Fox News anchor Bret Baier, in the days after the 2020 election, appeared to be concerned with Fox News’s election night call that President Joe Biden won Arizona, according to purported text messages between him and former network host Tucker Carlson, which the Daily Beast has obtained.
On Election Night, November 3, 2020, Fox News’s decision desk, led by Arnon Mishkin, called Arizona for Biden at 11:20 p.m., the New York Times’s Chief Political Analyst Nate Cohen reported.
It was the first network to determine Biden had won the Grand Canyon State, though only an estimated 73 percent of the vote was tabulated, and many other news sources found it too close to call, per Cohen. The left-leaning Times, for instance, did not declare Biden the victor in the Grand Canyon State until November 12 – more than a week after election day. The Associated Press, however, followed suit with Fox News and called the race in the early morning of November 4, NPR noted.
Fox News’s quick call established a dissonance of sorts. Former President Donald Trump voters would tune into establishment outlets and mainstream outlets, in which their trust had waned over the years, and hear the Arizona race was still alive. When they tuned into Fox, the go-to network for conservative viewers for years, they were told Trump lost the crucial southwest swing state.
The Daily Beast reports having obtained texts, which were included in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News, between Carlson and Baier in the days after the election.
Carlson texted Baier on November 5, noting that he did not think the company understood the gravity of the situation, seemingly fearing that viewers would lose trust and abandon Fox News. One suggestion Carlson made was for Baier to explain the decision-making process on Tucker Carlson Tonight, with another being an interview with Mishkin – which did not materialize.
“But maybe you come on to walk us through it? Viewers trust you,” Carlson wrote. “Or maybe he [sic] interview Mishkin? I’m open. But again I want to help. Let me know.”
“Arnon would be good. For YOU to grill him,” Baier responded. “But I have had him on a bunch. I am happy to do it. But may say I wouldn’t have made the call when we did. But we did.”
Fox stuck to its call throughout the period of uncertainty, though their arrival at the decision appears to have been flawed, according to Cohn.
“Still, there is a compelling body of publicly available evidence suggesting that Fox, when it called the state, fundamentally misunderstood the remaining votes,” he wrote. “It did not imagine that Mr. Trump could come so close to winning.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, a Fox News spokesperson wrote:
FOX News stood by the Arizona call despite intense scrutiny. Given the extremely narrow 0.3% margin and a new projection mechanism that no other network had, it’s hardly surprising there would be postmortem discussions surrounding the call and how it was executed, no matter the candidates.”
The text messages surfaced on the heels of Carlson’s exit from Fox News early last week. While Fox News contended it and Carlson had “agreed to part ways,” Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle published a bombshell report, noting that “Carlson’s current contract runs through December 2024, and as of now three sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News that executives at the network are trying to keep Carlson on contract and not release him until after the 2024 election.”
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