Bret Baier slams Kamala Harris for being late to testy interview and accuses her of ‘icing the kicker’
Fox News host Bret Baier revealed some rocky details about his interview with Kamala Harris , including that she showed up very late for their sit-down and that she tried to filibuster with her answers to prevent him from pressing her on hot-button issues.
Baier suggested it was like the vice president’s team was trying to ‘ice the kicker,’ comparing it to a football coach calling a timeout before a field goal attempt in an NFL game to give the kicker time to prepare for the big play.
He also said if he didn’t frequently interrupt the VP, he likely would have only been able to fit in four questions during their nearly 30 minutes together.
The vice president’s team also tried to shorten the time allotted for the taped but unedited interview, the anchor said during an on-air conversation about their chat after it aired.
Baier said members of Harris’ campaign waved their arms frantically as they pushed to wrap the interview.
‘We were supposed to start at 5 p.m., this was the time they gave,’ Baier explained of his interview with the Democratic presidential candidate.
‘Originally, we were going to do 25 or 30 minutes, they came in and said ‘maybe 20.’ So it was already getting whittled down.’
Fox News host Bret Baier revealed some rocky details from his interview with Kamala Harris – including that she was late and cut their sit-down short
‘And then, the vice president showed up about 5:15 – we were pushing the envelope to be able to turn it around for the top of the 6 o’clock.’
‘So that’s how it started,’ he continued. ‘And I could tell when we started talking that she was going to be tough to, you know, redirect without me trying to interrupt.’
Baier grilled the VP for a testy 20-minutes during her first-ever interview with the conservative news network, taped in Pennsylvania on Wednesday and aired 30 minutes later.
The pair clashed multiple times, including when Baier pressed her to answer his question about making sex change operations for prisoners a priority.
The host detailed how Harris’ team frantically tried to get him to wrap their interview as things got heated.
At the top of the interview, while sparring over immigration, Harris even said to the anchor ‘you have to let me finish’ as he pressed her on the issue, trying to get her to answer very specific questions rather than revert back to some of her talking points, which she did at each turn.
It was one of several times throughout the interview – which some viewers later described as ‘a total train wreck’ – where they spoke over each other, and the vice president asked the Fox News host to stop interrupting her.
‘I’m talking, like four people waving their hands like ‘it’s got to stop,’ Baier described to his Special Report panel when detailing how the interview ended.
‘I had to dismount there at the end,’ Baier shrugged.
He added: ‘There are so many things and maybe she should do more of these.’
Baier asked the 59-year-old about multiple topics, including immigration, which was one of the topics the two sparred over.
Harris told the Fox anchor ‘you have to let me finish’ as he pressed her on the hot-topic issue, trying to get her to answer specific questions rather than revert back to her talking points.
‘I left there right after the interview and I thought, ‘wow, this was really a lot more contentious than I thought it was,’ Baier said when discussing the interview on America’s Newsroom on Thursday morning.
‘There was a lot of filibustering,’ he told his colleagues. ‘I didn’t really want to keep interrupting, but if I didn’t I thought there would be four answers total in the interview.’
‘And I think I came away with – there were moments that clearly she prepared for that, I think, she wanted to have the viral moment and she got it and I think her campaign was happy with that. I think there were things that Mark played and some other moments where I think a lot of people looking back at the transcript are going to say ‘wow, that’s interesting, that’s newsy, that’s not what she usually answers.’
VP Harris and Baier clashed on several topics during their interview – including on the issue of the southern border
Trump praised Baier for his ‘tough but very fair’ interview with Harris and claimed the sit-down is further proof the her ‘inferior cognitive ability must be tested’
Donald Trump congratulated Baier for his ‘tough but very fair interview’ after MAGA social media users speculated ahead of its airing that Fox would favorably edit the Democratic presidential nominee.
Trump wrote on X and his social media site Truth Social: ‘Great job by Bret Baier in his Interview with Lyin’ Kamala Harris. She has a massive and irredeemable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.’
He added that Baier’s interview ‘clearly showed how totally incompetent Kamala is’ and insisted that her ‘inferior cognitive ability must be tested.’
Harris did the interview after a campaign event in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, before heading to Wisconsin Wednesday evening.
The testy interview took place as the vice president has been pressed to do more unscripted appearances and interviews as she tries to reach more voters.
After the interview aired, the Harris campaign posted a series of clips from the interview across social media as well as promoted moments of praise from commentators weighing in on Fox News and CNN after it aired.
After the vice president’s plane landed Wednesday evening, campaign communications director Brian Fallon spoke with reporters traveling with the vice president’s press pool briefly about the interview.
‘We feel like like we definitely achieved what we set out to achieve in the sense that she was able to reach an audience that is probably been not exposed to the arguments she’s been making on the trail and she also got to show her toughness in standing tall against a hostile interviewer,’ he said, according to a pool report.
