Nov 10, 2025
Bill Sammon
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Bill Sammon
Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down for an interview with Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday, reaching out to vi
Matt Gertz at MMFA:
Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down for an interview with Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday, reaching out to viewers of former President Donald Trump’s personal propaganda outlet in the closing weeks of the 2024 campaign. Baier’s role at Fox is to provide his network with a sheen of credibility by producing a program that largely resembles a traditional newscast. His program prioritizes stories which flatter the right’s biases and soft-pedals or ignores damaging revelations about Trump. But his presentation is sober, a contrast to the enraged grievance-mongering of the colleagues who follow him in the Fox rotation. As a result, Baier has received an unearned reputation for integrity from some journalists at mainstream outlets — and provoked occasional fits of anger from Trump, who prefers the sort of obsequious propaganda he has gotten from regular Fox interlocutors like Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, and the late Lou Dobbs.
[...]
Baier urged network executives to keep Fox from calling states for Biden
While Baier would like to move past Fox’s history of lying to bolster Trump’s 2020 subversion campaign, the Fox anchor is personally implicated in shocking breeches of journalistic standards with obvious ramifications for the coming election. After Fox’s decision desk called Arizona for Joe Biden on election night — infuriating the Trump campaign and many Fox viewers — Baier urged network executives to overrule the decision desk in order to make amends. Baier emailed Fox President Jay Wallace on November 5, 2020, to say that the decision desk’s Arizona call was “hurting us” and should be rescinded. He texted Tucker Carlson, who worried that the network could lose its audience to right-wing rivals, the same day, writing, “I have pressed them to slow. And I think they will slow walk Nevada.” Fox did not retract its Arizona call, which was subsequently vindicated. But Wallace reportedly “overruled the Decision Desk team” soon after, “refusing to let them call Nevada for Biden even after other networks did.”
[...]
While his “news” side colleagues left Fox, Baier reupped his contract
Fox’s PR team used to regularly highlight Baier alongside longtime network stalwarts Shep Smith and Chris Wallace to claim that the network had a credible news division. It is telling that Baier is the only member of that troika still employed by the network following what his former colleagues describe as its yearslong transformation into a Trumpist propaganda outlet. After Smith abruptly resigned in 2019, he said “that his presence on Fox became untenable as opinion shows on the network spread falsehoods that hosts knew were lies.” After Wallace left in 2021, he said it had become “unsustainable” to work at a network where people questioned who won the 2020 election and whether pro-Trump rioters storming the U.S. Capitol constituted an insurrection. They aren’t alone. Stirewalt said after his 2021 firing that during the Trump years, Fox became “an arm of a political party.” In March 2018, Fox strategic analyst Ralph Peters told colleagues that he would not renew his contract because Fox had become “a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration.”
After longtime political correspondent Carl Cameron left in 2017, he explained that “over the years, the right-wing hosts drowned out straight journalism with partisan misinformation” and said the network’s stars were “allied” with Trump.
Bret Baier, the interviewer for Kamala Harris’s Fox interview tomorrow, has a long history of partisan right-wing behavior while masquerading as a “straight news” reporter.
Matt Gertz at MMFA:
Fox News depicts the “decision desk” that calls elections for the network as an independent, data-driven body cordoned off from its right-wing propaganda machine. But the 2020 presidential election showed that this independence is a fiction: Top Fox executives are willing and able to overrule those calls if they think the results would anger Donald Trump and Fox viewers. With the entire right-wing apparatus — including Fox figures — framing any potential Trump loss in November as a result of fraud, that scenario could easily repeat this fall.
The New York Times interviewed Fox decision desk overseer Arnon Mishkin for a Wednesday article on how outlets are “preparing to make calls in a very tight race — and ensure that viewers and readers believe them.” Mishkin said “that he and his team would be siloed off in a room inside network headquarters, and that he had no concerns about outside interference.”
“One hundred percent of the job is to look at the numbers,” Mishkin told the Times. “Just look at the numbers and report out what the numbers are saying.” But the 2020 election showed that between Mishkin’s team reporting “what the numbers are saying” and Fox anchors presenting that information to the public, the network’s executives can step in to overrule the calls.
Fox’s election night call of Arizona for Joe Biden was controversial, the Times noted, angering Trump and ultimately triggering the exits of decision desk leaders Chris Stirewalt and Bill Sammon. As Fox viewers revolted following that call, the network went into overdrive pushing Trumpian lies about election fraud swinging the results — which its executives and stars didn’t actually believe — and eventually triggering a massive defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. But the Times stressed that Fox refused to bow to Trump campaign demands that the network rescind its Arizona call, while leaving out the network’s subsequent decision — pushed by its top executives and “straight news” anchors — to slow-walk future calls if they might similarly anger viewers.
