Bret Baier had to coax Trump to agree to Fox News town hall

Fox News anchor Bret Baier worked hard to convince former President Trump to participate in a town hall in Iowa, slated to take place Wednesday and compete directly with the fifth Republican primary debate on CNN.

“It’s not easy,” Baier told the New York Times this week about his efforts to encourage the former president to sit for “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.”

Wednesday night’s town hall, which airs at 9 p.m. on the network, marks the latest chapter in the closely watched and ever-changing relationship between Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, and Fox, the most widely watched cable news channel.

The former president has been relentlessly attacking the network and its leading anchors, including talents like Baier, for months over its coverage of him and the Republican race.

Trump was famously enraged by the network’s calling of Arizona on election night 2020 for President Biden and has more recently alleged a concerted effort by the Murdoch family to boost his rivals for the 2024 GOP nomination for president.

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Wednesday night’s prime-time event in Iowa will be the first time Trump has sat for a live interview on the network since 2022.

That was before Fox agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million to settle claims of defamation out of court, after being sued for for false claims about the company’s voting software being promoted by Trump and his allies.

Trump sat with Baier for a wide-ranging interview last May, which unlike Wednesday’s event, was pre-taped. The anchor pushed back repeatedly on Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

During a similar live town hall-style event last year on CNN, Trump repeatedly floated unfounded theories about voter fraud and election integrity.

“We’re ready to deal with it,” Baier told the Times of the possibility of Trump making false statements about the election on Fox’s airwaves during Wednesday night’s event.

“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.”