Bret Baier: the Fox News anchor set to grill Kamala Harris once called ‘nasty’ by Trump

Former US president says he would have preferred seeing ‘a more hard hitting journalist’ interview the Democratic candidate

Kamala Harris will make her debut Fox News appearance on Wednesday for a sit-down interview with a host once called “nasty” by Donald Trump.
Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor, will grill the Democratic presidential candidate on Wednesday as she attempts to woo conservative voters.
Baier, 54, gained a reputation for being one of the Right-wing broadcaster’s most impartial reporters, but his standing was called into question after emails appeared to show him urging the network to reverse its declaration that Joe Biden had won the state of Arizona in 2020.
The father-of-two blamed pressure from the Trump camp after he told executives that the swing state should be “put back in his [Trump’s] column”.
Baier is understood to have said in an email two days after the election that “the Trump campaign was really p—ed” about Fox’s decision to call Arizona for Mr Biden and it was “hurting” the network.
“The sooner we pull it – even if it gives us a major egg – and we put it back in his column, the better we are in my opinion,” he wrote, according to the book, The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021.
Baier said the full context of the email had not been reported in the book.
He added: “I never said the Trump campaign ‘was really p—ed’ – that was from an external email that I referenced within my note. This was an email sent after election night. In the immediate days following the election, the vote margins in Arizona narrowed significantly and I communicated these changes to our team along with what people on the ground were saying and predicting district by district. 
“I wanted to analyse at what point (what vote margin) would we have to consider pulling the call for Biden. I also noted that I fully supported our decision desk’s call and would defend it on air.”
During a 2023 interview, Baier pressed Trump on his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the Jan 6 attack on the US Capitol and comments he made about former staff.
It had been Trump’s first sit-down with a journalist from the network’s news division since the 2020 election.
The former president later described the “hostile” line of questioning and said the interview was “nasty”.
While Trump has appeared on Fox News since then, he has done so with his friend and ally Sean Hannity.
Such is Trump’s apparent dislike of Baier, when he missed the GOP primary debate moderated by the Fox host, he is said to have told an associate: “Why would I have Bret Baier [question me]?”
After announcing his interview with Ms Harris, Baier, who has worked for the network since 1998, asked his followers on social media what he should ask the vice-president during the sit-down in Pennsylvania.
He has insisted there were no preconditions to the interview, Ms Harris would not be given the question ahead of time and the interview would run in its entirety.
Following news of the interview, Trump said Ms Harris had “wisely chosen Bret Baier… because he is considered to be ‘fair and balanced,’ though often very soft to those on the ‘cocktail circuit’ Left”.
Trump added: “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.”
In August Baier said he had to give “credit” to Ms Harris and the administration for its policies which helped to lower some drug prices. His comments were picked up by the Harris campaign, which used them on social media.
In 2021, Baier noted the difference between the “campaigning and governing” vice-president when she told migrants “do not come” to the US during a press conference in Guatemala.
Wednesday’s interview comes as Ms Harris attempts to step up her media appearances with just weeks to go before the election.
She has appeared on CBS News’s 60 Minutes, as well as being interviewed by outlets not traditionally associated with mainstream politics, namely The Howard Stern Show and the Call Her Daddy podcast.
The vice-president will also participate in a CNN town hall on Oct 23 that will be moderated by Anderson Cooper.
Wednesday will mark the first time a Democratic presidential nominee has sat for an interview with Fox News since 2016, when Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Chris Wallace.
Mr Biden has never sat for a one-on-one interview with the network.