Earlier today, Fox & Friends hosted Rep. Michele Bachmann for a characteristically friendly interview about her presidential campaign. The morning show hosts asked Bachmann to expand on her recent attacks on President Obama; whether she would attend Trump's farcical debate; and her Tea Party support, referencing a recent Tea Party endorsement while noting that “Tea Party Caucus members in Congress apparently not endorsing you, at least just yet.”

“We're growing, we're gaining, we've got a lot of momentum, particularly in Iowa, now in South Carolina, and now in New Hampshire,” Bachmann told Fox & Friends of her general support. “So we're very excited that the direction that this course is taking.”

The interview ended on that note, leaving viewers with Bachmann's unsurprisingly upbeat assessment. But there's one person who silently didn't agree that Bachmann has any perceivable momentum: Fox News interviewer Brian Kilmeade.

On his Fox News Radio show today, Kilmeade told his audience that Bachmann wasn't running with “the elite part of the field” because of her polling numbers and offered an explanation as to why he didn't bring it up during his interview: “I didn't want to say anything this morning because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.”

From today's Kilmeade & Friends:

KILMEADE: It looks as though Mitt -- Newt Gingrich really has got to feel good about the polls. I mean, he's within nine in New Hampshire, he's up in double digits in Florida, South Carolina, as well as Iowa. And Ron Paul is third. So I know Chris Wallace just said he thinks Gov. Perry's going to make some noise, but I think we're looking at the field, or the elite part of the field. Michele Bachmann says she's got momentum. I didn't want to say anything this morning because I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I can't see any momentum, especially over in Iowa, where at least you can say that Rick Perry got into double digits.

During Bachmann's interview this morning, Kilmeade asked one question to Bachmann. After Fox & Friends aired a clip of Bachmann calling Occupy Wall Street part of Obama's reelection team, Kilmeade lobbed her the softball, “Did you see the similarities between what the Occupy Wall Street movement has been chanting and what the president included in his speech in Kansas?”

Fox & Friends has a long history of softball interviews with Republicans.