← Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Bret Baier on golfing with Trump, his 2028 predictions, and making the case for civility
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- [00:01]
Ben Smith
Do you think more broadly Bari Weiss's sort of effort? Do you like what she's doing there? Do you like what she's trying to do?
- [00:06]
Brett Baier
I don't know, Ben. I really don't even know the big blueprint that she has that what she.
- [00:10]
Ben Smith
Did she not tell you when she was trying to hire you?
- [00:14]
Brett Baier
You're so good. So, so good.
- [00:24]
Max Tawny
Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore Media, where we are talking to all of the most important and people shaping our new media age. I'm Max Tawny. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore, and with me, as always, is our editor in chief, Ben Smith. Ben, were you ever someone who sat down and watched cable news? There are fewer people who do that these days. But was that a habit for you back in the prime heyday of cable?
- [00:52]
Ben Smith
I feel like I've sort of mainlined so much cable through clips on the web and on social media, but I was never a sit on the couch and yell at the TV viewer.
- [01:01]
Max Tawny
Not even when you were writing the media column at the New York Times. You didn't, didn't tune in flip on cable to see what it was all about in weeks.
- [01:08]
Ben Smith
When I was writing about tv, I always like to make a point of like just watching out many, many hours of it because there is something embarrassing. You occasionally see this about journalists writing about, about media that they really don't consume at all. So try to avoid that.
- [01:21]
Max Tawny
Well, that cable news watching that you did as media columnist for the Times will certainly come in handy for today's interview with one of the biggest figures from cable news. That's Brett Baier, he of Special Report on Fox News and the author of a brand new book. Ben, you kind of know Brett, you guys text occasionally. You've interviewed him on stage. But you thought that it would be a particularly good interview for us to have him on the podcast and to talk to him more at length. What do you think is so interesting about Brett's trajectory and what he's doing in this particular moment when cable news is shifting a lot and political media
- [01:59]
Ben Smith
is changing in some sense, he's probably the most important anchor in the country. He's in kind of a classic 6pm evening newsman at a moment when that medium is kind of in question and its relevance is in question, but not the relevance of the show that Donald Trump loves most and is most obsessed with and whose anchor he golfs with, but who also can ask Trump quite hard questions. And it Puts Brett right in the middle of our quite strange kind of political media moment. And he, you know, which he handled, he seems to handle in a fairly carefree manner.
- [02:31]
Max Tawny
Carefree, that's interesting. Do you think that golfing with the president does that kind of compromise your ability to do the job, you think, as someone, I mean, I guess asking in this another way, people that you have a friendly social relationship with, is it difficult to ask the hard questions and get to the center and the truth that people are most curious about?
- [02:52]
Ben Smith
They say access is a curse. And at the same time, television journalism in particular, but also all kinds of journalism, the events we do, anybody trying to get an interview does rely on access. And there's this delicate balance. I think Bear carries it off reasonably well. I think he actually does ask tough, respectful questions when he gets Trump. And there's, I'm not sure what more you can really expect from people, but I'm sure there are people who do not like him golfing with Trump. But I think there are probably bigger journalistic sins than golfing with Trump.
- [03:18]
Max Tawny
Well, sadly, I've never been invited. But we will ask him some tough but respectful questions about his relationship with Trump. We'll ask him about what it means to be the most important anchor in cable news as. As have dubbed him Ben at a time when cable is changing. And we'll also ask him about this new book that he's written and his recent trip to China where he interviewed the president and also kind of became a weird meme on Chinese media for filming standing in the bike lane and playing ping pong with people and kind of getting his ass kicked slightly by a local and interviewing a Chinese robot at a store. It was a pretty eventful trip for Brett. So we have to take a short break, but we'll be right back with Brett after this. Foreign.
- [04:07]
Joshua Spaniar
Joshua Spaniar, VP of marketing at Google. And you might assume I have all the answers when it comes to marketing. The truth, I'm just as curious to learn discover the answers to everything as everyone else. We are living through a total reset of our marketing industry. The old maps don't work, which means we get to chart a new path forward. It's dynamic, it's fast paced and honestly, there's never been a more exciting time to be in marketing. That is why we've started a new podcast, Frontier cmo. It's from Think with Google. And I promise it's not just a bunch of corporate waffle. I'm sitting down with people who really know what's going on CMOs, creators, technologists, the lot. And we're having a proper unfiltered chat about what's working and quite frankly, what isn't. These are your notes from the frontier. So do me a favor, search for frontier, cmo, wherever you get your podcasts or watch us and subscribe on YouTube.
- [05:17]
Ben Smith
Well, Brett, thank you so much for joining us.
- [05:19]
Brett Baier
Sure.
