Hen in the Fox House: Jorge Velázquez and Ramiro González Better Served Democracy than Bret Baier
Fox News has been a toxin in the United States for most of thirty years. Yesterday, Kamala Harris went into the Fox House in an attempt to chisel away at that toxin.
It’ll be days, weeks, years before we learn how it worked, in part, because it was (in my opinion) only the third most important TV yesterday.
The most important TV was probably Trump’s town hall on Univision. Six minutes in, a man named Jorge Velázquez took the mic (after Trump offered a smarmy compliment him on his hair, which is the kind of beautiful thick mane that Trump covets). Velázquez described that he used to pick strawberries and broccoli and asked, if Trump deports everyone he wants, who will do that work and how much will food prices go up. (Given the way he distilled the problem with Trump’s mass deportation plans with one poignant question, I would be unsurprised if he has some tie to the United Farm Workers,)
Trump immediately said he was the best thing to happen to farmers. He seemed to suggest he would bring back the bracero program (since Elon Musk has begun paying Trump’s bills, Trump has been pushing to greatly expand legal immigration). But he ultimately didn’t answer the question. It was an unresponsive answer to a question that every person who imagines themselves a journalist should be asking.
That wasn’t the only challenging question Trump dodged. After 25 minutes, José Saralegui asked Trump why he lied about the Haitians in Springfield. After 33 minutes, Ramiro González, a Republican who has dropped his registration in the party, invited Trump to win back his support by explaining his inaction on January 6. Trump not only offered the platitudes he always does, lied about his supporters bringing guns, and used the first person plural to align himself with the mob (which may end up being useful to Jack Smith), but he did not answer the question. By that point, a number of the viewers in the audience had a hostile body language to Trump. After 40 minutes, Jesús González asked Trump to explain his gun control policy to victims of school shootings. After 43 minutes, Carlos Aguilera asked Trump if he still considered climate change a hoax.
In this forum, average voters asked Trump the kind of questions that journalists no longer do. And they did so on an outlet that sill commands a great deal of trust from its viewers.
The second most important TV yesterday may be the Fox Town Hall for women.
It was everything that Trump voters distrust about the media (though will overlook here): A hand-selected group of Trump sycophants that was edited to take out parts damaging to Fox (including that one participant had already voted for Trump).
The Georgia Federation of Republican Women wrote on its Facebook page Wednesday that the group helped host the event, posting photos from the venue and writing they were “Super excited for the opportunity of hosting this event right here in Georgia!”
Shortly after CNN reached out to the group and Fox News about their role, the post was edited to state they were “excited for the opportunity of attending this event right here in Georgia!”
[snip]
The first question posed to Trump at the town hall came from a woman identified as Lisa, who asked the former president a question about the economy. The network did not disclose that Lisa is also the president of the Fulton County Republican Women group.
Some of the town hall attendees made it clear they were supporters of the former president, either in their questioning or in their attire.
“I want to thank you for coming to a room full of women the current administration would consider domestic terrorists,” a woman named Alicia said to laughter from the audience before a question about foreign policy.
But a portion of Alicia’s question was edited by Fox News to remove her admission that she was voting for Trump.
“I proudly cast my vote for you today. I hope they count it,” she added, according to an audio recording from a CNN reporter in attendance.
While it’s common for a pre-taped event or interview to be edited for time, Alicia’s short remark came in the middle of her question, which remained intact on the broadcast.
During another moment missing from Fox’s broadcast, Trump asked the crowd who they were voting for, leading to a chant of “Trump, Trump” breaking out by the attendees.
And Trump still bolloxed three questions. In response to a visibly distraught woman asking about child care costs, he offered the same babbling pablum about assigning Ivanka to address the issue that he offered at the NY Economic Club. In response to a softball about IVF, Trump first claimed to he the father of IVF before confessing he needed Katie Britt to explain why it was important. And then when a woman asked Trump about making choices for her own body, Trump offered the same canned answer about moving abortion back to the states but him, personally, believing in exceptions that don’t exist in a number of states.
Within the safe space of Harris Faulkner’s set, Trump seemed not to care about offering credible answers. The women in the room will vote for him anyway. But clips of his answers will circulate outside that safe space.
