Fox’s Bret Baier acknowledges ‘mistake’ in Harris interview over airing of Trump clip

Fox information anchor Bret Baier says he “made a mistake” during his interview with Kamala Harris in not airing video of a Donald Trump comment, something Harris pointed out to him in real period.

Baier made that admission on Thursday roughly 24 hours after his interview with the Democratic presidential candidate was aired. Just under 8 million people watched the session, Harris’ first sit-down with a Fox information Channel journalist during the campaign.

It wasn’t immediately obvious, however, what Baier meant by saying he made a mistake.

Their swap over the Trump video, one of the most contentious of the interview, came after Harris criticized her Republican opponent for saying that he might have to call out the National Guard or military to deal with “the foe within,” whom he defined as “radical left lunatics.”

Baier then said his co-worker, Harris Faulkner, had asked Trump about his “foe within” comment earlier in the day, “and this is how he responded.” The clip showed Trump saying he wasn’t threatening anybody, and criticized “phony investigations” of him, cracking a joke his spectators laughed at.

“Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due regard, that clip was not what he has been saying about the foe within … that’s not what you just showed,” Harris said.

Speaking a day later, Baier said that when he asked his staff for video to play during the interview, he was expecting to get two clips — one that showed Trump making the “foe within” comment to Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, and the one from Faulkner’s town hall that was played during the Harris interview.

“receive a listen to what I meant to roll,” Baier said on Thursday. He then aired both clips back to back.

Yet during the interview, Baier had given no indication that he meant to air the “foe within” comment at all, even after Harris had pointed it out. For that rationale, his explanation of a mistake met with some skepticism online.

“Newsflash: When incorrect clips run (which happens) hosts can easily declare `Sorry that was the incorrect clip,'” former Fox information anchor Gretchen Carlson wrote on “X.” “He or his producers would have recognize it was the incorrect one correct then.”

There was no immediate comment from a Fox representative on Friday to explain what Baier meant.

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. pursue him at http://x.com/dbauder.