Fox News host Bret Baier conceded that he made “a mistake” and played an incomplete clip of Donald Trump during his interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, but he didn’t actually apologize. So, on “The Late Show,” host Stephen Colbert rectified that.
While speaking to the VP this week, Baier attempted what Colbert referred to as “the stupidest gotcha this side of the Rio Grande,” and asked whether the Americans who are voting for Trump are “stupid.” Harris pushed back hard though, saying she’d never say that about the American people.
In fact, she reminded Baier, Trump is the one calling Democrats “the enemy within.” To that, Baier noted that Trump was asked about that phrasing at a recent Fox News townhall. But, when he went to play the clip, it contained no mention of those words, and was just Trump complaining about being prosecuted for his crimes.
Naturally, Colbert played the actual clip Thursday night, in which Trump said “it is the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous. They’re Marxists and communists and fascists, and they’re sick. They’re dangerous for our country.”
“The whole quote makes it a little different, doesn’t it buddy?” Colbert snarked. “Without the full quote, it sounds relatively sane. It’s like if you only watch the first 10 minutes of ‘Jurassic Park,’ you’d think ‘That place looks like a lot of fun!’”
Colbert continued to shred Baier for his choice in clips, arguing that real journalists “can’t selectively edit what someone says just to please their audience.”
“But a late night host can!” Colbert said mischeviously.
At that, a new video started playing, in which Colbert had stitched together various clips of Baier from the interview with Harris — plus a generic clip of Baier introducing himself on-air from a different story — in order to form an apology to the VP.
“I’m Bret Baier, and this is a failure. I promise you,” Franken-Baier said. “So what I’m saying to you is, I’m stupid. Thank you.”
You can watch Stephen Colbert’s full monologue in the video above.