Importantly, Fox also edited a clip from the woman’s town hall, to cut Trump’s most fascistic speech, identifying the Pelosis as the “enemy within.” When Bret Baier questioned Kamala Harris about it during their interview, she called him on the edit, and used it to talk about what “you and I both know” about Trump’s threats to turn the military on Americans. What was meant to be one in a series of gotchas instead became a moment for Harris to point to things that Fox deliberately keeps from its viewers: the threat Trump poses to democracy.
When Baier played a Trump transgender ad, offering little excuse for doing so, Harris noted that Trump had paid $20 million to instill fear about an issue that has little to do with issues that affect people’s lives. Again, she pointed to the spectacle that Fox viewers consume unthinkingly.
The Fox News interview will not win over voters, by itself. But Harris turned Fox into an issue. She called out Baier, repeatedly, for interrupting her. He kept doing it.
She also revealed things that don’t get covered at Fox. Harris mentioned having just been on the stage with Trump’s former staffers twice. She mentioned his former aides saying that he was not fit to be President. She mentioned Trump’s accusations there’s an enemy within. She mentioned that Mark Milley said that Donald Trump was a threat, without raising the word fascism (after which Baier attempted to dismiss it by specifying it was a quote in Bob Woodward’s book, telling viewers where to find more). She described Mike Pence’s criticisms of Trump and joked that Pence’s opposition to Trump is why the job was open to pick JD Vance.
All of these are things that are not permitted on Fox News.
During several of those exchanges, Baier’s face looked pained, as if he was acutely aware of the danger of letting such things be aired on Fox News.
After 25 minutes, as Baier was trying to drown out Harris’ criticism of Trump’s handling of Iran, he said, “We’re talking over each other, I apologize.”
Harris responded,
I would like that we would have a conversation that is grounded in full assessment of the facts which includes — I think this interview is supposed to be about the choices that your viewers should be presented about this election. And the contrast is important.
Baier interrupted again. As Harris told viewers to go check out her site to see her solutions, Baier interrupted again.
It’s the term, “we both know” which Harris used at least four times, that resonates.
Someone commenting after the interview voiced the same impression I have of it: It’s a Google interview. [Update: It was Brian Stelter.] No one will be convinced by it. But a number of people might Google to find out what the hell Harris was talking about — to find out what Milley said, to find out what Republicans supporting her have said to explain why, even to find out her plans to help people buy homes.
And when they discover that it’s actually Fox — and not CBS, as the Fox-fueled conspiracy holds — that is hiding stuff from its viewers, they may grow to question what they’ve been told.
But the Baier interview was, in my opinion, only the third most important TV yesterday. That’s significantly true because there are far more undecided voters among Univision’s viewers than among Fox’s. And Trump showed contempt in that situation. He showed contempt to undecided Latino voters, to their face. And he refused to answer the questions that no one else will ask.
Normally, the whitewashing that Fox does for Trump hides how contemptuous he is of American voters. Yesterday, there were several places where voters might see the cracks in that whitewashing.
At the Fox Town Hall, Trump was asked to clarify his ‘enemy from within’ comments. He confirmed he was talking about Democrats, and he name-checked ‘the Pelosis’. Not just Nancy Pelosi, the whole family. Someone should ask Trump if he plans to pardon DePape, the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
California, perhaps anticipating another Trump presidency, also convicted DuPape on five state charges. No presidential pardon for those.
I watched a replay on YouTube. I think KH did a superb job handling Baier. It is quite unlikely that this will change the mind of any hard core FOX-MAGA voters and unknown how many undecideds/swing voters will even see the event.
I think the repeated mention by Baier about needing to “wrap” – with the final hard wrap call – at the end is an indication that FOIX wanted to minimize damage.
She done good. Very good.
PS
I know what the media says Harris is not articulate, etc. Anyone with even just some of their five senses can easily compare Trump and Kamala and figure out who is not “all there” – by a long shot. I’d like to see someone take “common questions” of Trump and KH and splice in their responses to show them back to back. It would be pretty obvious who is and is not “all there”.
It may not change the mind of any “hard core FOX-MAGA voters,” but that doesn’t describe all of the people who passively hear FOX in waiting rooms, workplace and commercial spaces, or even within their households. Yes, she done good.
Edit: Sorry, I missed that mickquinas also addressed this in his second paragraph below.
My favs, from a list of Marcy’s Hits:
” used the first person plural to align himself with the mob (which may end up being useful to Jack Smith)”
“Harris to point to things that Fox deliberately keeps from its viewers…All of these are things that are not permitted on Fox News.”