- [05:20]
Ben Smith
And congratulations on the, the new controversial book on the case for America. But actually, before we get that, I kind of wanted to talk about the case for China. I spent a lot of time laughing about this, kind of glorious clips of you getting beaten in ping pong and yelled at for standing in the middle of the street on Chinese social media. And I was just sort of curious, like what you took away from that experience.
- [05:42]
Brett Baier
Yeah. So we, when we traveled and bring the show on the road, I tried to do these vignettes that just show a little behind the scenes of something. And I fig in China that would be a really interesting thing to do. So we just came up with ideas as we were bouncing around to see what would work historically and what may show something. So one of them, we were driving to the next spot, a historic one, and the fixer we had in China told us that when they were out shooting the day before that he got a ticket after being double parked for just a couple of minutes. And we said, how did you get it? And he showed me his phone, he got a text that he was parked illegally and he got a ticket on the phone. And I thought that that was really interesting. And so we then did some digging on the cameras and went to this corner and I counted 25 cameras. So we came up with like that whole thing and it really caused a stir. The Chinese picked it up in TikTok and said, no, you get a warning first and then you get a ticket. And then it's not 40 bucks US, it's 29. You know, there's all this controversy, but I'm just trying to show behind the scenes what it, what it really is like. And that the ticket thing really took off. But then the other things, the robot that I was asking at a 711 kind of place, all they had was sausage to order. It just seemed a little strange that I was ordering a sausage from a robot. But to show that they are really trying to be forward leaning on AI and robotics, but they've got a long way to go.
- [07:21]
Max Tawny
Well, one of the other reasons that you were there was you were interviewing Trump. You've interviewed President Trump numerous times. How many times have you Interviewed him
- [07:29]
Brett Baier
at this point, first term and second term, probably maybe six.
- [07:33]
Max Tawny
How have the interviews changed from the first time that you interviewed him to now?
- [07:37]
Brett Baier
That's a great question. I think it's, it's roughly the same in that you have to get in on the breath and kind of get the question in and redirect and kind of work the weave when he goes off topic and then get him back on topic. You know, I think he's. His pushback is a little bit harder than it used to be. As far as, you know, saying that's a nasty question, goes to that early. But he's roughly the same guy. And, you know, he does try to answer questions, even tough ones, but it may take him a little while to do it.
- [08:17]
Max Tawny
Is he familiar with that term, the weave?
- [08:19]
Brett Baier
He's used it on the stump.
- [08:20]
Max Tawny
Has he?
- [08:21]
Brett Baier
Like, this is the weave. It's definitely. It's going to be a little different, you know, like, this is how he, you know, he says this is not, he's not losing his mind. He just likes to weave. He's used that term.
- [08:32]
Max Tawny
When you did the impression of him during one of your interviews, you kind of slipped into it. Was he amused by that?
- [08:37]
Brett Baier
No, I don't think so.
- [08:40]
Ben Smith
Not. Not known for his sense of humor about himself, I think.
- [08:43]
Brett Baier
I don't think so. I don't think he was. But his, his people, you know, they chuckle in the background.
- [08:50]
Max Tawny
How would you describe what your relationship with Trump is and how often do you hear from him?
- [08:54]
Brett Baier
Well, like many anchors and reporters, I answer the phone call when it comes in, and he's prolific on picking up the phone and calling, so it depends on the week. But I could talk to him a couple of times. He answers the phone if you call, it's surprising, but he talks to Kaitlin Collins, Jonathan Karl, you know, a whole bunch of people. I'm in that list. You're right. I have a long history and I've played golf with him, you know, a handful of times, maybe a little bit more. And those off the record conversations I value, I think that they're really good as far as being able to get a sense of where his head is on, on different issues. And, you know, I get asked about it from time to time. And I think any reporter, and I think, Ben, you may have asked last time we did that, that get together, I think any reporter that, that says they wouldn't do that, take that opportunity, is not telling the truth.
- [09:59]
Ben Smith
You know, there's that old saying that access is a curse, but of course, at the same time, if you have your job or mine, getting into a position to ask people tough questions is a big part of the job. There are things that I could have written last week about Fox News and your colleagues probably would have been like, screw that guy. Brett's not coming on his podcast. And it's like a. It's sort of an unspoken part of journalism. You get huge interviews right now. I think people, like every world leader wants to be on Fox, wants to be on your show. And how do you think about the kind of trades you make for access, the punches you have to pull? Or, like, just. And you've been in this a long time. Like, how do. Yeah, how do you think about that in a real way? Like, we're talking to. We're talking to journalists who understand this. I'm not trying to kind of corner you.
- [10:36]
Brett Baier
I get it.
- [10:36]
Ben Smith
I get it.
