Fox announced last week that it was planning a town hall with Trump that would be taped in Georgia and moderated by Faulkner. The network’s press release stressed that the event would feature an “audience entirely composed of women” and highlighted Faulkner’s journalistic credentials. Politico’s takeaway was that by taking questions from members of “a demographic that has been largely repulsed by his temperament and abortion-rights views,” the former president would be “venturing into more challenging territory.”  

In reality, Fox had stocked the audience with Trump’s supporters by inviting local Republican groups, as The Independent’s Eric Garcia reported. 

This quickly became apparent when the edited broadcast began airing on the Wednesday edition of Faulkner’s show and Trump entered to a standing ovation from the crowd. The first questioner, who identified herself as “Lisa,” is the president of a local Republican women’s group.

The first question at the Fox town hall went to a Lisa who looks a lot like Lisa Cauley, president of the Fulton County Republican Women -- even the necklace matches. https://t.co/EbaUASJxXs pic.twitter.com/EwIRoxQRcu

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 16, 2024

Over the course of the broadcast, Trump fielded softball questions from people who were clearly voting for him; at least one was wearing branded Trump paraphernalia. He got help along the way from Faulkner, a committed shill for his campaign who has criticized journalists at other outlets for asking tough questions of the former president and avoided pushing back as he spread numerous falsehoods.

Notably, Fox deliberately deceived the public about the audience it hosted for Trump. While Faulkner described the crowd as coming from “every walk of life,” CNN subsequently reported that the network not only stocked the town hall with Trump’s supporters, the version it aired left out two key occurrences that exposed just how in-the-tank for Trump it had been. 

A portion of one question “was edited by Fox News to remove her admission that she was voting for Trump,” CNN reported after comparing audio a reporter in the room recorded to the program Fox aired. “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.”

It’s easy to see why Trump might prefer such a supportive environment, even as his campaign reportedly canceled recent interviews with CBS, NBC, and CNBC. 

But it is unfathomable that Fox figures would host such an event for Harris — and if they did, Trump would probably threaten that his administration would retaliate against the network.

While Baier has long enjoyed a largely unearned reputation as a credible newsman, he lives in palpable fear of his viewers abandoning his network. He spent the day leading up to his Harris interview telling agitated social media followers that he wasn’t going to give her the questions and the interview wouldn’t be edited to make her look good.

His subsequent performance was what you might expect from someone worried primarily about letting down Fox’s pro-Trump audience. Harris faced a barrage of hostile questions and frequent interruptions when she tried to answer them. Baier devoted the first third of the interview to Trump’s preferred topic of immigration. He spent more time trying to grill Harris on surgeries for incarcerated trans people — a focal point of recent Trump ads — than he did abortion, which did not come up at all.

These tactics made for a combative interview, one that probably would have helped Baier with his audience without hurting his reputation. 

But at one point, Baier tried to downplay Trump’s recent fascistic comments about “the enemy from within.” He asked Harris to respond to a clip from Trump’s town hall on the subject — but left out the part where he cited “the Pelosis” as an example of who he was talking about, and added, “These people, they are so sick and they are so evil.” Harris caught him red-handed.

Kamala Harris: Bret, I'm sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he is speaking about the American people. That's not what you just showed. pic.twitter.com/TGPHYZGcvb

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 16, 2024

Baier’s attempted clean-up was blatant enough to draw criticism not only from his competitors at MSNBC and CNN, and from media critics like Poynter’s Tom Jones, but even from former Fox colleagues.

It is unfathomable that Fox personalities would do such a thing in an interview with Trump — and if they did, Trump would probably threaten that his administration would retaliate against the network.

Twenty-four hours after Harris called him out, Baier said on the Thursday edition of Special Report that he made “a mistake” and aired the wrong clip. 

“When I called for a soundbite, I was expecting a piece of the ‘enemy from within’ from Maria Bartiromo’s interview to be tied to the piece from your town hall, Harris, where you asked the former president about ‘the enemy from within,’” he told Faulkner. “It just had the piece about the town hall.”

He then aired a clip from Bariromo’s interview followed by the clip from the town hall he aired during his interview with Harris, concluding, “My point was that we asked him about the question about that sentence and what he was trying to mean.”

As former Fox host Gretchen Carlson noted in response, Baier could have pointed out immediately that the wrong clip had aired but did not. Indeed, he did not offer that explanation after airing the interview on Wedneday’s broadcast, or in interviews promoting it on Fox's Hannity that night or America’s Newsroom the following morning, according to a Media Matters review. 

Moreover, if Baier’s explanation is true, he intended to leave out the portion of Trump’s comments to Faulkner in which he identified “the Pelosis” as part of the “enemy from within.

Fox’s “news side” always functioned as a cog in the right-wing media machine that laundered its talking points into the mainstream press, and its claim to independence was demolished during Trump's presidency. But at this point the network seems to have all but given up on even pretending to employ a credible news apparatus.

The last few years have seen newsroom stalwarts with decades at the network leave and call their former employer a propaganda outlet. 

Fox’s decision desk was neutered after the 2020 election, with top executives overruling and then firing its leaders. 

The network has shortened its “news” hours and replaced newsroom staffers with GOP partisans. 

Reporters who tried to tell viewers the truth about Trump’s election fraud claims were first chastised by their bosses and then took jobs at other outlets.

What remains are people like Baier and Faulkner who are comfortable with Fox — the whole network, “news” and “opinion” side alike — operating as an extension of Trump’s will.

Update (10/18/24): This piece has been updated with details on a comment Baier made about the deceptive clip the day after his interview with Harris.