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SoCal Dave's avatar

I normally think well of Bret Baier. But I gotta say that this was not one of his better performances. He asked questions, that Fox viewers would think are straight forward "yes or No", but actually require some context to give a meaningful answer. Whether or not she may have been trying to evade the early immigration questions, or to give an answer with context, we will never know as he cut her off before we could find out. He should have let her give her answer, then if she evaded, he could then push back.

He constantly said that "critics say", however, rather then give valid critical concerns, he often gave a righting BS talking point. Instead, he could have said that many of our viewers have questions for you based upon assertions of republican politicians. He can then state some of these questions/assertions and then ask if she wants to respond to some of those assertions that she may feel are not accurate.

His question about the deaths of the women from undocumented was a horrible question, or at least framed in a horrible way, for a journalist to ask. I say this because journalists should ask questions seeking to get information, this question isn't designed to get information.

The clip he showed on Trump's comment, was a very poor journalistic way to get into a discussion about his 'enemy within' comments. Something she could have said is "What you just saw there is how Trump turns everything into a self centered 'woe, is me' pity party. The get into the response that she gave.

I'm not sure just what Bret's goal was, because he did a bad job if his goal was to have a meaningful and informative discussion of some issues. A journalist should strive to extract information. Creating an adversarial situation won't achieve this. You can be dogged in holding an interviewee's feet to the fire, without being unnecessarily confrontational. I give Harris a B, and Bret a D.

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Ben Gruder's avatar

" Something she could have said is "What you just saw there is how Trump turns everything into a self centered 'woe, is me' pity party." This is actually quite good and something I hope she can have on automatic for similar occasions. Although I'm amazed how well she did in real time.

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Leros's avatar

Baier is a sleazeball. Remember when all the dirt came out in the Dominion lawsuit about how Baier was trying to slow down announcing Biden as the winner of the election because it would negatively impact Fox viewership: https://www.mediamatters.org/bret-baier/bret-baier-wants-move-past-dominion-revelations-they-should-follow-him-rest-his-career

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Memo-55's avatar

Moi aussi. Bret did not distinguish himself.

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