- [10:37]
Brett Baier
I mean, I'm really not thinking about pulling punches. I'm thinking about how I always think about interviews. And I'm not just saying this as a cheesy line, but tough but fair. And I'm giving him a chance to answer the questions, but pressing and following up on questions. But I'm not getting emotional either on one side or the other, no matter who the interview is.
- [10:59]
Ben Smith
I guess I mean, more in terms of how you get the interview, right? Like, you sort of have to. Do you think about. Well, I don't want to. I don't want to say anything mean about the president tonight because I want to get him on tomorrow.
- [11:09]
Brett Baier
Well, I, you know, I haven't done that. You know, I mean, we've covered Epstein on my show and all kinds of criticism from Democrats. And, you know, I've had Democrats railing on the president on my show and response from the White House the day before I do an interview. So I don't think I've really seen that. I don't. I don't think I've pulled punches as far as stories. I know what you're getting at, but I don't see it really. And as I was covering China, there was a lot of criticism about what wasn't getting across the finish line as far as deliverables back home. And we covered that every day, every night. And I know someone inside the administration, if not the president, was watching.
- [11:51]
Max Tawny
One thing that's unique about Trump, he really pays a lot closer attention to the media, particularly television media, than many other recent presidents. And, you know, I imagine sometimes when you're hearing from him, you're hearing from him because he's just watched your broadcast. Did you get the sense from when he started, he came onto the political scene, he started running, that he was watching you every night, or is this something that, you know, kind of happened more over time?
- [12:17]
Brett Baier
I think it was early on in the, in the campaign. He would send a note because I used to have, in the first election, a candidate casino with Charles Krauthammer and Steve Hayes and Mara Liasson. They would put bets, $100 in chips of who the nominee was going to be. And he would comment, why is Charles only giving me $5 in chips?
- [12:44]
Ben Smith
But you invented polymarket.
- [12:45]
Brett Baier
Yeah, right. Hey, I should get a piece of that. No, I was doing it to try to get the panelists to say what they really felt with the actual chips, and that's the way I figured it out. But to, to answer your question, he knew what chips were being put down, so I knew he was watching.
- [13:07]
Max Tawny
Who else do you feel like watches the show as religiously? Is Trump still the top or are there other prominent figures who are watching who we don't hear about as much?
- [13:15]
Brett Baier
Senator Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority leader had his office block his schedule from 6 to 7.
- [13:22]
Max Tawny
Wow.
- [13:23]
Brett Baier
I was told and was religious about it. Senator Joe Manchin watched the show religiously. And I've had others, Democrats and Republicans say they do it. But Majority leader when he was Mitch McConnell put it on his calendar. But President Trump watches a lot to the point where he'll respond with a tweet, or used to be a tweet, now true social, to a panel that we're doing real time.
- [13:51]
Max Tawny
How does that affect, you know, knowing that Trump is watching or that knowing that the Senate Majority Leader is watching or prominent Democrats in.
- [13:59]
Brett Baier
Yeah, I mean, I assume, I'm hoping everybody's watching, so I'm not going through this process like playing to the, the specific person that's, that's watching. I'm, I'm literally trying to, to do it the best we can. I, you know, I have Democrats who are really emotional about something on the panel. I usually try to take the emotion out of it and it's more analysis. But sometimes Leslie Marshall is on the, on the attack. She's on the panel and making some point that is really negative towards the president. I'm not thinking, oh, he's watching is bad. I'm thinking, you know, the balance. I ask somebody else to respond and kind of move on. I, you know, it's like this equation is not playing two specific people. I'm, I'm trying to get through the show and at the end of the show, have people say, I know what happened in the US and around the world and I have some balanced analysis of the news of the day. And at the end of the hour, that's what they say. Democrats, Republicans, independents. And I tell them to write in if they haven't watched, watch three times and let me know.
- [15:05]
Ben Smith
I mean, in a way, what we're talking about is what a strong position you guys are in right now at Fox. Like, it's the tough problem of having really strong ratings and having the president of United States obsessed with your show, which I think is probably. I mean, that's the obvious reason why it seems like your competitors, really, particularly CBS right now, seems to be making strategy, seems to be about attempting to cut into your audience and seeing this is, you know, big cable audience rivaling, rivaling broadcast in some markets. 22, 22 markets is that.
- [15:38]
Max Tawny
But who's counting? Yeah, exactly.
- [15:39]
Ben Smith
But Bari Weiss reportedly tried to hire you. And what do you think of their strategy of trying to go after Fox's audience?
