Fox News host Bret Baier distanced himself from fellow network star Sean Hannity on Tuesday, drawing a clear distinction between his news program and the opinion side of the Fox News Channel.
“Sean Hannity’s show is not ‘Special Report,’” said Baier, referencing his own program. “The problem sometimes is that Fox gets painted with a broad brush.”
Baier made the remarks during a panel hosted by Washington Post political reporter Dan Balz. Despite the comment, Baier still praised “Hannity,” the network’s highest-rated show.
“I think Sean Hannity, for what — his opinion, he does an amazing job with bringing forward his thoughts on things, similar to an opinion page of a newspaper,” he said.
Baier said the news side of Fox News, which he represents, is like the rest of the media in its inability to land a substantive interview with President Trump. Baier himself is itching for another chance to interview Trump, who prefers the network’s friendlier opinion hosts.
“My requests, Chris Wallace’s request, for an interview with the president has not been answered,” said Baier. “I last interviewed candidate Trump almost 500 days ago and have asked every week since for an interview, sometimes twice a week.”
In an interview with the Associated Press in October, Wallace shared similar sentiments as Baier, and suggested that Fox News opinion hosts’ attacks on others in the news media were “bad form.”
“I don’t like them bashing the media, because oftentimes what they’re bashing is stuff that we on the news side are doing,” he told the AP. “I don’t think they recognize that they have a role at Fox News and we have a role at Fox News. I don’t know what’s in their head. I just think it’s bad form.”
You can watch Baier’s comments about Fox in the video above around the 23-minute mark.