Fox president and executive editor Jay Wallace “overruled the Decision Desk team including Bill Sammon, Arnon Mishkin, and Chris Stirewalt, refusing to let them call Nevada for Biden even after other networks did, a level of interference that had been unheard of in past elections,” Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reported in their 2022 book, The Divider. Wallace’s reason for overruling Mishkin and company had nothing to do with “the numbers,” according to Baker and Glasser. “Because of the Arizona projection, calling Nevada would give Biden enough electoral votes for victory,” they wrote. “Wallace did not want Fox to be the first to call the election and declare Biden president-elect.” Fox CEO Suzanne Scott had wanted to go even further, Baker and Glasser reported, suggesting the morning after the election “that Fox should not call any more states until they were officially certified,” an unheard-of process that could take weeks. Fox “straight news” anchors Martha MacCallum and especially Bret Baier emerged in post-election reporting as key figures who sought to stymie the decision desk’s calls.
GOP propaganda organ Fox “News” doesn’t have an independent decision desk free of interference, as Fox decision desk head Arnon Mishkin admitted that he and his team would be siloed off.
In 2020, after the channel’s decision desk made a controversial call to put Arizona in Joe Biden’s column, executives put a stop to calling any further states just so Fox couldn’t be the first to put Biden over 270 with a call of Nevada and that any future calls be based on viewer support.
At 1:22 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning, NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo announced live that former President Donald Trump would be the 47th Pres
Zoe Engels at Mediaite:
At 1:22 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning, NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo announced live that former President Donald Trump would be the 47th President of the United States, citing projections from the network’s partner, Decision Desk HQ, and making it the first news outlet to call the 2024 presidential election. It would take some older, well-established networks hours more to call the much-anticipated election that ended in a loss for Vice President Kamala Harris and made Trump the first president since Grover Cleveland to be re-elected to the White House after being voted out. The call from Fox News, second to announce Trump’s victory, came in some 20 minutes later at 1:47 a.m. ET. “It’s a big challenge,” NewsNation political editor Chris Stirewalt said in an interview about the call. “There are no easy answers… but that does not mean there are no simple answers. And the answer, when it comes to calling races is pretty simple, which is: You need the best data and you need the best analysts and you go when you know.”
And go when they know, they did. Stirewalt spent Tuesday night on air at NewsNation, reporting on the election results and DDHQ’s projections as they arrived. He was joined by Bill Sammon, the former Washington editor at Fox News who worked with Stirewalt for years until the controversial 2020 call of Arizona for Joe Biden led to both of their departures from the network. That early call had devastating consequences for Fox News. Though it was ultimately correct, it drew the wrath of the Trump campaign and Fox’s own viewers. Stirewalt, then a Fox politics editor, defended the call on air. Within months, both he and Sammon were pushed out by Fox over viewer outrage that brought down ratings. The repercussions of that call were felt once again this year, when industry insiders said networks would be more cautious in making bold projections.
Stirewalt was later tapped by Cherie Grzech, the president of news and managing editor at NewsNation, to serve as their political editor and host of the weekly show The Hill Sunday. (Disclosure: Mediaite founder Dan Abrams hosts a show on NewsNation.) The overarching strategy going into election night, Stirewalt told Mediaite with a laugh, was to be the first to be right. Unlike its more established cable news competitors, NewsNation eschewed an in-network decision desk, instead leaning into their partnership with DDHQ, an independent entity. DDHQ ended up being the most bullish outfit in making calls, which gave it a competitive advantage. On social media and across the news industry, its projections were cited as a consequence of their speed.
NewsNation called the election for Donald Trump first, before even Fox, and that’s due to their partnership with Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).
See Also:
NewsNation: Here’s how NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ called the presidential race first
Matt Gertz at MMFA:
Top Fox News executives interfered with the election projections of the network’s vaunted “decision desk” due to blowback from then-President Donald Trump, according to a new book. The reports — and the actions Fox took with regard to its decision desk following the 2020 election — demolish the network’s argument that its “news side” is a credible journalistic operation walled off from the “opinion side’s” Republican Party propaganda machine.
In The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser report that while Fox’s decision desk had been comfortable with its election night call that Joe Biden had won Arizona, “Fox executives were freaking out” that week as the network came “under tremendous pressure from Trump and his allies.” Fox’s call made it more difficult for Trump to subvert the election after declaring victory on election night, and he responded by successfully encouraging Fox viewers to switch to its competitors.
Jay Wallace, Fox’s president and executive editor, took a direct action overriding the decision desk in hopes of avoiding further criticism from Trump supporters on the Friday after election day, according to Baker and Glasser.
Wallace “overruled the Decision Desk team including Bill Sammon, Arnon Mishkin, and Chris Stirewalt, refusing to let them call Nevada for Biden even after other networks did, a level of interference that had been unheard of in past elections,” they write. “The reason had little to do with Nevada. Because of the Arizona projection, calling Nevada would give Biden enough electoral votes for victory. Wallace did not want Fox to be the first to call the election and declare Biden president-elect.”
