Fox News' Bret Baier defended his interruption-laden interview with Kamala Harris last week, telling Vanity Fair he wants a rematch with the Democratic presidential candidate ahead of the election.
“I’d love to try again,” Baier told the magazine. “The more candidates face tough but fair questions, the better it is for viewers and voters, and actually the better it is for candidates.”
Baier‘s contentious interview with the vice president rankled the network’s critics, many of which attacked Baier for repeatedly interrupting Harris as she tried to answer his questions. Baier defended his approach and said his goal was to “redirect” Harris off her talking points, comparing it to his June 2023 interview with Donald Trump.
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“The campaign came in with a plan, and they wanted a strong viral moment. She clearly had a couple of those and she used a lot of her time talking about former President Trump,” Baier said. “I wish we could have just had this conversation, but because of time constraints and how she was answering, I figured if we didn’t do what we did, it would have been about four questions in [those] 20-plus minutes.”
The context of both interviews, however, were markedly different. Baier’s first question to Trump—“What do you think is the most important issue facing the country right now?”—was more less aggressive than his first query to Harris—“How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country over the last three-and-half years?” (The rest of the Trump interview, however, was notably tense as Baier confronted Trump on his false claims about the 2020 election.)
Baier said he approached the Harris interview with the top election issues in mind, saying voters wanted to see Harris get scrutinized over her policy decisions. Still, he acknowledged, the interruptions may have been overzealous—an element Saturday Night Live picked up on, bringing in Alec Baldwin to parody the interruptions against Maya Rudolph‘s Harris. (Rudolph-as-Harris asked the Fox host to “listen” to her remarks. “Well, I can’t because I’m talking,” Baldwin-as-Baier responded.)
“I get the criticism,” Baier said on Monday. “I get the wondering whether [the Trump interview] was different. But if you look back on that one-on-one with former president Trump, he didn’t like it at the time.”
Still, he said, he’d love another chance to get more answers out of the vice president. “We welcome them back because I think those exchanges illuminate things for voters and viewers,” Baier said.
It‘s not hard to see why: The interview was a ratings hit for the network, drawing in 7.8 million viewers, the highest-rated TV interview of Harris’ recent media blitz.