- [15:45]
Brett Baier
I don't know if that's the case. I mean, I think that they're trying to change their editorial viewpoint that maybe some people in the executive wing of that network thought was skewed one way and they're trying to balance it. I don't know if you can say it's going after Fox audience as much as it's going after middle America that may get fed up about seeing stories one way or another. Look, when Fox started, I was in the Atlanta bureau. The Atlanta bureau started with a fax machine and a cell phone in my apartment. And, you know, it began with this premise that there was unserved population that felt that the media was not covering everything that they wanted to cover. And the media who covered media said, this is never going to work. It's a niche audience. And it turned out that niche was half the country. And look, I'm the new side of that operation. And I think if CBS is trying to mimic special Reports, more power to him.
- [16:45]
Ben Smith
I think plenty of it doesn't seem like it's working, though. I mean, you're a, you're a, a veteran and an analyst of television, too. What, what don't you think is working over there?
- [16:56]
Brett Baier
I don't know. You know, I don't spend time. I haven't actually watched a full, full show. I've seen clips, obviously. I don't know.
- [17:04]
Ben Smith
Any tips for, for Tony?
- [17:07]
Brett Baier
No, he's a good guy. I know him. And I wish Him. Well, I think, you know, they're going to keep on digging and one show at a time, you know, Brit Hume, when I took over in January 2009, he said three things. The show is not about you. The show is not about you. And let the news drive the show. So that is still the mentality. If you build it, they will come is kind of where I am. And that's what we do every day.
- [17:32]
Ben Smith
Do you think more broadly, Barry Weiss's sort of effort, do you like what she's doing there? Do you think you like what she's trying to do?
- [17:40]
Brett Baier
I don't know, Ben. I really don't even know the big blueprint that she has that what she.
- [17:44]
Ben Smith
Did she not tell you when she was trying to hire you?
- [17:49]
Brett Baier
You're so good. You're so, so good. He said, I'm very happy, very happy at Fox.
- [17:54]
Ben Smith
I mean, typically in recruiting, you try to lay out the vision.
- [17:57]
Brett Baier
It's really good. It's really good.
- [17:59]
Max Tawny
He's not taking our bait here, Ben. It's very sad.
- [18:02]
Ben Smith
We were worried about this breath. You're a very careful man. I mean, Fox is also famously quite sensitive to its audience and big feature of its success. And do you ever feel like there is news that is hard to deliver to that audience? You covered the Hunter Biden scandal a lot. You've covered the money flowing to the Trump family. How does the audience feel about that?
- [18:26]
Brett Baier
Yeah, sometimes there are supporters of the president that watch the show that obviously don't like when we covered these things. The slush fund and the uproar over this slush fund. This is a non starter on Capitol Hill. These are supporters of the president, Republicans who are speaking out and being kind of vocal and we're, you know, covering every step of that. So, look, I don't, I don't think about how my audience actually at six o' clock is pretty diverse. It's a Republican, Democrat, independent split. Pew Research said it's the most diverse of the network shows. And I'm thinking that I'm speaking to everybody and at the end of the show that they don't really think or know what I believe. Personally, I'm not a robot. I obviously think about things, but I want them to say this was fair. And I'm not sure where Bear is.
- [19:22]
Ben Smith
Did you take any kind of lessons away from the mess after the 2020 election inside Fox? Did you. Was there anything you left thinking, I don't know that you would do differently or that, that you learned from that?
- [19:34]
Brett Baier
Use smoke signals, not Tech. No, I think I was very straightforward.
- [19:43]
Ben Smith
Most people do not look good in discovery. But you thought, you thought you were unusual, very unusual to come out happy, happy it's over.
- [19:50]
Brett Baier
That's sort of.
- [19:52]
Max Tawny
Ben, have your messages ever been there in the way that. Similar to the. In that manner?
- [19:59]
Ben Smith
I had an exchange with Jake Tapper come out in the dossier case that I don't think either of us was really particularly pleased with.
- [20:05]
Max Tawny
Wait, what was that? What was that one for our audience who don't know, including me, co host of the show.
- [20:12]
Ben Smith
Oh, God. You realize that, like, this is condemning me to a text message from Jake Tapper, but who as a great journalist, and this has been revisited a million times, but we were having an argument about whether the dossier was his scoop or my scoop. The kind of really elevated journalistic argument, obviously, that we all get into. And one of us may have accused the other of stepping on his dick.
- [20:35]
Max Tawny
Well, I think I can guess which one accused. Yeah, yeah.
- [20:38]
Ben Smith
This is journalism at its absolute best.
- [20:41]
Max Tawny
At some point, though, did that swap and, you know, you guys didn't want to be responsible. Were you texting Jake later, being like, you're right, actually, that was your speech. That wasn't.
- [20:49]
Ben Smith
Forget it. Never mind.
- [20:50]
Brett Baier
You take that one. Rick's name. Thank you.
- [20:53]
Max Tawny
Yeah, exactly. Brett, how long have you been at fox?
- [20:56]
Brett Baier
In total, 28 years.