Wallace’s act followed two other proposals from senior Fox employees to interfere with the decision desk for Trump’s benefit, according to the book.
First, “at 8:30 the morning after the election, Suzanne Scott, the chief executive officer, even suggested that Fox should not call any more states until they were officially certified,” they reported. As Baker and Glasser noted, “official state certifications typically took days or even weeks and no network had ever waited until then before telling their viewers who had won.”
“A couple other top executives backed up Scott,” while Sammon, the Washington managing editor who directed the decision desk, advised against the move, according to the book. (That Sammon, who slanted Fox’s reporting to the right and bragged about falsely portraying Barack Obama as a socialist during the 2008 election, was the voice of reason here shows how far the network had gone.)
But two days later, they report that Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier sent Wallace an email arguing that Fox should reverse its Arizona call and instead project that Trump had won the state — even though he trailed at the time by more than 10,000 votes.
[...]
Wallace didn’t follow through on Baier’s proposal, but according to Baker and Glasser he blocked the decision desk’s Nevada call the following day. The day after that, Fox saw the writing on the wall and followed CNN, ABC, CBS, and The Associated Press in declaring that Biden had won the election.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The network’s brass subsequently established an incentive structure that would dissuade similar “news side” threats to Fox’s bottom line.
Baker and Glasser report that Sammon and Stirewalt were then “summarily fired,” with the announcement delayed until January and described as a “retirement” and part of a “restructuring,” respectively.
According to the The Divider: Trump In The White House book, Fox “News” host Bret Baier and top executives tried to not only block their decision desk team’s call of Arizona for Joe Biden but also reverse that call in favor of awarding Arizona to Donald Trump, even though he was trailing at the time, in a bid to pander to the egos of the Trump campaign.
On top of that, the execs overruled the decision desk team’s call of Nevada on the basis of not wanting the network to be the first to call the election for Biden. They eventually followed the rest of the media in calling the whole election for Biden, all the while featuring its hosts, anchors, and guests continuing to spew conspiracies about the outcome.
Fox's decision to call Arizona for Biden took the network's anchors by surprise and infuriated the White House, which believed the determination was premature.
+ Two of Fox News Channel’s top news executives involved in the controversial — but correct — election night call of Arizona for Democrat Joe Biden are out at the network.Bill Sammon, senior vice president and managing editor at Fox’s Washington bureau, announced his retirement to staff members on Monday. On Tuesday, as part of a restructuring of Fox’s digital operations, politics editor Chris Stirewalt was let go. + Fox’s decision to call Arizona for Biden took the network’s anchors by surprise and infuriated the White House, which believed the determination was premature. Stirewalt and Fox’s decision desk chief, Arnon Mishkin, were the two most visible people defending the decision on the air amidst heat from Pres-ident Donald Tr*mp and his supporters. ... + Reached on Tuesday, both Stirewalt and Sammon declined comment. Fox, in a statement on Tuesday, said that “as we conclude the 2020 election cycle, Fox News Digital has realigned its business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era.” + Nearly 20 people lost their jobs as part of the restructuring, according to someone familiar with the changes who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to speak on personnel issues.
In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the "veracity of climate change data" and ordering the network's journalists to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."
The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record."
This latest revelation comes after Media Matters uncovered an email sent by Sammon to Fox journalists at the peak of the health care reform debate, ordering them to avoid using the term "public option" and instead use variations of "government option." That email echoed advice from a prominent Republican pollster on how to help turn public opinion against health care reform.
Sources familiar with the situation in Fox's Washington bureau have expressed concern about Sammon using his position to "slant" Fox's supposedly neutral news coverage to the right.
...[T]here’s plenty of evidence that Fox News does deliberately slant its news coverage. For the past few months, Media Matters has released a series of internal emails from Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon that show Sammon pushing the network to take conservative and/or anti-Obama positions. During the 2008 election, Sammon spearheaded the notion on the air that Obama is a “socialist,” even though he privately admitted that the accusation was “far-fetched.” Sammon told Fox employees to refer to the “public option” as the “government option” during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, echoing the advice of Republican pollster Frank Luntz. Following Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo, Sammon suggested the network focus on the fact that the president hadn’t used the word “terrorism,” even though he had discussed the issue. Sammon urged Fox News employees to present climate change data as controversial. The network’s coverage of the issue is incredibly slanted: 81 percent of Fox News guests oppose the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases. One can discern Fox News’ conservative slant merely by watching the network itself, of course. But the leaks offer concrete evidence of how that slant is developed. Stewart pointed out that the end result of all this is that Fox News viewers are consistently the most misinformed — an assertion Wallace didn’t challenge. As Steve Benen points out, that’s because it’s an assertion that happens to be true. When Stewart says the network follows “ideological marching orders,” he’s on pretty solid ground.
Jon Stewart is right about Fox News