Video of Bret Baier Listing Off Trump Allies That Turned on Him Goes Viral
Bret #Bret
A video of Fox News anchor Bret Baier listing the former Donald Trump allies who have fallen out with the former president has gone viral on Twitter.
The clip—which as of 4:40 a.m. ET on Tuesday had attracted 4.2 million views on the social media platform—was taken from Baier’s Monday night interview with Trump, less than a week after the Republican candidate pleaded not guilty to 37 federal counts relating to allegations he mishandled classified documents.
The sit-down interview featured Trump elaborating on the classified documents, discussion of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Baier fact-checking the former president about his loss of the 2020 election, which the GOP frontrunner continues to claim was stolen from him.
The program comes as Trump continues to be far ahead of his rivals in the Republican primary polls for the 2024 presidential election, in fact seeing increased support overall since his indictments.
The latest Harris Poll, of 283 registered voters between June 14-15, put Trump on 53 percent, next closest Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, on 17 percent and Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence on 6 percent.
Trump told Baier that he would appoint “strong people” in a future administration, even praising recent critic and former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who earlier this month took a jab at the former president by saying he had a “constant fixation” on holding documents.
“Actually, Bolton was good because every time I negotiated people said ‘Oh, they’ve got this maniac here. He’s going to go to war with us,'” Trump said. “He was actually pretty good in a certain way.”
The viral clip on Twitter begins with Baier quoting Trump from 2016, when he pledged in a phone interview with then Washington Post journalist Robert Costa to “surround myself with only the best and most serious people.”
Trump responds that he “did do that,” adding: “We had the best economy we ever had, the world has ever seen.”
Baier then lists the former allies from his administration who had either turned on the GOP presidential hopeful or had faced his public admonishment.
“Your vice president Mike Pence is running against you,” the Fox News host says. “Your ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, she’s running against you. Your former secretary of state Mike Pompeo said he’s not supporting you,” referencing Pompeo’s April statement ruling himself out of the Republican presidential primary, but declining to endorse Trump.
“You mention National Security Adviser John Bolton—he’s not supporting you either,” he continues. Bolton told SiriusXM in an interview on June 13 that he believed “any normal person” would drop out of the campaign if facing the federal charges Trump is.
“You mentioned Attorney General Bill Barr, [he] says you shouldn’t be president again, calls you a ‘consummate narcissist’ and ‘troubled man,'” Baier says, quoting Barr’s comments on CBS News on Sunday. “You recently called Barr a ‘gutless pig,'” he adds, referencing a Truth social media post on June 11 by Trump.
The Fox News anchor then mentions Trump’s second secretary of defense, Mark Esper, who told CNN on Sunday Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents was “irresponsible.” Esper was fired from his cabinet post in the wake of the 2020 election loss.
“This week, you called your White House Chief of Staff John Kelly ‘weak and ineffective,’ and ‘born with a very small brain,'” Baier says, quoting a Friday Truth social post from Trump, reacting to comments of Kelly’s in The Washington Post that the former president was “scared s***less” over the indictments he faces.
He then notes insults the Republican candidate has leveled at his former acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, his first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense General James Mattis, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
Asked why the former president hired all those people in the first place if they had now turned against him, Trump responds: “Because I hired 10 to one that were fantastic. We had a great economy, we had phenomenal people in charge of the economy.
“We had phenomenal people in the military. I’m not a fan of [General Mark] Milley [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since 2019] and I’m not a fan of certain of the television people, but I knocked out ISIS; I defeated ISIS. They said, ‘Mattis, it would take three years and I don’t think we can’t do it.’ I did it in a period of, like, four weeks.”
The former president then reverts to the familiar theme in his public statements of loyalty, adding: “Don’t forget, for every one you say I had 10 that love us.”
Since going viral, the video has predominantly received praise for Baier’s line of questioning, while some others suggested it was a sign Fox News was moving away from its prior support of Trump.
MeidasTouch, a liberal political action committee, described the clip as “absolutely brutal for Trump,” while podcast No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen said it was “absolutely devastating.”
“This is a great question from Baier but then he doesn’t do a follow-up. He backs off,” MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan wrote. “Allows Trump to rant about single-handedly defeating ISIS and not engage with the multiple examples that Baier listed.”
Newsweek approached the Trump campaign via email for comment on Tuesday.
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