In their new book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser wrote that after the channel called Arizona in Biden’s favor, Baier sent an email to Fox President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace referencing the Trump campaign’s criticism of the projection, Insider reported.
“This situation is getting uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I keep having to defend this on air,” he wrote in the email, according to the book.
“‘It’s hurting us,’” Baier reportedly added. “‘The sooner we pull it — even if it gives us major egg — and we put it back in [Trump’s] column the better we are in my opinion.’”
Responding to a tweet with screenshots of Insider’s article, lawyer Bradley P. Moss tagged Baier on Twitter and wrote: “this is a bad look.” Producer Matt Negrin called Baier a “right-wing propagandist” and said that he is “not a journalist like so many of you think.”
Biden won Arizona by a slim margin, with 49.4 percent of the vote compared to then-President Donald Trump’s 49.1 percent, according to Politico. Fox was the first network to project Biden’s Arizona win on election night, followed several hours later by The Associated Press.
Trump’s campaign criticized the decision by Fox as premature at the time, but Decision Desk Director Arnon Mishkin stood by his projection of a Biden win in Arizona, saying that he was fully confident in the call.
Responding to the news of the book’s section on Baier asking for the call to be rescinded, Sam Youngman, who lists himself as a former campaign reporter and White House correspondent, tweeted that the Fox host is “pretty corrupt and dishonest and cowardly.”
Joe Conason, editor-in-chief of The National Memo, a political newsletter and website, also weighed in on the book’s revelations about Baier.
“So @BretBaier groveled to Trump instead of defending honest journalism. I bet you’re as shocked as I am,” he tweeted.
When asked for comment on the book’s section regarding Baier and the election night projection, a Fox spokesperson shared the following statement with Newsweek: “FOX News made an election night call of historic magnitude and was first to do so. We stood by the call in the days that followed, it was proven correct, and other news organizations eventually joined us.”
In an additional statement released through a Fox News spokesperson, Baier said: “The full context of the e-mail is not reported in this book. I never said the Trump campaign ‘was really pissed’ – that was from an external email that I referenced within my note.”
The book, according to Insider’s report, quoted Baier as writing in the email: “The Trump campaign was really pissed.”
“This was an email sent AFTER election night. In the immediate days following the election, the vote margins in Arizona narrowed significantly and I communicated these changes to our team along with what people on the ground were saying and predicting district by district,” Baier added in the statement.
“I wanted to analyze at what point (what vote margin) would we have to consider pulling the call for Biden. I also noted that I fully supported our decision desk’s call and would defend it on air.”
Update 9/20/22, 1:20 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with an additional statement from Baier.
