NEW YORK (AP) — Kamala Harris ‘ interview with Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier on Wednesday is the latest indication that Democrats are during this campaign are increasingly willing to participate in a network well filled with supporters of the opponent Donald Trump.

Since the party convention in August, about twice as many Democrats have been on Fox than during the same period in President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, which the network said was more than when Hillary Clinton was the 2016 nominee.

Whether we should ignore Fox or seize opportunities to change the views of some audience members has long been a topic of internal debate among Democrats. Biden did not make a Fox-specific appearance during his campaign. Clinton appeared once during her primary campaign and again in mid-summer 2016.

“The Vice President, Governor Walz and our campaign believe it is important to speak to all Americans, wherever they get their information or entertainment, so they can hear directly from us – and not through a filter – who Vice President Harris is what she is. what she stands for and where she wants to go,” said Ian Sams, Harris campaign spokesman.

It’s not just Democrats who see the new faces on Fox News

Guess who noticed it?

Trump grumbled on his social media feed this week about Sams, who was interviewed on Fox on Wednesday by Dana Perino, on Tuesday by Martha MacCallum and on Monday by Neil Cavuto. Trump said Sams “pretty much owns the network.”

“It’s not worth doing interviews on Fox because it all comes down to NOTHING,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Fox News has completely lost its way.”

Trump appeared on Fox on Wednesday, hours before Harris, in a pre-recorded town hall meeting with women voters hosted by Harris Faulkner.

Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, has appeared two weeks in a row on “Fox News Sunday,” which is seen on both television and cable news. Host Shannon Bream said she was “a little surprised” when the Democratic campaign reached out ahead of his appearance last Sunday.

“I think people there are still undecided,” Walz responded. ‘I appreciate you. You ask good, hard questions and your viewers get a chance to hear it.”

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was something of a “Fox whisperer” earlier in the campaign and seemed to enjoy mixing it up with network anchors to the point where he opened his speech at the Democratic Convention by saying, “I’m Pete Buttigieg and maybe do you recognize me? from Fox News.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Reps. Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Ro Khanna of California are among the other Democrats who have made multiple appearances.

The Fox guest shots are largely limited to daytime and, like Bream’s show, weekends. Democrats are rarely seen on primetime shows hosted by Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld.

While it usually makes no sense for a Democrat to join a network that is fully committed to his defeat, this is an exception, said Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of “Pod Save America” and a former aide to President Barack Obama. “A Democrat entering enemy territory is a great way to gain attention, and soft Republicans and Republican independents are a prime target for her campaign,” he said.

Fox also states that it has more independent and Democratic viewers than most people think. The sheer size of its audience makes it hard to ignore: Fox’s share of the cable news audience is larger than CNN and MSNBC combined in all swing states except Nevada.

What Harris faced on Fox’s Bret Baier

Baier hosts a news hour on Fox at 6 p.m. and, along with MacCallum, typically co-hosts most of Fox’s major news events. “I would expect what you pretty much get at Baier: strong, tough questions with aggressive follow-up. In a word: honest,” Tom Jones wrote Wednesday in the Poynter Institute’s journalism newsletter.

Yet Baier is also acutely aware of the network’s audience, sometimes to his detriment. Court documents in a lawsuit against Fox News for spreading false stories about an election technology company after the 2020 election revealed that Baier personally pushed for Fox’s controversial — and ultimately correct — call for Biden’s victory in Arizona to be overturned.

Trump said on Truth Social that he would have preferred a tougher journalist to conduct the Harris interview, saying Baier is “often very soft on those on the ‘cocktail circuit’ on the left.”

In the days before his interview with Harris, Baier took to social media to allay some Fox viewers’ suspicions about the interview.

“No doubt she already has the list of questions. I don’t trust him,” wrote one user on Except me.”

To others who suspected the interview might be edited, he insisted it would only be taped at 5:30 p.m. Eastern — the time the Harris campaign specified for the interview — and would appear in its entirety on his show shortly thereafter shown.

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him up http://x.com/dbauder.