Fox’s Henry, Regan defend Cavuto after Trump attacks: ‘Outstanding man, outstanding journalist’

Several Fox News anchors and pundits have come to the defense of longtime Fox News and Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto, calling him an “outstanding man” and “utmost journalist” after he faced criticism from President Trump at a rally on Wednesday night.

The president lashed out at former anchor Shepard Smith and Cavuto, saying all of Fox News’s “high-rated shows are the ones that like Trump” while “all of their loser shows are the ones that don’t like Trump.”

The president said Smith had the “lowest ratings, and now Neil Cavuto took his place.”

“This speaks to the problem with this presidency,” Fox News contributor Richard Fowler, a Democrat, declared to anchor Ed Henry on Thursday night. “He can run on the good economy, and I will give him points for that, but to sit on this air and trash a good journalist, it speaks to the problem that we have.”

“We can’t tell our kids not to bully, we can’t tell our kids to be nice to your neighbors,” he added. “We can’t tell our children to do unto others when you have a president attacking a good man for no reason in particular aside from the fact that he criticized a particular policy position of his.”

Henry, who joined Fox News in 2011 after years at CNN, replied by also supporting Cavuto.

“Neil Cavuto, from the first day I walked into Fox News Channel, has always been an outstanding man and outstanding journalist, and I want to stand up for him as well.”

Later on Fox Business, “Trish Regan Primetime” host Trish Regan also defended Cavuto, who also serves as senior vice president and managing editor of business news for both Fox News and Fox Business.

“It’s come to my attention the president, while speaking to the crowd in Colorado Springs, said something disparaging against one of my colleagues,” Regan said in addressing viewers directly. “He’s someone who started this network, Fox Business, and someone who is the utmost journalist and always fair.”

“I can tell you that about Neil,” she continued. “He is a fair person, a fair guy, and a good man. So I’m disappointed that the president said those things. Because Neil Cavuto is one guy who doesn’t deserve it.”

Last summer, Cavuto said in a closing monologue on his Fox News program that the network doesn’t work for Trump after the president said the cable news network “isn’t working for us anymore.”

“Mr. President, we don’t work for you. I don’t work for you,” Cavuto said on “Your World.”

“My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you. Just report on you,” he added.

“It is called being fair and balanced, Mr. President, yet it is fair to say you’re not a fan when that balance includes stuff you don’t like to hear or facts you don’t like to have questioned,” Cavuto concluded.

Trump has done more than 60 interviews on Fox News and Fox Business since taking office in 2017 while regularly declining interviews on a number of other networks.

Trump has not done any interviews with CNN or MSNBC since August and May of 2016, respectively.