.
“I’m telling you that was the question that we asked him,” the Special Report With Bret Baier host countered after being called out for airing the wrong clip.
“You didn’t show that and here’s the bottom line. He has repeated it many times and you and I both know that. And 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 who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” Harris added.
In the Fox News Sunday Morning Futures interview with Bartiromo last weekend, Trump suggested using the military against “the enemy from within.” Saying, “The bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country … I think the bigger problem are the people from within. Wee have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics.”
This week’s appearance marked Harris’ first formal sit-down interview on the Fox News Channel after she completed earlier interviews on CNN and CBS’ 60 Minutes show.
Following the combative interview, in which Baier frequently interrupted Harris as she pushed back to give her answers, the Harris campaign explained why they did the sit-down.
“I think there’s a good number of independents and Haley-style Republicans who are very open to voting for VP Harris and that’s why we are open to doing events with Republicans and on Fox News,” said Harris campaign communications director Brian Fallon. “We feel like we definitely achieved what we set out to achieve in the sense that she was able to reach an audience that has probably been not exposed to the arguments she’s been making on the trail, and she also got to show her toughness in standing tall against a hostile interviewer.”
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