Bret Baier: Trump, not Harris, the ‘holdup’ on Fox News debate

Fox News anchor Bret Baier said former President Trump, not Vice President Harris, is keeping his network from hosting a second debate between the two candidates before Election Day.

“The latest is, I actually believe — this is me talking — that the Harris campaign would do a Fox debate, if the former president has come to the conclusion that there really shouldn’t be another debate,” the anchor said this week during an appearance on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s program.

“Now, his reasoning, don’t know. I always thought that it would be like a bug zapper in the backyard for the former president in that he couldn’t get away from the light of 70 million viewers and that he would have to eventually, just knowing him, you know, do it if it was on Fox and something he could agree to,” Baier said.

Baier, who is regularly in contact with both campaigns, said he is “getting the sense from him [Trump] and the campaign that they aren’t moving past it, and really the holdup is not the Harris campaign and Fox. It is the former president.”

Baier’s comments were first highlighted by The Daily Caller.

Trump and Harris clashed in a debate hosted by ABC News earlier this month, with the Democratic candidate widely viewed by voters as winning that debate.

Harris over the weekend accepted an invitation from CNN to debate Trump a second time next month, an offer Trump has rejected, citing early voting already underway in some states.

Trump had previously advocated for he and Harris to debate on Fox, the top-watched cable channel that features a number of hosts who are vocally supportive of the Republican nominee.

Trump, during an appearance on Fox earlier this month, indicated he would rather have one of the channel’s prime-time opinion hosts moderate a debate instead of Baier or Martha MacCallum, another leading news anchor on the network.

Harris is seen by many political and media observers as unlikely to participate in a debate hosted by Fox, which airs programming criticizing her policy positions and those of President Biden on a daily basis.