When "bill o'reilly" asked "dr. susan van etten" if she had ever been to alaska, he engaged in a (n) ?

This was a red herring. It is a type of question intended to throw off the debate by switching the focus of the questions. The question about going to Alaska has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and can lead the listener or viewer to make a faulty conclusion about the speaker or the concepts that the speaker is trying to debate.