- [20:58]
Max Tawny
28 years. And you started as a reporter?
- [21:02]
Brett Baier
The Atlanta bureau. I was the Southeast and South America, Latin America bouncing around. I'd hire freelance crews at the beginning, and we built up a bureau, but I was covering everything. Hurricanes, tornadoes, Ellen Gonzalez in Cuba, local political stories down south. And then 911 happened, and I was called to back up in New York. Second plane hit, they told us to drive from Atlanta. Third plane hit, they rerouted us to the Pentagon and I never left. I started doing live shots outside the burning Pentagon that night for Fox affiliates around the country, and then about a week later became the Pentagon correspondent.
- [21:44]
Max Tawny
And at what point did you kind of get onto the radar of higher ups at the network of network ownership? At what point did you get onto, you know, the Murdoch's radar as someone who is like, you know, a rising star?
- [21:59]
Brett Baier
Well, it was Roger Ailes who hired me, and I guess I started anchoring. I took every opportunity to anchor whenever somebody was off. So I took. If Geraldo Rivera was off on the weekend in New York, I would go out to New York and take his show or somebody was off on Fox and Friends on the weekend, and I would go up and do that and Then eventually Brit Hume cut his time to Monday through Thursday and he would appear on Fox News Sunday. So Fridays I would anchor a Special Report as kind of a fill in as I was chief White House correspondent at the time. So I guess that's when it started, you know, probably a few years before 2009.
- [22:40]
Max Tawny
As someone who's been there and has a lot of institutional knowledge, do you feel like you kind of have a say in the direction of the network?
- [22:47]
Brett Baier
Yeah. So I'm the executive editor of Special Report. So what happens in between six and seven, I'm responsible for and I make the, the decisions. I mean it's a team. But I am directly involved in the editorial of what the show covers, what we lead with all of that. As far as the broader network, each show has its own kind of equation. I put into the system if something newsworthy is worth noting from a certain point of view or sources that I have from the Pentagon or the White House or Capitol Hill. And so I advise and consent, you know, throughout the day if I get news. But I'm not steering anybody else's show. I'm responsible with horse blinders on my show, of course.
- [23:34]
Max Tawny
And you're, you know, you were featured at the upfronts, the big presentation for advertisers, you know, that's put on by, by Fox, by Fox Corp. There's a lot of interest obviously these days in the executive and ownership class of media companies. Everybody's interested in what's going on with David Ellison and Zaslav and they made a whole show about this a few years ago, of course, and that was succession. What's your relationship like with the Murdochs? What's your relationship like with Fox Corps? Are they watching every night as well? Just like, you know, the, like Mitch McConnell and Trump?
- [24:05]
Brett Baier
I think so. I think Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Murdoch watches religiously, he calls it the news. So that's a good thing. If he's watching the news, hopefully he's watching me and I think he is. So I have a great relationship with the Murdochs. Lachlan has been great to work for. I don't, you know, talk to them a lot. It's probably once a quarter, maybe a little bit, you know, a couple more times. See, see them in New York every now and then. But there's no top down call or something that says here's what we're going to do. It's very much bottom up.
- [24:42]
Max Tawny
Well, we have a lot more that we want to get to with Brett Baier, but we have to take a Short break. So we'll be right back with more after this.
- [24:55]
Ben Smith
In this week's branded segment from Think with Google, I talked with Google's VP of marketing, Josh Spanier about an interesting case study from the Salvation Army. Me AI still feels theoretical to many people. What's your favorite recent example of AI in action?
- [25:08]
Joshua Spaniar
So I love thrift shopping, Ben. I love going to the Salvation Army. I love the Salvation Army. I actually saw a case study from the Salvation army pretty recently which I thought was an incredibly powerful use of AI. They built a whole marketing program around fomo. Fear of missing out a whole marketing program around marketing products that had already sold and you could no longer buy. Now the Salvation army is kind of an interesting business because every product is one of one. They don't have more stock in the back. It's just a unique item. Working with that agency, they were able to turn that insight into a campaign where they would advertise a product that had sold and was no longer available to reinforce the point that if you don't get down to the Salvation army, you're going to miss out on the next treasure waiting that for you.
- [25:53]
Ben Smith
And so how did they use AI to do that?
- [25:55]
Joshua Spaniar
So they used Google Gemini, they used Nano Banana, our image generation technology and demand gen, one of our performance products. And they actually connected to the Salvation army website. And every time a product was sold from one of the local stores, they instantly generated a beautiful Vogue esque digital ad geotargeted near to the individual store where that item had sold saying, hey, this item's gone. Get down here. It was a really clever use of technology, really clever use of AI created some urgency and relevancy. It did two great things. It drove a lot more traffic into the store. It worked really, really well and it made the Salvation army even cooler than it already is. FOMO for the Salvation army, very fun.