“Harris responded, ‘I would like that we would have a conversation that is grounded in full assessment of the facts'”.
I’ll point out that their appeal to me is because they are all statements which are broader than this election. In my mind Harris is gonna’ win, so I am focusing more on how Trump and MAGA get pushed back into their holes.
(For Trump, I forsee prison as his hole; for his cohorts, some prison, others discredit). For Fox, financial losses Bigly!)
I thought Harris did well on Fox. Baier’s questions were mostly long monologues with a question mark at the end. He tried to start a new one each time she was two sentences into an answer. More of an unruly debate than an interview.
I liked that she pointed people to the website for her policy positions. The idea that politicians are supposed to provide magical sound bites that solve US immigration, Israel/Palestine, abortion, and gun violence is ridiculous. It would be nice if our political system didn’t equate pithy responses with viable long-term solutions to nearly intractable problems. Even when we ask voters why they support a candidate’s position on these issues, we should probably give them a few minutes to think about how they want to respond (but not to take their answer from others or look it up on the internet). Just the idea that people should get a minute to think before jumping into solving world hunger might be nice.
[FYI – username fixed. /~Rayne]
Baier interrupted again…
Says it all.
I flashed back to the Super Bowl interview of OReilly interrupting Obama over and over and over. I couldn’t believe how disrespectful it was.
Probably lessons from master teacher Ailes.
Bret Baier on Hannity immediately launched into whinging about KHarris being late, leading to this argument
“As if they were trying to Ice the Kicker” !!!
Guess we can take from that who he thought went home with the match ball
What I’ve been trying to remember, that I think the Harris campaign is well aware of, is that a whole lot of people are too busy trying to survive in an enshittified (h/t Corey Doctorow) world to maintain the political awareness that is assumed by pundits and poll-watchers on either side of the beltway. A whole lot of people are just now tuning in to this race, and for them the political reporting of the last year or three has been background noise. They remember being horrified by January 6, but haven’t kept up with (what feels like) the dragging prosecution of it even as they know that the former president was involved (not least in his failure to act).
Harris isn’t winning regular Fox viewers by facing off with Baier, but Fox is sadly the default in a lot of places (bars, lobbies, waiting rooms, etc.) where folks are just starting to pay attention to politics. I remember the line from “V for Vendetta” where the dictator berates his co-conspirators telling one, “we are drowning under the weight of your inadequacies!”
20 years ago, any of the things that have happened (hurricane lies, hunting FEMA, COVID tests to Putin, “so what” if Pence is in danger, 39 minutes of ?) since October 1st might have been enough to end Trump’s candidacy, and it’s horrifying that for maybe a third of registered voters the chaos is already priced in to their voting decision. Today, none of them qualifies as an “October Surprise” and it’s difficult to imagine what would actually serve to break the spell. But each seems to be another drop, eroding perhaps a few votes here, a few votes there, not merely the ongoing and unfolding testimony to his inadequacy but also the building demonstration of Harris’ fitness, a steady drip-drip-drip until, hopefully, finally, this particular stain is washed away.
I travel monthly and make it a point to get the TV’s in the hotel lobby to show MSNBC instead of Fox. Once I was asked by an employee why I did not like Fox. I explained that I cannot trust a news network that has paid almost a billion dollars in penalties for broadcasting lies. I have never had a staff member refuse my request.
I did the same thing at the lobby bar at the St Regis in DC last month!
Bartender was happy to oblige and noted it was the manager who put it on FNC
Philip Bump of WaPo made an excellent point: even if Harris more than held her own with Baier in the “news” part of Fox, she lost later that evening, with the “opinion” part. The Hannities of the Fox universe jumped on out-of-context clips of the interview to make Harris look worse. Many more people watch the “opinion” part of Fox than the “news” part.
Though I agree with your sentiments re: more people probably watching opinion instead of news, I don’t think she “lost”. It may have been tilting at windmills, but as others have (sort of) noted that if only one voter can be saved…
But given what I heard on the local right-winger radio show this am, the MAGA crowd is losing their shit. Normally, the host banters about some inanity for about five minutes. This am, they went straight to ridiculing Harris and talking about how she failed, etc. It was kinda funny how they were losing their shit over it.
