‘Shut. The Hell. Up!’ Chris Hayes Roasts Bret Baier For Scolding the Debate Audience During Candidates’ Trump Responses
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes homed in on a remarkable moment in Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate in which Fox News co-moderator Bret Baier turned around to scold the audience for booing one of Chris Christie’s responses.
Baier asked the candidates, “If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party’s choice?”
The response from Christie, who has been a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump during the campaign, prompted a heated exchange with Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump did not participate in the debate.
“You know, let me tell you something,” Christie said. “You make me laugh, because you sit here and answer, you sit here and answer—”
The audience, which appeared largely pro-Ramaswamy throughout the debate, booed and jeered the former New Jersey governor repeatedly during the event, and this time was no different.
“Hold on, Governor Christie,” Baier told him while turning toward audience.
“So, listen,” Baier told the crowd. “The more time we spend doing this, the less time they can talk about issues you want to talk about. So, let’s just get through this section!”
Hayes offered his reaction to the wild scene.
“I just thought it summed [it] up,” he said. “Bret Baier pivoting around in an aggrieved, petulant tone, desultory, being like, ‘We have to do the Trump section.”
“He was aggrieved, but not petulant,” Rachel Maddow protested.
“‘Shut. The hell. Up!'” Hayes continued, trying to channel Baier. “‘We can get through the Trump section, ok?!’ And it’s like, right. That’s the whole vibe of the whole thing.
Hayes recalled how Trump tried to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election through a harebrained scheme, but he said Fox News moderators likened discussion of it to checking a box.
“The box is, there’s a guy who’s running 40 points ahead, who tried to end the constitutional republic, and whose braying mobs chanted for the murder of one of the guys on stage,” Hayes added before mimicking a Fox News moderator again. “‘Let’s just get through that and then we can get back to fentanyl, the border, and China.'”
Watch above via MSNBC.
