Fox News’s Propagandistic Response to its Interview with Harris
Fox News is desperately trying to spin Kamala Harris’s interview with Bret Baier Wednesday night and create the impression that the vice president bombed. The effort started right after the interview concluded, with Martha MacCallum telling Baier, “Bret, I thought you did a masterful job. This is the kind of interview that we should see a lot of on the campaign trail. “I thought you really asked the questions that a lot of Americans want answers to, which is, ‘How did you let all these millions of people come into the country, and do you have any regrets about it?’ and I think her answers were not good on that,” MacCallum said.Fox’s @marthamaccallum on @BretBaier’s interview with Kamala Harris: “I thought you did a masterful job. This is the kind of interview that we should see a lot of on the campaign trail.” pic.twitter.com/D3Hpzhcf6m— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) October 16, 2024Sean Hannity covered for Baier on his evening show, saying, “He didn’t let Kamala off the hook; he pressed her, he pressed her repeatedly. Needless to say, I’d say the joy is gone in the Harris campaign tonight, and her obvious anger? That was on full display, the one she’s notorious for.” Hannity: Needless to say the joy is gone in the Harris campaign tonight. Her obvious anger— that was on full display. The one she’s notorious for pic.twitter.com/RA2BHLIcmL— Acyn (@Acyn) October 17, 2024Baier went on Hannity’s show himself, and accused Harris of gamesmanship by coming out to begin the interview at 5:17 p.m. instead of earlier. He also accused the vice president of having a “mission” to find a viral moment.“She came to Fox News and she wanted to have a ‘go after Donald Trump’ viral moment that plays on a lot of other channels and on social media, and I think she may have gotten that,” Baier said. Jesse Watters also took shots at Harris, saying, “She was roughed up so badly, Pelosi’s asking Joe to get back in,” saying that she had no good answers on immigration, praising Baier, and putting down her interviews with other news networks.“This is what an actual Kamala Harris interview should look like. Bret gave her the same treatment as he gave Trump in the spring: respectful, firm, and persistent. We didn’t swap her answers to make her look better like CBS. We didn’t invite little Timmy along to hold her hand like CNN. This was a big girl interview. And she flopped,” Watters said. Fox News is the most important media organ for Republicans and conservatives, and it’s not surprising that its hosts would push the narrative that Harris messed up. In reality, though, Harris did not back down from the network’s bias, challenging Baier and fighting back against his interruptions, and outside observers, including former Fox employees, agreed. Watters’s contention that Fox treated Harris the same way as Trump is laughable, especially since the network made heavy edits to an interview with the former president in June and had aired a remarkably gentle and sanitized town hall with him earlier that day.The network was always going to be a formidable opponent for the Democrats this election, and Wednesday’s interview is clear proof that Fox’s on-air personalities want to make Harris look bad and help their preferred candidate, Donald Trump. The question is whether their audience was convinced.
Fox News is desperately trying to spin Kamala Harris’s interview with Bret Baier Wednesday night and create the impression that the vice president bombed.
The effort started right after the interview concluded, with Martha MacCallum telling Baier, “Bret, I thought you did a masterful job. This is the kind of interview that we should see a lot of on the campaign trail.
“I thought you really asked the questions that a lot of Americans want answers to, which is, ‘How did you let all these millions of people come into the country, and do you have any regrets about it?’ and I think her answers were not good on that,” MacCallum said.
Fox’s @marthamaccallum on @BretBaier’s interview with Kamala Harris: “I thought you did a masterful job. This is the kind of interview that we should see a lot of on the campaign trail.” pic.twitter.com/D3Hpzhcf6m— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) October 16, 2024
Sean Hannity covered for Baier on his evening show, saying, “He didn’t let Kamala off the hook; he pressed her, he pressed her repeatedly. Needless to say, I’d say the joy is gone in the Harris campaign tonight, and her obvious anger? That was on full display, the one she’s notorious for.”
Hannity: Needless to say the joy is gone in the Harris campaign tonight. Her obvious anger— that was on full display. The one she’s notorious for pic.twitter.com/RA2BHLIcmL— Acyn (@Acyn) October 17, 2024
Baier went on Hannity’s show himself, and accused Harris of gamesmanship by coming out to begin the interview at 5:17 p.m. instead of earlier. He also accused the vice president of having a “mission” to find a viral moment.
“She came to Fox News and she wanted to have a ‘go after Donald Trump’ viral moment that plays on a lot of other channels and on social media, and I think she may have gotten that,” Baier said.
Jesse Watters also took shots at Harris, saying, “She was roughed up so badly, Pelosi’s asking Joe to get back in,” saying that she had no good answers on immigration, praising Baier, and putting down her interviews with other news networks.
“This is what an actual Kamala Harris interview should look like. Bret gave her the same treatment as he gave Trump in the spring: respectful, firm, and persistent. We didn’t swap her answers to make her look better like CBS. We didn’t invite little Timmy along to hold her hand like CNN. This was a big girl interview. And she flopped,” Watters said.
Fox News is the most important media organ for Republicans and conservatives, and it’s not surprising that its hosts would push the narrative that Harris messed up. In reality, though, Harris did not back down from the network’s bias, challenging Baier and fighting back against his interruptions, and outside observers, including former Fox employees, agreed. Watters’s contention that Fox treated Harris the same way as Trump is laughable, especially since the network made heavy edits to an interview with the former president in June and had aired a remarkably gentle and sanitized town hall with him earlier that day.
The network was always going to be a formidable opponent for the Democrats this election, and Wednesday’s interview is clear proof that Fox’s on-air personalities want to make Harris look bad and help their preferred candidate, Donald Trump. The question is whether their audience was convinced.