Which leads me to believe that I really do think the Trumpers are slowly losing their confidence over the election. I know the polls have this one extremely tight, but, I don’t know…I think she’s gonna outperform this election.
My study of Trump’s behavior this week, particularly in the 39 minute danceathon, suggests that Trump doesn’t think he’s going to win, and he doesn’t really feel much like doing the politics thing any more.
I have a good friend who works in a profession that is dedicated to uncovering people’s emotional truths. She agreed, and pointed to another thing he’s said this week. Of course, they have to keep up a good face, for the sake of down-ticket races, for instance. And maybe for pride.
But I think Trump thinks he’s losing.
Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out yesterday that Brett Baier is not the straight-news guy, as opposed to another Hannity, that others in the media are portraying him as. Baier is the guy who ran around with his hair on fire in 202, telling Fox to lie about its own election desk’s prediction that Joe Biden had won Arizona He was adamant that it change the story and lie, especially as it took another four days for other networks to come to the same accurate conclusion.
As a coda, O’Donnell noted that Brett Baier was still with Fox, but the very good people at its election desk, who accurately predicted Biden’s win in Arizona, Fox fired. Brett Baier is a fraud and a liar. But that’s not breaking news.
No edit button. I know it seems like Baier and Fox have been around since Adam left the garden, but I meant to type the year “2020,” not “202.”
Not only is Baier still with Fox, but so is Ailes.
Ailes will be “there” forever.
Surely they embalmed or mummified that bastard Ailes if they’re keeping him “there.”
And I thought you were setting up a joke involving Roman candles and the Lion’s den in reign of The Old Fox Septimius Severus
(based on Machiavelli’s description that he was both fox and lion)
Septimus Severus sounds like a fractured fairy tale, introduced by Edward Everett Horton.
He was winner of the year of the 5 Emperors so he fractured a few fairy tales and the Praetorian Guard.
WRT the end of the Fox interview, with Baier repeatedly forcefully saying he was being told they had to wrap, I also wondered if the producer realized that information was leaking into the hermetically sealed universe. I doubt we will ever know for sure, but noticed repeated comments on Twitter shortly afterward from blue check accounts claiming the Harris campaign had pulled the plug, which leads me to believe that Fox hitting the brakes was a real possibility.
My one big disappointment in VP Harris’ answers was her letting Baier’s use “illegal immigrants” as a descriptor for people released before hearing after an encounter with the Border Patrol. She had the opportunity to humanize the many good people fleeing terrible conditions and arriving at the border, and the need to handle them with compassion and in line with international law while protecting the country from those seeking to exploit the weakness in processing the Trump administration had left (hence her answer that the first legislation the administration pushed was immigration reform). She played immigration on the Fox defined field, and suffered for it. She then rebounded well in the rest of the interview.
Disagree. She juggled several balls in the air just fine, notwithstanding that Baier kept throwing new ones at her while she was doing it. She didn’t need to recover from anything.
I agree she did well for most of the debate, but think she was immediately put on defense with the opening “illegal immigrant” question. The GOP and Fox have worked together to make southern border immigration the top election issue, all reality based threat assessment notwithstanding. She had the opportunity, with the gratuitous use of the term by Baier, to contextualize the problem and failed to do so. While she rightly blamed Trump for scuttling the bipartisan bill, she missed the chance to inject actual thoughtful discourse on immigration into the Fox universe and instead let Baier define the terms of the issue.
One point I meant to make in this post but got so distracted with how good the Univision questions were I forgot was this:
If Harris offends everyone at Fox News, she has lost nothing. There were no gaffes that will hurt her outside of Fox News. But if she attracts just a few people, it’s a win.
If Trump offends some people in his Fox News town hall, he loses a lot. He needs as many Fox women as possible to cut into the gender gap.
If Trump offends Latinos, he loses a shit-ton, because they may decide the election.
Yes, exactly, Marcy. Brilliant and gutsy move on the part of Harris and her campaign. I know from my own experience that those kinds of strategic, but uncomfortable, moves were highly beneficial to a positive final outcome. So, I’m hoping the same holds true here. But only time will tell for sure. Not long now, though.
Marcy, that’s so interesting. TFG has been throwing around “eugenics“ Mexicans bad genes. We generations of being in the West, have all had Mexican friends. Simplified and very good friends. Simplified married to other races with kids. Simplified, WHAT! ?
