Brit Hume defends Fox News colleague from Trump attack

Fox News political commentator Brit Hume came to the defense of one of the network’s leading White House correspondents after she was attacked by President Trump this week over her reporting.

“I watched Jacqui Heinrich from Fox over the weekend and I thought she was absolutely terrible,” Trump wrote Wednesday in a post on Truth Social. “She should be working for CNN, not Fox. Not surprisingly, I later found out that she’s a fan of the White House Correspondents Association!”

Heinrich is a leading correspondent in Washington, D.C., for Fox and sits on the board of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

Hume, who has been with the network for decades, defended Heinrich’s work and pushed back on the president’s complaint.

“I watched her too. She plays it straight, covering both sides of a story and has certainly played fair with you,” Hume wrote in a post on the social platform X, directed at Trump. “You may have a case against some White House reporters, but not [Heinrich.”

Trump has intensified his attacks on mainstream media outlets during his first two months back in office, often asking which outlet a reporter is with during “pool sprays” with gathered media and dismissing questions asked by reporters at organizations he says are unfair to him.

The White House also remains in a legal fight with The Associated Press over access to key West Wing spaces after the news wire refused to change its style on the Gulf of Mexico. The Trump administration has since renamed the body of water to the Gulf of America.

The president made semiregular barbs toward Fox News while on the campaign trail, but has scaled back his criticism of the cable network in recent months.

He and other top administration officials have granted extensive one-on-one interviews with journalists from the network’s news division and top prime time opinion hosts.