“Meanwhile Harris Is Willing to Even Go on Fox”: Kamala Harris’s Fox News Interview Sparks Right-Wing Backlash
(britannica)
The right-wing outrage machine kicked into high gear following Fox News’s announcement that Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down for an interview with chief political anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday. The interview, set to take place in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, marks a significant media appearance for Harris as she continues her presidential campaign.
This interview will be Harris’s first official Fox News appearance since declaring her candidacy in July. The contrast between Harris and former President Donald Trump has not gone unnoticed. “While Trump became the first major presidential nominee to back out of the traditional pre-election ‘60 Minutes’ interview, Kamala Harris has agreed to sit down with Fox News for an interview this week,” observed Justin Baragona from Zeteo News.
Harris has been increasingly visible in the media recently. As Deadline reports, she has appeared on shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 60 Minutes, and even The Howard Stern Show. Despite these high-profile interviews, some of her supporters have encouraged her to take the plunge and appear on Fox News, despite the network’s conservative leanings. With an average of 2.3 million viewers, Fox News’s Special Report, hosted by Baier, ranks among the most-watched cable news programs.
In contrast, Trump has shied away from mainstream media. He recently backed out of an agreed interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes and has refused to engage in further debates with Harris after their first one. Ian Sams, spokesperson for the Harris campaign, pointed out that “as of today, it has been one month since Trump’s been interviewed by a mainstream media outlet.” Sams further highlighted Harris’s willingness to appear on Fox, saying, “Meanwhile Harris is willing to even go on Fox.”
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump has largely avoided mainstream outlets like The New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, and CNN. His notable exception was a sit-down with NBC’s Meet the Press in September 2023.
The announcement of Harris’s Fox interview ignited a wave of criticism from Trump supporters, particularly directed at Bret Baier. According to MeidasTouch News, “Trump supporters swarmed all over Fox’s Bret Baier today like he was a Capitol Police Officer on J6” after he posted about the interview on social media.
In the first hour after his announcement, Baier’s tweet received over 2,200 comments. Many of these comments reflected disappointment in Baier, with some accusing him of being overly tough on Trump in a previous interview. Others revived conspiracies from past Harris interviews, including claims that she had been fed answers through her earrings or received questions ahead of time.
Despite the backlash, some commentators see this move as a savvy political strategy. Journalist Mike Rothschild, known for his work on right-wing conspiracy theories, observed, “This is smart from the VP. She has nothing to lose by appearing on the news arm of Fox News… if she breaks through to a fraction of their viewership, it’s worth it. It’s almost like the Harris campaign knows what it’s doing.”
