Fox News’ chief political anchor Bret Baier believes the White House owes his network an apology.
But he won’t hold his breath.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, the presenter and executive editor of Special Report with Bret Baier responded to Democratic critics who tried to undermine her reporting on President Joe Biden’s history of disruptive public incidents.
And while Baier isn’t ready to declare a “White House cover-up” of the president’s true condition just yet, he’s not ruling it out and he’s certainly not done investigating who knew what and when.
“There was clearly an effort to keep some of what they knew (about Biden’s health) from being known,” Baier told the Mail. “We’re going to find out there’s a lot more to this.”
Baier also questioned who is really in charge in the White House, as Biden seemingly hands more influence and power to his vice president.
“Now that Kamala Harris is going to meet separately with foreign leaders, as we saw with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (last week) and have her own press conferences,” Baier said, “we have a situation where President Biden can disappear from the spotlight and there could be, in essence, a co-presidency.”
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Special Report with Bret Baier host and executive editor responded to Democratic critics who have sought to undermine his reporting on President Joe Biden’s history of disruptive public incidents.
Most explosive of all, Baier questioned who is really in charge in the White House as Biden seemingly hands more influence and power to his vice president.
In the 16 years that it has been anchored Special reportReplacing his friend and mentor, FNC legend Brit Hume, Baier said he has never been through such a “crazy” and “momentous” period in American politics.
And, he made clear, the story is far from over.
In the days and weeks before Biden stunned the country by appearing frail and confused in a debate with Donald Trump, Baier and his colleagues at FOX News Channel (FNC) were accused of broadcasting manipulated videos or “cheap fakes” of the president.
It is an accusation, Baier argues, that should now be dismissed as patently absurd.
“It wasn’t a video that we were editing,” he said. “It was a video that showed President Biden being led off the stage by former President Obama (at a June 15 fundraiser in Los Angeles). It was there for viewers to see.”
However, many in the mainstream media seemed to go along with this trend.
“Other networks deliberately joined in on those (White House) talking points, saying this was all made up and that President Biden out-maneuvers his staff and outworks everyone,” Baier said.
It was only after Hollywood star and Democratic mega-fundraiser George Clooney, a friend of Obama, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on July 10 revealing what he witnessed backstage at the fundraiser that the reality could no longer be hidden.
Clooney wrote: “It’s devastating to say, but the Joe Biden I stood with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the ‘big deal’ Joe Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020.”
“When the (Clooney) article came out, there was no one in the White House or the Biden campaign who reached out (to FNC) and said, ‘You were right. These weren’t cheap fakes. This wasn’t made up,'” Baier said.
As such, viewers – Republicans, Democrats and independents – come to FNC to get the full story, he added.
Which is also part of the reason, he believes, why FNC is experiencing an incredible surge in television ratings that rival the heights the channel reached during the 2020 presidential election.
During the week of July 15-21, which included the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the Republican National Convention, and Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 race, more viewers tuned in to FNC during prime time (between 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.) than any other cable or broadcast news competitor.
And FNC’s coverage of the final night of the Republican National Convention broke the record for the most-watched convention in history.
The other factor driving these historic ratings, Baier said, is the speed and quality of FNC’s programming.
“It’s a credit to the people we have here. We’ve been in this field before, at big events,” he said. “We’re able to react and create a show out of nothing.”
In fact, Baier and his team have been called upon to do just that.
Baier was changing into his golf clothes after competing in the annual American Century Celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California, on July 13 when he received a news alert that Trump had narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a rally in rural Pennsylvania.
Within moments he was already on the phone with sources close to the former president.
Minutes later, he was speaking to millions of viewers via a phone interview with FNC anchors Shannon Bream and Bill Hemmer, who were leading the breaking news coverage.
Baier was changing into his golf clothes after competing in the annual American Century Celebrity golf tournament (above) in Lake Tahoe, California, on July 13 when he received a news alert that Trump had narrowly survived an assassination attempt on his life at a rally in rural Pennsylvania.
He hadn’t even left the locker room. That afternoon he was on a plane to Milwaukee, where he arrived a day early for the Republican National Convention.
A week later, when Biden abruptly announced via tweet that he was resigning as the Democratic presidential candidate, Baier was driving to pick up one of his two children near his home in Washington, DC.
“The first thing I think is that this is going to be a very important story,” she said. “The second thing I think is that I have to get someone to pick up my son.”
Baier returned home to grab a suit and headed straight to FNC’s studio on Capitol Hill.
FOX News’ live coverage of Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign was the most-watched program on all of television, while its cable news competitors were slow to report on the shocking developments.
It is now imperative for Baier to determine why, after weeks of resistance and promises from Biden’s inner circle that he would remain in the 2024 race, the president suddenly decided to end his political career.
“What was it that led Biden to go from being convinced he would be the nominee to writing a letter announcing he was going to resign? What was that? What revelation occurred?” Baier asked.
He has heard rumors that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was threatening to release polls that undermined Biden’s case for staying in the race.
It also reports that President Obama was exerting his influence behind the scenes to push Biden off the political stage.
FOX News’ live coverage of Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign was the most-watched program on all of television, while its cable news competitors were slow to report on the shocking developments.
A week later, when Biden abruptly announced via tweet that he was resigning as the Democratic presidential candidate, Baier was driving to pick up one of his two children near his home in Washington, DC.
And he considers this to be one of the great untold stories of recent weeks.
“The White House says there are no problems (with the president) and that he is still doing well. However, he has withdrawn from a race from which he said he would never withdraw. And there are still questions about whether he will go all the way during the more than five months he has left in the presidency,” Baier said.
“Everything is possible now,” he added.
“I don’t think Amendment 25 is going to come into force in the near future,” he told the Mail. “But that doesn’t mean there won’t be some major health incident that changes that dynamic. It’s something that happens on a day-to-day basis.”
That means there are likely to be plenty more shows broadcast from strange locations and sudden changes to the veteran host’s plans.
It’s something he seems to enjoy.
“It’s a fascinating time in politics. I can’t predict what’s going to happen, but I can predict that people will be watching,” he said.
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