Once you have completed the form, Fox News SundayFollowing former anchor Chris Wallace’s exit from the show last week, Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier appeared on the network’s MediaBuzz with anchor Howard Kurtz and took down CNN and their “just silly” criticism against their network that was designed to generate “clicks” and play for ratings.
Their prerecorded discussion began with Kurtz drawing attention to recent incendiary comments from CNN’s “Don lemon saying that Fox News should be kicked out of, barred from the White House briefing room because he doesn’t like Fox.”
Baier rebuked Lemon’s attack as “just silly” and “just an effort to get clicks or eyeballs.” He then reminded viewers of how Fox had stuck up for CNN and their reporters to be members of the White House press pool during the Trump presidency:
We are a news agency that has been part the White House pool since its inception. Since then, we have been advocating for the protection of other journalists, including CNN. Jim Acosta was mentioned. We also stood up to Kaitlan Collin who was being kicked out. [her].
“So, listen, I think this is all about semantics and trying to get attention. But they know that we’re working hard to do journalism every day,” he added.
From there, Kurtz asked his guest about the “fiction that gets perpetrated” by CNN and liberal media that “there isn’t a real news division here, that you and your Special ReportTeam and all journalists and reporters as well hosts, anchors, producers and hosts are somehow not included[.]”
Again dismissing the narrative as “silly,” Baier recalled that the criticism “goes in iterations in which the focus is all on the opinion folks who do do opinion and they stir the pot and sometimes they’re very controversial, but we have a news operation that’s breaking news every day.”
Baier called out some of the reporters they had hired and said that this was to defend their hard work.
I can’t speak for Jennifer Griffin or Lucas Tomlinson at the Pentagon. What our White House team does is beyond my comprehension. But, we are the only network which covers this border. It saw the largest, most illegal immigration crossing the border in November in American history.
“That is news. This isn’t fake news. We’ve been fighting this battle for a while. But just like a paper, there’s a news side and an opinion side,” he explained.
Addressing the recent revelation that a few members of the network’s primetime line up had messaged former White House chief-of-staff Mark Meadows on January 6, Kurtz and Baier stood by their handling of the situation (click “expand”):
KURTZ: But wouldn’t the public want these hosts who’ve interviewed Trump many times and who are mostly sympathetic to Donald Trump to do whatever they could to get him to halt the violence?
BAIER: Yes. We hadn’t covered it because there was so much going on that day. We did it on-air. Chad Pergram did it from Capitol Hill. Special Report.
But, as you all know, critics were referring to the hypocrisy they displayed in their private messages and public statements on TV. I called all three of them directly and said, “what do you say about this.” And they said, “we stand by everything we’ve said publicly and privately”. We reported it.
“You know, sometimes we have to report on things that are in the news that are us, and it really stinks because I’m trying to never be the news and trying to report and cover things fairly. Sometimes it has to be us, and we did it that way this past week,” Baier lamented.
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