Fox News‘ Bret Baier said that a wrong clip was run during a key moment of his interview with Kamala Harris on Wednesday night, which led to the vice president calling out the network for leaving out Donald Trump‘s call to use the military against political opponents.
Baier said on Special Report this evening that he meant to use a clip from Trump’s interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. In that clip, the former president talked of the “bigger problem” being “the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and are destroying our country. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, National Guard or really necessary by the military.”
Instead, what only ran was a clip of Trump at an earlier town hall with Harris Faulkner, where he was asked about his Bartiromo comments. In that clip that ran, “They were saying I was like, threatening. I am not threatening anybody. They are the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations. I’ve been investigated more than Alphonse Capone. … But think of it. It’s called weaponization of government. It’s a terrible thing.”
Talking with Faulkner, Baier said this evening, “I did make a mistake, and I want to say the mistake. When I called for a soundbite, I was expecting a piece of ‘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.”
Both clips ran on Special Report tonight.
On Wednesday, after Harris had referenced Trump’s “enemy from within” comments, Baier introduced the clip by saying, “We asked that question to the former president today. Harris Faulkner had a town hall and this is how he responded.”
The Trump clip from the town hall then ran.
The vice president then told Baier, “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.” Baier tried to interrupt her, and she said, “Here is 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 protests. He’s talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy. And in a democracy, the president of the United States, in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying that he would lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake.”
The moment quickly went viral on social media.