- [26:37]
Ben Smith
Where can people go for more?
- [26:38]
Joshua Spaniar
Head on over to thinkwithgoodle.com there's a whole case study written by their agency and the Salvation army going into how they did this work. It's a really good read. If you, if you search FOMO into footfall or FOMO into foot traffic, you'll find the article. It's really good@thinkwithgoogle.com.
- [27:06]
Ben Smith
Your latest book, the Case for America, which is very like, it's a very like deliberately bipartisan kind of, you have a Doug Brinkley blurb and there was this quote that stuck with me that you have in there from Tim Shriver, who's a Kennedy, your interview with him made a big impression on you and your viewers and his statement that vitriol is really not who we are as Americans. You talk to him about his dignity index, which is a way of measuring how we talk to one another when we disagree and the importance of treating one another with dignity. Do you think President Trump treats people he disagrees with appropriate dignity?
- [27:37]
Brett Baier
Definitely not all the time. And I think he is, you know, it takes leadership to get to that point where that he's talking about. He chooses to do it differently. And he comes from a New York real estate developer swing. If you're punched at, punched back harder. And you know, I think that there is this sense a hunger in the country as you talk to people that we should be able to listen to each other disagree. Dissent is who we are. We're baked into the cake, but not dehumanize people. And that's part of our problem. And you know, the president's cited many times as far as, you know, some of those truth socials or what he says about someone and it doesn't sit well even with some of his supporters. But most importantly, there is a sense that, you know, maybe there's a better way to, to talk about and to people. And that's what Schreiber's talking about, Republicans and Democrats. It was great. Arthur Brooks in this book talked about. He does political focus groups and he puts MAGA and social Democrats, liberals into a room and says we're going to talk about politics and they all get their backup ready to go and fight. And then he says, but first we're going to talk about our family for 10, 15 minutes and everybody's talking about your teenager stayed out that late or the kid fell off the swing set. And it changes the dynamic. There's a shared love that people then can listen to one another. And more of that I think needs to happen. And I'm trying to do it one Common Ground segment at a time. But yeah, the president, it takes leadership to do that. And sometimes he chooses not to do what Tim Schreiber is talking about.
- [29:25]
Ben Smith
There's a lot on Fox, a lot across cable that is, I think, not aspiring to treat people that disagree with the utmost dignity. Do you ever talk to your colleagues about that? Do you ever try to push them to be, to listen to Tim Shriver?
- [29:37]
Max Tawny
More.
- [29:38]
Brett Baier
I wrote the book.
- [29:40]
Ben Smith
Was the book addressed to Laura Ingraham? Was that the.
- [29:43]
Brett Baier
No, it wasn't addressed to anybody in particular. They do their own thing. You know, they're an opinion page. I'M a news page. We work under the same umbrella. They do what they do really well, but we do it totally differently. And again, I'm wearing my horse blinders from 6 to 7.
- [29:59]
Max Tawny
Brett, you are one of the, you know, preeminent observers of Washington, so it would be. It would be negligent of us not to ask, you know, to get some fun predictions out of you. We're already halfway through 2026. So within the next few months, the 2028 election will officially be in full swing. It's already kind of going on in many ways. Who do you think is going to be the Republican nominee in 2028?
- [30:25]
Ben Smith
Yeah. And specifically, where are you going to put your poker. Where would you put your poker chips?
- [30:28]
Max Tawny
Yeah, we got poker chips.
- [30:29]
Brett Baier
You got to do it.
- [30:30]
Ben Smith
To me, I think that's fair.
- [30:32]
Brett Baier
Canada Casino. To me, look, I think it's fascinating, the fact that it's not definitively J.D. vance, the Vice president, sitting vice president. I think it's fascinating. And where do I put the chips? I don't know. Maybe it's a 60, 40 JD over Marco Rubio. If the Democrats win the House and the Senate, it is going to be a super bumpy ride for two years of hearings and testimonies and subpoenas. And so maybe in that environment, it's neither of them, and it's somebody outside of the Trump administration. So I would have to put like 55 on JD Vance, 35 on Marco Rubio, and 10 for the field if it's not the Trump.
- [31:25]
Ben Smith
Anybody stand out in that field? I've been thinking about that. I don't have. I'm not sure.
- [31:29]
Brett Baier
I don't know yet. You know, everybody talks about Glenn Youngkin, but he's out of office now. People talk about, you know, Dave McCormick, P.A. they talk about, you know, other governors that maybe could get in. But I. I think it's probably J.D. vance and Marco Rubio. That comes down to who do you
- [31:50]
Max Tawny
think are the strongest Democratic contenders?
