Former Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican critic of former President Donald Trump who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, said the Democratic nominee “totally schooled” Fox News host Bret Baier during an interview Wednesday.
Kinzinger, who represented two different Illinois districts in the U.S. House from 2011 until 2023, has been an outspoken “Never Trump” Republican since the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
He founded a group called Country First, which, according to its website, works to “elect reasonable individuals who prioritize the nation’s well-being over party agendas, paving the way for bipartisan, durable solutions at all levels of governance.” It emphasizes “country over party.”
On Wednesday, the former congressman campaigned for Harris at an event in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state. He urged the crowd to “make the conservative choice” and “vote for Kamala Harris.”
That evening, he shared a photo of Fox News host Bret Baier interviewing Harris on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption, “She went into the lion’s den and took them on and stood tall. Fox tried their bs gotchas in their rightwing reality, and she turned everything deftly back to Trump and held him accountable in his own safe space. She did not let them bait her at all – strong, confident, epic. She totally schooled Bret Baier.”
Newsweek reached out to Kinzinger via Country First’s website for comment on Thursday.
Harris and Baier exchanged some combative words in her first formal Fox News interview, released Wednesday. Among other topics, Baier pressed Harris on the Biden administration’s handling of immigration and the economy.
Michael M. Santiago/Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
Baier repeatedly questioned Harris on the Biden administration’s reversal of restrictive Trump-era policies. Harris blamed Republicans for blocking a bipartisan immigration bill, which Trump encouraged senators to vote down in February.
Harris pushed back on the economy and Biden’s record, asking Baier to conduct a “conversation grounded in full assessment of the facts.”
Reactions to the interview have been divided. Supporters of Harris praised her composure, while others supported Baier’s pressure.
Last night, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Great job by Bret Baier in his Interview with Lyin’ Kamala Harris,” calling it a “tough but very fair interview.” In a post promoting the interview, Baier used the hashtag #fairbalancedandunafraid on X.
In another social media post this morning, Kinzinger wrote, “Thinking again about how @BretBaier used the wrong clip to discuss trumps “enemy within” comment, and repeatedly interrupted, while still getting schooled.”
At one point, when Harris was describing Trump recently saying he would use the military against the political left, who he called “the enemy within,” Baier rolled footage of Trump describing the backlash against those comments as an exaggeration. In the clip, Trump accused Democrats of threatening him with “phony investigations” and the “weaponization of government.”
Trump’s controversial statement, referenced in the clip, came during a Fox News Sunday Morning Futures interview earlier this week when he was asked about concerns over Election Day.
Trump said, “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within…We have some very bad people, some sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
Harris pushed back and called out Baier for selectively rolling the clip of Trump’s defense of his comments rather than addressing them. She said doing so diminished or sanitized Trump’s calls for violence.
“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’s speaking about the American people. That’s not what you just showed.”
Harris’ campaign posted the full version of the clip, accusing Fox News of editing the clip shown during her interview.
