Fox News anchor Bret Baier said a mistake was made during his Wednesday interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I did make a mistake, and I want to say I did make a mistake,” Baier said in a video clip posted to X.
“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,” he said.
“I did make a mistake.” Bret Baier admits he did air the wrong clip during his interview with Kamala Harris. (Video: Fox News) pic.twitter.com/6PX29Sbm5W
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) October 17, 2024
Baier then showed the two clips.
In the one that aired, former President Donald Trump spoke about the dangers of what he called “the enemy from within.”
In the one that did not, Trump said the comment was not intended to be a threat, derided investigations into him and followed up with a joke.
“My point was that we asked him about the question about that sentence and what he was trying to mean,” Baier said later.
As noted by ABC, Baier made no comment during the interview that only part of what he wanted to show had aired.
Harris seized upon the clip to make a point about Trump, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“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,” Harris said.
This does not pass the smell test because his setup was all about that morning’s town hall, no mention that he would play a clip from Sunday.https://t.co/38zuHA2u4m
— Rob Owen (@RobOwenTV) October 18, 2024
“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 said.
The explanation did little to silence Baier’s critics.
If Bret Baier had made a “mistake,” he should have been honest enough to have said so at the time he made it, when President-Elect Harris called him out.
He knew what he did. He’s just trying to make himself look good now.
— Capn Louie 🌊 (@CaptainLouie) October 18, 2024
Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson questioned the explanation in a post on X.
“Now Bret Baier says ‘his mistake’ he ran wrong Trump ‘enemy from within’ clip during interview w/ Harris. Newsflash: When wrong clips run (which happens) hosts can easily say ‘Sorry that was the wrong clip’. He or his producers would have known it was the wrong one right then.”