- [31:52]
Brett Baier
It's hard for me to discount Gavin Newsom. I think that the story he tells is not a great one from California, but. But he is a flashy guy who gets a lot of attention in Democratic circles. He can sometimes touch the far left and sometimes kind of go towards the middle. So he might be somebody that rises to the top. Obviously, Kamala Harris leads in all the polls, but every Democrat that I talk to doesn't seem to think that she's gonna rise to be the nominee this time.
- [32:21]
Max Tawny
Gavin, we've talked to him a number of Times. He's also equally obsessed with the media. You know, he texts with some of your colleagues. Do you ever hear from him? He's come on your show, I believe, as well, right?
- [32:32]
Brett Baier
Yeah. Numbered a couple times. And I'm trying to get him back on. And I exchange, I talk to him or text him. And I think he's formidable and kind of obviously laying out a blueprint of how he's going to do this. So I think, yeah, he's a figure. I think there are others, though, that other governors, there are other people that we are probably going to be surprised that there is going to be some Donald Trump figure out on the left. Not like Donald Trump particular, because we'll never see a unique politician. I don't think in our lifetime that that fits that mold exactly. But somebody that we're not thinking of that does their own escalator ride down on the left side.
- [33:15]
Max Tawny
I was reading Rob Flaherty, the former deputy director of Kamala Harris's Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris's campaign. He wrote a response last week in the Bulwark to the DNC autopsy. He wrote his own autopsy, essentially, and said what he had told the Democratic National Committee about what went wrong in the 2024 election. And he said one of the biggest moments of the campaign of Kamala Harris's campaign was when she went on your show. And that was that coincided with a spike in donations. And there was the viewership on it was pretty significant. Have you seen more interest among Democrats and potential contenders in wanting to come on your show since the 2024 election? Because it seems like there's been a big shift from particular 2020 when there were candidates like Elizabeth Warren saying no Democrats should go on Fox News.
- [34:03]
Brett Baier
Yeah. By the way, Elizabeth Warren went on Fox News that year to sell a piece of legislation. But besides that, I have seen that. And I think it's not only about eyeballs, but it's also about coverage of coverage. And I think that they realize the bang for the buck. That interview with Kamala Harris, I think got 16 million viewers. And I heard the same thing from Kamala Harris folks that it was they were really happy with the interview. I didn't know how happy they should be about it, but they seemed very pleased with it and that she wanted that whole back and forth and that's what they were going for. But Trump people at the same time thought that it was a different dynamic looking at the same interview. But I have a lot of Democrats who come on the common ground thing has really taken off. I, I, it's easy to book. When I first started it four years ago, my, my staff said, boss, this is never going to work because nobody's going to come on together. And the first ones were, you know, minuscule bills. But now there are strange bedfellows. I mean, Lindsey Graham and Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren and Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Raskin, you know, they don't agree on anything and they were coming to talk about what they're working on together. So I think that, you know, that vehicle too has, has opened the door to some Democrats.
- [35:26]
Ben Smith
Do you vote, Brett?
- [35:28]
Brett Baier
I don't.
- [35:29]
Ben Smith
Why not?
- [35:30]
Brett Baier
I don't want to be asked this question about how you voted or first of all, I lived in D.C. for the longest time and you know, it didn't make sense for me to have to answer one way or another. And I just, have always thought that I did early on in my life. But when I got to this position, I don't know, for some reason I thought it was important not to.
- [35:55]
Max Tawny
Ben, do you vote?
- [35:56]
Ben Smith
I do vote. I do. And I've always thought, well, you can just like, you can just not say who you voted for and it's, and in a way, like to sort of have a preference and not vote. Isn't that different than voting and not telling people?
- [36:08]
Max Tawny
But yeah, I don't know. You don't, you don't have to do interviews such as these. That is true. Ask you who you voted for.
- [36:15]
Ben Smith
It literally just happened to be Max. You just did that.
- [36:19]
Max Tawny
But you can fire me, though.
- [36:21]
Ben Smith
I'm curious. I just want to ask you a couple last questions about this media moment we're in. This moment when, this kind of strange moment when television on one hand is said to be collapsing and at the same time everything including this is sort of becoming television and you've got this very old school show in a certain way. You have a podcast. I'm curious, when you look around the landscape, who do you think is doing interesting stuff? What are you watching?
- [36:44]
Brett Baier
It's a great question. I think I'm tuning into more podcasts. I'm, I'm trying to listen long form to things on one issue. You know, I, I listen to Joe Rogan just to get a sense of what he's talking about. I listen to other folks that really dive into something for a long, long term. I don't have a ton of time, so I'm, I'm kind of dipping in and out as far as TV goes. You know, I, I don't see a lot that's advancing the ball and I hope there's more. I, I really do. I'd like to see more news shows, straight news. I do like the documentary stuff that digs in for a full hour on one topic and I delved into that for a little bit.