A lot of Chicano’s are cool, calm, collected & stay under the radar for the easing of, the waste of time. It’s not like something that doesn’t register with all races and the YOUNGER GENS. “Bad genes,” could be a Nov. surprise.
Brilliant rundown and analysis of those three events, Marcie. Thank you.
As to whether the Fox interview will end up being a Google-prompt or something more, I’m hoping it will also be craftily featured in her ads, going forward (as commenters above have noted, with the plural “Pelosis” featuring footage of the attack on Paul).
In one (minimalist) sense, the Fox interview was good because it takes a weapon out of the hands of the Trumpists: “She refuses to do interviews.” That was always BS, but still, any time you can take a weapon out of the hands of an agressor, it’s good.
As to the Unavision video, I really wondered if Trump understood how condescending he was being, what it would look like to a non-cult audience.
To him, the more condescending – the better.
He’s pushing to get his voters to show up and the more hate he spills, the more he’s pushing those that may be on the fence as to voting to show up.
He’s got a ceiling of voters but he’s hoping for scare tactics, even if they don’t do violence, to keep others away from the polls.
It’s clear that Trump and his supine party courtiers have bet their shirts on getting out the MAGA vote. But easy to forget that although it’s purest catnip for them, it’s not enough alone for him to win. There also have to be a lot of non-cultists willing to overlook his increasing shitfest and vote with their eyes blindfolded and their noses pegged.
When things are this close, to scupper him it just takes a segment of decent independents and Republicans to finally catch on to his creepy dog-and-pony show and decide enough’s enough.
He just can’t resist playing to his vilest gallery, but it may well be diminishing returns.
“In one (minimalist) sense, the Fox interview was good because it takes a weapon out of the hands of the Trumpists: “She refuses to do interviews.”
Nothing we do ever “takes a weapon out of the hands” of Republicans. Obama releases his birth certificate? Oh no, we need the long-form version. No not that one, the other one. No, not that one either.
Candidates need to release their medical records. Ok, here are Harris’s. Oh my god she has allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis, which Trump says are “a very messy and dangerous situation. These are deeply serious conditions that clearly impact her functioning.” They’re calling seasonal allergies a disqualifying medical condition.
Harris doing the Fox interview was a good call for different reasons, but it did nothing to neutralize Republican attacks. There is nothing you can ever do that will satisfy them.
Marcy mentioned it but it made me sit up wide eyed: Trump said “we” twice when answering a question about the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
You’re not the only one who noticed.
Trump drops the pretense, labels Jan 6 insurrectionists ‘we’: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/17/trump-jan-6-insurrection/
So, Bill Barr is involved in the Murdoch Family Trust legal issues. I wonder how much longer Rupert will be able to carry on. Sure would be good if some changes came sooner rather than later:
“Rupert Murdoch, 93, wants eldest son Lachlan to run his empire after his death – but his other children want their say.”
…..
“But despite their immense importance the legal arguments over the Murdoch Family Trust presented within the impenetrable walls of a 1960’s annex court extension in Reno last week are known only to the judge and court staff, Rupert Murdoch, his first and second set of children and an army of lawyers, including Trump’s attorney general William Barr.”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/sep/22/murdoch-family-fox-news-court
Margaret Sullivan agrees with Marcy: “Fox News’s interview of Kamala Harris was grievance theater, not political journalism.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/17/fox-news-harris-interview
Ms. Wheeler’s comments about the Univision town hall are for more important than the VP’s appearance on Fox e-News.
Ms. Wheeler identifies again, that there are communication networks that are not dependent on corporate news, and which are probably difficult for even honest poll makers to measure.
Its not surprising to me that the Hispanic-Americans identified by Ms. Wheeler were able to see the undisguised arrogance of the former President. I think she has identified another section of the electorate that can see the xenophobia of the Republican nominee is clear evidence that he has unmitigated contempt for all non-white Americans.
OT: did the defense file a non-appeal delay request in the 01/06 case? Doesn’t the seven day delay expire tomorrow?
Yup: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/10/17/trump-jan-6-appendix-jack-smith/
Free $100,000 watch for every time Harris called Baier a “nasty person.”
Has Jimmy Carter’s mule been arrested yet?
For folks who might want to know a little more about United Farm Workers and their impact on our food supply, check their Mastodon account at:
https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]
I can’t imagine working so many long hours in +100F degree temperatures and yet they do to support their families.