Who will prevail in the Kamala Harris/Bret Baier face-off tonight on Fox News? Baier has petitioned hard to get Harris on to Fox News. But with his first interview with Harris set, he’s also invited a torrent of critics—on both sides of the aisle—to point their pitchforks and spears in his direction.
Meanwhile, some Democrats are wondering why Harris, even if she is in search of any and all votes, is putting herself so squarely in enemy territory.
Harris’ choice to do the interview at all indicates she’s aware her coalition needs to broaden beyond the Democrats who’ve bought into her campaign into the undecided and persuadable voters who call Fox News their media home, even as Democrats cautioned she’s venturing into unsafe—and dangerous—waters.
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“She is going into the lion’s den,” a Democratic strategist told The Hill—particularly when the anchor is Baier, the 54-year-old host of Special Report and the face of the network’s straight-news coverage.
The chief political anchor joined the network in 1998 as an Atlanta reporter, and he has since served as its chief White House correspondent and Pentagon correspondent. Baier lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife Amy and has two sons, Daniel and Paul. His then-16-year-old son, Paul, revealed to People in May he underwent his fifth open-heart surgery.
Baier has repeatedly tried to position himself as a straight newsman, an image the network itself contributes to. He co-moderated both the first GOP primary debate last year and a town hall with former President Donald Trump earlier this year with Martha MacCallum, and he’s served as chief anchor after top news events throughout the election cycle, including during the party conventions and after this fall’s debates.
But his actions in the last election cycle have still trailed him. Baier panicked to Fox News executives after the network called Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020, the first network to call the swing state seen as a decisive marker of who would win the election. The call was correct, but Baier expressed fear that a call made by numerical experts—as done by all networks—wasn’t enough.
“We are still getting bombarded,” Baier told Fox executives days after the election, according to The New York Times. He said he knew “the statistics and the numbers, but there has to be, like, this other layer” to consider “the implications” of announcing a call that would irk Trump’s supporters—and the then-president himself. (Fox News has said in multiple statements it was proud of its Arizona call. “Given the extremely narrow 0.3 percent margin and a new projection mechanism that no other network had, of course there would be a wide-ranging post-mortem surrounding the call and how it was executed no matter the candidates,” it said.)
Baier also said in a statement he “fully supported our decision desk's call and would defend it on air,” though he said the concern was warranted over the narrow margin in Arizona.
Whoopi Goldberg gestures next to Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as they appear on ABC's "The View" in New York, U.S., Oct. 8, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersBaier also appeared to take such action, according to text messages exclusively revealed by the Daily Beast last year in the aftermath of Fox News’ $787.5 million-settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. Baier told then-primetime host Tucker Carlson in a Nov. 5, 2020 text he had “pressured” the network to “slow” announcing further election results after the Arizona call set Trump up in flames. Carlson offered to throw his weight behind Baier to get the executives to agree. “We could really f–k up a lot of what we’ve built,” Carlson wrote.
“I totally agree,” Baier responded.
Baier also suggested that Carlson grill the network’s Decision Desk director Arnon Mishkin on Carlson’s top-rated show after Carlson considered bringing Baier on to do so. Baier said he’s already had him on his program repeatedly, but he would be “happy” to do so again.
“I am happy to do it,” Baier wrote at the time. “But may say I wouldn’t have made the call when we did. But we did.”
Carlson also complained he was “stuck” with Fox News as the network faced conservative fury over its election calls. “Got to do whatever I can to keep our numbers up and our viewers happy,” Carlson wrote. Baier replied: “Yes.”
Fox News was the last of the networks to call the election for Biden.
Baier’s tone eventually shifted on Carlson, at least publicly. Baier aired segments that repeatedly contradicted the right-wing firebrand’s conspiratorial bits over the Jan. 6 insurrection and expressed his “concerns” directly to top executives over Carlson’s docuseries on the Capitol riot, according to NPR. Carlson was eventually fired by Fox in April 2023.
Still, the private plotting with Carlson in the days after the election ran counter to his public appearance as a straight broadcaster. It’s one Baier tried to display even on Wednesday, adding the hashtag #fairbalancedandunafraid to a post promoting his Harris sit-down.
Baier has tried to preempt GOP attacks on his interview by engaging with his critics directly on X, promising the interview would be aired “as-Live,” would not be edited, and that Harris did not receive the questions in advance. “You can have the transcript too if you want,” he told one user.
That hasn’t stopped Baier’s chief critic—former President Donald Trump—from condemning the anchor over the interview.
“Lyin’ Kamala Harris has wisely chosen Bret Baier, of FoxNews, to do a much needed interview, because he is considered to be “Fair & Balanced,” though often very soft to those on the “cocktail circuit” Left,” Trump wrote on Monday. “I would have preferred seeing a more hard hitting journalist, but Fox has grown so weak and soft on the Democrats, constantly polluting the airwaves with unopposed Kamala Representatives, that it all doesn’t matter anymore.”
