Giving a recap of the sitdown during a Wednesday evening appearance on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show, Baier offered a behind-the-scenes look into the interview, reflecting that when the vice president walked into the interview 17 minutes late, it felt like she was “icing the kicker.”

“We were supposed to start at 5 p.m. This was the time they gave us. Originally, we were going to do 25 or 30 minutes. They came in and said, ‘Well, maybe 20.’ So, it’s already getting whittled down. And then, the vice president showed up at about 5:15 p.m. We were pushing the envelope to be able to turn it around for the top of the 6 p.m. So that’s how it started,” Baier said.

The atmosphere was tense as the Fox production team waited for Harris to show up, Baier said, as her late arrival pushed the limits for the network to get the interview up and running for the 6 p.m. air time. 

“At 5:17, the vice president walked out, so it did feel a little bit like they were icing the kicker or trying to, and originally they were talking about 25 minutes and they gave us 20 minutes,” Baier said. 

When the interview finally did get started, it turned into a contentious debate at times, with Baier pressing Harris about the rise in illegal immigration during the past three years she has served as vice president, her position on funding transgender operations for imprisoned illegal immigrants, and how she planned to offer “a new way forward” (as her campaign slogan says), having served at the top of the Biden administration since 2021. 

When Baier asked, “How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?” Harris deflected with, “I’m glad you raised the issue of immigration because I agree with you, it is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have.”

Bret Baier: “How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?”

Kamala Harris: “Bret, let’s just get to the point, OK? The point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be… pic.twitter.com/Do3DeQJMuM

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 17, 2024

When pressed for a specific estimate again, Harris responded, “Bret, let’s just get to the point. OK, the point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired.”

When the anchor moved on to the next question, she complained, “I promise you I was beginning to answer,” before the pair descended into another battle following Baier’s question about how “your administration immediately reversed a number of Trump border policies” that allowed some illegal immigrants to stay in the country and “commit heinous crimes,” allegedly including the murders of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray. 

“I could tell when we started talking that she was going to be tough to redirect without me trying to interrupt,” Baier noted, later telling political commentator Mark Levin that he was “just trying to get through the talking points.” 

“I was hoping it was going to be this civil back-and-forth,” the Fox host said. “But I was just trying to get through the talking points and it took a while, and it was a little bit of, you know, interrupting, and kind of, getting in on the breath.”