MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski delivered a harsh critique of Fox News anchor Bret Baier’s interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, calling the conversation an “embarrassing, bad-faith effort” that was geared to please former President Donald Trump. (Which it did.)
The conversation between Harris and Baier was contentious from the start, with Baier interrupting Harris while she tried to answer her questions. But while both Brzezinski and Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist said the questions from Baier were fair, Geist said Trump would not have been interrupted the way Harris was. After playing a montage of Baier interrupting Harris, Geist responded:
Geist: It goes without saying that Donald Trump would not be given the same treatment, talked over, not allowed to finish those questions. It doesn’t mean the topics weren’t fair. There was a lot in there–
Brzezinski: Right.
Geist: That viewers wanted to hear from Kamala Harris. Why do you have different positions now than you did in 2019? How are you going to fix the immigration crisis? All fair, fair questions. But Donald Trump obviously would never be treated that way on Fox News.
Then Brzezinski laced into Baier and the network that hosted the interview:
I’ve watched Bret Baier for years. That’s just, um, that was different. I think another great place to focus would be with the “enemy from within” comments that President Trump made. You see, that’s the exact phrase Trump used a number of times in recent days, referring to his political adversaries and members of the press even, and the retribution he would take against them. It’s decidedly un-American. It’s a big story, and it’s the critical backdrop to this moment in which Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with Fox News.
It was supposed to give viewers an opportunity to actually hear her plans as president. Instead, as you saw, it almost immediately devolved into an embarrassing, bad-faith effort by a once-respected host to play to an audience of one. The host’s constant rude interruptions were designed to distract from the issues and facts that Trump and his acolytes try and twist and distort every day, and on Fox News they try and avoid. And they couldn’t.
When Kamala Harris realized the host was not going to let her speak, the only way the Vice President could give Fox viewers an opportunity to hear what she had to say was to talk back over him. Was he making sure that happened? I personally think absolutely. Did she do well in this environment? Of course, she was great. She’s a former prosecutor, attorney general, senator, current Vice President. She’s fine with a situation like that and even flourishes. Yet there were times she was shaky on answers about immigration. He kept coming after her. But the questions sounded like they came from a Trump campaign ad. In fact, they played a Trump campaign ad in the interview.
Watch the video above via MSNBC.
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