MSNBC’s Chris Hayes called out Fox News for not showing the full context of Donald Trump’s “enemy within” comments during Vice President Kamala Harris’ interview on the network earlier Wednesday.
The anchor of All In opened his broadcast by calling attention to something that Harris herself did in the sit-down with Fox’s Bret Baier. The clip that the right-wing network showed to Harris as part of Baier’s question was of Trump during his all-female town hall event in Georgia—the one where Trump bizarrely argued he was the “father of IVF.”
In the clip that Fox aired directly to Harris during her interview, Trump wasn’t heard talking about how former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Rep. Adam Schiff are the “enemy within.” Instead, Fox made it so Harris had to react to him talking more mildly about “phony investigations.” The network omitted Trump’s line about “the enemy within.”
Harris didn’t fall for it, and neither did Hayes.
Noting Baier’s past as someone who—along with Tucker Carlson—fretted about losing viewers after Fox’s decision desk correctly called Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020, Hayes said, “That Bret Baier came at Kamala Harris with every attack in the Trump playbook, including one moment when he got caught using an edited soundbite of Trump.”
Hayes had harsh words for Baier.
“Baier just used a soundbite to try to clear Donald Trump of saying a thing in which he cut out the part where he says it!” Hayes noted, before showing the full context of Trump’s comments, in which he mentioned Schiff and the Pelosis mere seconds before Fox’s version of the video began.
Hayes seemed surprised by the notion that Fox may have figured that the move wouldn’t go unnoticed.
“You see what they did there on their own network? We also have recording equipment here at 30 Rock and a lot of other places, where you can just grab that,” he said matter-of-factly.
Hayes then had more to say about Trump’s town hall event, which featured many of his supporters—something Fox didn’t disclose.
Host Harris Faulkner “gave Trump the opportunity to climb down from his fascist rhetoric,” yet Trump wouldn’t take it, Hayes said.
“He never takes it because he actually believes and wants to do what he says he wants to do. Then, Bret Baier tried again to clean it up for Trump with a selectively edited clip,” he went on. “It is the same playbook we see over and over from Fox.”
“I think we all know that after this,” Hayes concluded, “Donald Trump has no choice but to come on MSNBC for an interview.”