“I think any journalist would take three and a half hours of off-the-record conversation with the president of the United States,” Mr. Baier said. “And if you say that you wouldn’t, you’re not being honest.”
The president holds Fox’s reporters and news anchors in lower esteem than the network’s opinion stars like Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham and other leading Trump allies. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump laced into one of Fox’s White House correspondents, Jacqui Heinrich, calling her “absolutely terrible” in a social media post and declaring, “She should we working for CNN, not Fox.”
“She’s a solid reporter, and she’s a solid correspondent covering the White House,” Mr. Baier said when asked about that comment. “Sometimes I don’t post about every single thing, and sometimes my response is behind the scenes. But I support Jacqui a hundred percent. She’s a great reporter.”
“Special Report,” which began in 1998, has rarely encroached in the Nielsen ratings on the Big Three network newscasts, in part because Fox News, for all its influence, is available in fewer households than ABC, CBS and NBC. That remains the case, but from Inauguration Day through March 10, Fox News beat all three networks in prime-time weeknight viewers.
Mr. Baier moved to Palm Beach, Fla., last year and now splits his time between there and Washington, not unlike the president he is covering. (Mr. Baier’s home in Washington was bought in December by Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, whom Mr. Baier interviewed at the Commerce Department on the Feb. 26 edition of “Special Report.”)
As for Mr. Trump’s opinion of him, Mr. Baier said, “There’s always that give and take.”
“He says a lot on Truth Social,” Mr. Baier said. “I think analyzing President Trump is not about what he says or what he posts, it’s about what he does.”
