At the Washington Post, Philip Bump argues that while the deck was stacked against Harris during the interview, what came after was, by design, worse. Immediately after the interview aired, the on-air pile on began, and continued for hours across multiple Fox News shows — which each host putting the most negative possible spin on what happened:
[T]his is how Fox News operates. Contradictory voices are sidelined or buried; efforts by those not on the political right to reach the channel’s audience are inevitably hampered by the channel’s infinite ability and interest in recontextualizing things to fit its political objectives. Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel, the saying used to have it, though the modern iteration might instead quantify the amount spent on right-wing pundits.
It’s unlikely that the interview will have much effect on voters. Avid Fox News watchers aren’t going to be particularly sympathetic to Harris in the first place, given that they watch the channel avidly. Harris can claim something of a moral high ground as she tries to appeal to Trump-skeptical Republicans; here she was at least showing a willingness to engage her opponents in conversation. (Imagine Trump on MSNBC!)
But there was never a chance that she was going to beat Fox News at its game. After all, Fox is always and relentlessly playing that game, a game centered on boosting Trump and tearing Harris down. For the network and its hosts, the point wasn’t Baier’s interview. It was what they could do with that interview to win their game.