Fox News host Bret Baier has said he “did make a mistake” during his interview on Wednesday with Vice President Kamala Harris and that he had intended to show a clip of Donald Trump making comments about “the enemy from within.”
During a sometimes heated interview, Baier challenged the Democratic presidential nominee over the Biden administration’s positions on immigration, crime and transgender health. They also discussed whether Trump, her Republican opponent, represents a threat to American democracy.
Harris’ appearance on the conservative-leaning network came as polls indicate the race between her and Trump remains close, with the election analytics website 538 giving Harris a 52 percent chance of victory versus Trump’s 48 percent. In a further bid to widen her appeal, the vice president is reportedly considering an appearance on comedian Joe Rogan‘s podcast, which is particularly popular among young men.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday, Trump spoke with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who asked him about comments made by President Joe Biden. The president said earlier this month that he wasn’t sure the 2024 presidential election would be peaceful.
Trump told Bartiromo: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. Not even the people that have come in and destroying our country—by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns, the villages, they’re being inundated. But I don’t think they’re the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within.
“We have some very had people. We have some sick people—radical left lunatics. And I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, National Guard or if really necessary by the military.”
Trump’s suggestion that he could deploy the U.S. military against “the enemy from within” sparked controversy, which the Republican candidate was asked to address when he appeared at a Fox News town hall for female voters hosted by Harris Faulkner.
Bret Baier at Fox News Channel Studios in New York on March 5 and Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on October 17. Baier has said he made a mistake during his recent interview with the Democratic presidential nominee.
KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP/ROY ROCHLIN/GETTY
Newsweek contacted Fox News and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for comment on Friday via email outside regular office hours.
Referring to his previous comments, Trump said at the Wednesday event: “They were saying I was like threatening. I’m not threatening anybody. They’re the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations. I’ve been investigated more than Alphonse Capone.”
Harris raised the former president’s remarks during her Fox News appearance, commenting: “If you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people. He’s the one who talks about an enemy within, an enemy within. Talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.”
On Thursday, Baier said his intention during Harris’ interview had been to play both clips, showing Trump talking about “the enemy from within” and responding to the criticism about his comments, but that this didn’t happen.
The Fox News host said: “I did make a mistake, and I want to say that mistake. When I called for a sound-bite, 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 asked the former president about the ‘enemy from within.'”
During Harris’ interview, only Trump’s comments responding to the criticism at the town hall were aired, not his original statements to Bartiromo.
Baier added that he’d wanted to play both clips to show that Fox News had “asked him the question about that sentence and what he was trying to mean.”
