Published: February 6, 2012
NEW YORK: Fox News Channel's Bret Baier has already annoyed Mitt Romney this campaign season. Now he's finding fault with one of Newt Gingrich's ideas.
Gingrich, who was on Fox's payroll as an analyst before running for president, said recently that if he was the GOP nominee, he wouldn't agree to a debate with President Barack Obama if a journalist was the moderator.
"I don't think that would work," said Baier, who has moderated five GOP debates this election cycle. "I don't think it would be too enjoyable to watch."
Baier, 42, has increased his profile with the debate work and status as co-anchor with Megyn Kelly on Fox's political night coverage. The nightly newscast he anchors, "Special Report," is the third most-watched news show on cable television, behind Fox teammates Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, and it beats the combined audience of CNN and MSNBC at 6 p.m. Eastern. A former White House and Pentagon reporter for Fox, Baier took over "Special Report" from Brit Hume after the 2008 election.
Without the journalists, the debates would likely amount to little more than stump speeches, Baier said. Getting politicians off their programmed responses is the biggest challenge for debate moderators and usually produces the best moments.
But the Fox host understands where Gingrich is coming from.
"It's just politics," he said. "A lot of politicians have complained about media coverage and media questions. He just does it more frequently than others and perhaps more effectively."
Baier's not-so-tender moment with Romney came during a Nov. 30 interview. In a style he admired in the late Tim Russert, Baier confronted Romney with some quotes from the past that appeared to contradict what the candidate had been saying during the campaign. He asked: "How can voters trust that what they hear from you today is what you will believe when you're in the White House?"
Off-air later, Romney told Baier that he thought the interview was overly aggressive and that he didn't like it.
Romney's unhappiness was evident on the air, too. The unspoken subtext seemed to be: I thought Fox would be a friendlier venue than this.
"The news operation at Fox has established itself with a lot of folks, including people inside the GOP, as being fair and tough," Baier said. "There shouldn't be any surprise that we were asking questions that probably any other news outlet would want to ask."
Baier's audience skews right, as it does for most Fox shows. Forty-one percent of his audience identifies itself as Republican, 44 percent as independent and 15 percent as Democratic, according to a 2011 study by GfK MRI, a consumer research company.
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