Bret Baier Says Fox News Has a Plan to 'Deal with It' if Trump Brings Up 2020 Election During Town Hall
Fox News “Special Report” anchor Bret Baier said the network is “ready to deal with it” if former President Donald Trump raises issues regarding the integrity of the 2020 election during his town hall slated for Wednesday night in Iowa.
The Republican presidential primary town hall event, airing at 9 p.m. Eastern, is the third that Fox will host this week in Des Moines, with the previous two featuring former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday.
The forum — co-moderated by Baier and “The Story” anchor Martha MacCallum — will take place just days before before Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
The New York Times reported Trump’s town hall will be the first time he has been live on the Fox News Network since April 2022.
However, the 45th president has been on the network’s air in pretaped interviews, including one with Baier in June 2023 and multiple appearances on “Hannity.”
The Times linked the decision to do pretaped interviews with Trump to Fox’s $787.5 million defamation suit payout to Dominion Voting Systems in April 2023.
Within a week of that settlement, Fox also removed host Tucker Carlson from its prime-time line-up. The network never gave an explanation for the decision and denied it had to do the with the Dominion settlement agreement.
Trump no longer watches the network as much as he used to, preferring other outlets like Newsmax, but remains a fan of Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters and Maria Bartiromo, according to the Times.
Baier personally lobbied the former president in recent weeks to participate in Wednesday’s town hall, reaching out both by phone calls and on at least one occasion made an in-person visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
“It’s not easy,” Baier told the Times regarding the push to secure Trump’s involvement, recounting that he encouraged the former president to take “tough but fair” questions in a live setting.
“This is getting to the playoffs,” Baier said. “This is a time when voters need to see him live, in person, when it happens.”
Asked how he would respond if Trump called into question the integrity of the 2020 election, the Fox host answered, “We’re ready to deal with it.”
“But if he’s spending all of his town hall time dealing with 2020, and not talking about what he wants to do as president, he’s got other issues,” Baier added.
Trump characterized his June interview with the Fox personality as “nasty,” The Hill reported.
“Then you have a hostile network like Fox. When I did the interview with Bret, I thought it was fine. I thought it was okay, but there was nothing friendly about it. You know, it was nasty,” Trump told Newsmax host Eric Bolling afterwards.
“And I thought I did a good job; I’ve been given credit for doing a good job,” he said.
Baier disputed Trump’s assertion that he won the 2020 election.
“You lost the 2020 election,” Baier said.
Trump responded that ballot stuffing had occurred, which Baier disagreed with saying it had not happened on a widespread basis. Further, recounts in battleground states had shown that Trump lost.
“They were counting the ballots, not the authenticity of the ballots,” Trump replied.
Trump: First of all, I won in 2020 by a lot
Baier: You lost the 2020 election
Trump: They were counting ballots, not the authenticity of the ballot. The ballots were fake ballots. pic.twitter.com/yrM5gVV1ei
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023
Following the 2020 election, Texas and 17 other states sued Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin for not following their own election laws, put in place to ensure the integrity of the vote.
The attorneys general of these states identified the mass mail-out of ballot applications, the elimination of signature requirements, the altering of ballot submission deadlines and the use of a large number of unmanned drop boxes, among other issues that raised serious doubts about the integrity of their elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Texas and its co-plaintiffs did not have standing to sue other states concerning how they conducted their elections.
The high court did not look at the other legal merits of the case, which was true of many other challenges brought.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released in January 2022 found only 20 percent of respondents said they were “very confident” in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system overall.
Another 39 percent said they were “somewhat confident,” 27 percent “not so confident,” and 14 percent “not confident at all.” So 80 percent of those surveyed had at least some level of concern about the integrity of our elections.
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