- [37:28]
Ben Smith
Anything in particular you've seen lately and liked?
- [37:32]
Brett Baier
Did you? How about Age of Discovery about the aliens? Do you ever watch that?
- [37:36]
Ben Smith
Oh man, I'm not an alien guy.
- [37:37]
Brett Baier
Yeah, you're not an alien guy. This was a good documentary.
- [37:41]
Ben Smith
All right. Really, really worth the open my mind.
- [37:43]
Brett Baier
I had the producer director on. It's really interesting.
- [37:47]
Max Tawny
If there was a 22 year old version of Brett Baier who was just starting out today, would they go to Fox? Would they start a subsack? What would they do, do you think?
- [37:56]
Brett Baier
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I started in small market TV before I got to Fox. So I was in Beaufort, South Carolina and Rockford, Illinois and NBC affiliate and Raleigh, North Carolina, CBS affiliate. So that was the old school way of bouncing around different affiliates before I started at Fox. Fox is, you know, is expanding and we're hiring all kinds of different people and different bureaus. I think it's great. You have to have experience before getting here, but I think that there's many more avenues to get into journalism now and online and substack and you know, I think that there are a ton more pathways than there were when I was 22.
- [38:37]
Max Tawny
Brett, thank you so much. This was a really fascinating conversation. Really appreciate you stopping by.
- [38:42]
Ben Smith
Thank you, Brett.
- [38:43]
Brett Baier
You bet.
- [38:51]
Ben Smith
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- [39:27]
Max Tawny
So Ben, I thought that that was a really interesting conversation with I thought we got some fun answers out of him and we asked him some light stuff. But I think that we also asked him some things that he clearly didn't want to talk about. You know, mostly his feelings on CBS News, which is kind of trying to position itself slightly as more of a rival to Fox and tried to hire Brett. But was there anything that stuck out to you about his responses to some of the questions that he asked you, was there anything surprising?
- [39:54]
Ben Smith
I was a little bit surprised that he was, that he was willing even mildly to criticize Trump for, you know, kind of basically being uncivil. I kind of didn't think he was going to bite on that question, more or less.
- [40:06]
Max Tawny
Is he kind of like the last really meaningful primetime evening news anchor who the Senate Majority Leader is going to block off an hour of their time to watch, or the President is going to be sitting down to tune in every evening? Is he kind of the last one who's going to have that role?
- [40:23]
Ben Smith
You're so right. Like that kind of political relevance and it's. And it is the classic kind of circle of media in that he has a big audience and so the politicians feel like they have to watch. And the fact that the politicians are watching adds to his power. And so it's like a real old fashioned. This is an important television show. And then, you know, President Xi thinks about going on because he knows the Trump will watch and foreign leaders are on there all the time because he's a, you know, basically straight news guy who will ask questions and the answers will be piped directly to Donald Trump. And the alternative is to going, you know, going on some like, slightly fringier thing where it might get weirder. And I don't actually think there's necessarily anything quite like that in American media right now.
- [41:03]
Max Tawny
Do you think that that'll still be the case if we have President Newsom, as he threw out there as a possible contender in 2028? Is that bad for Bayer? I would imagine that it probably is. In some ways.
- [41:13]
Ben Smith
It's probably good for ratings because, like, Fox always thrives in opposition. This current, just unbelievable red carpet of world leaders just like marching onto his set to talk to the President. Like, that's a really remarkable feature of this moment. I think.
- [41:29]
Max Tawny
If we have President Jon Ossoff, do we think we're gonna get the President Xi on the Ezra Klein podcast? Is that what is gonna happen?
- [41:36]
Ben Smith
Oh, my God, 100%. That's such. Yeah, that is happening. You should like, you heard it here first. Absolutely.
- [41:42]
Max Tawny
And you know what? If we get President Newsom, I think we might get some world leaders on this show as we know that the Newsom folks, a lot of them are fans as well as, you know, some other folks in some other Democratic offices who are, who are into media.
- [41:54]
Ben Smith
So. Yeah. So please. So you should like, like on. Subscribe to us on YouTube, follow us on your podcast. Thing now so that you can get the President of the United States in four years.
- [42:05]
Max Tawny
Well, that's it for us this week. Thanks for listening to another episode of Mixed Signals from us here at Semaphore Media. Our show is produced by Manny Fadal, with special thanks to Josh Billinson, Amber Alley, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Daniel Haft, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Grande. Our engineer is Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by the great Steve Bone. Our public editor is Irina Briganti, the head of comms at Fox News.
- [42:31]
Ben Smith
And if you like this show, Please subscribe on YouTube and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
- [42:36]
Max Tawny
And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter, which is out every Sunday night.