Bret Baier slaps down Chuck Todd over criticism about White House ban against AP

Fox News anchor Bret Baier mocked former NBC News host Chuck Todd over his criticism about the White House ban on the Associated Press.

Todd had accused Baier of being more interested in appeasing President Donald Trump than in maintaining his journalistic standards after the AP ban. Several news outlets expressed their outrage against the ban, which was instituted after the AP refused to follow Trump’s order to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

‘Things are going a million miles an hour. So just to have a perspective off the record, I don‘t think that’s true.’

Chuck Todd called into question the journalistic standards of those outlets that refused to defend the AP against Trump’s ban, then launched into an invective against Baier while avoiding directly mentioning his name.

“I’ve given up on — look, I don’t want to, I don’t want to name-call, but I’ve given up,” he said, interrupting himself.

“I’ve handed my credibility to a handful of journalists over there who’ve never reciprocated when times were tough. When times were tough for them, I went out of my way to defend a couple of them,” he added.

“Certainly, we’ve seen the evolution of one of their larger news personalities go from trying really hard to follow in Brit Hume’s footsteps. And suddenly they — [he] looks more like Sean Hannity every day,” Todd added, apparently referring to Baeir.

“Instead, he now just wants to have tee time with the president,” Todd said. “I hope he enjoys it.”

When asked about Todd’s comments at the Semafor Summit, Baier smirked and tossed a jab at the former network host.

“Yeah, that’s interesting. I don’t know what [prompted] Chuck to do that. I have an interview to do with the U.K. prime minister today. So I don’t know what he’s doing,” Baier said.

The audience laughed at the joke, which referred to Todd leaving NBC News at the end of January to pursue other endeavors.

“I think my focus is what I said — covering the news,” Baier continued. “If I have off-the-record conversations and moments with President Trump, I think that any journalist would want to get in his mind of what’s next. Things are going a million miles an hour. So just to have a perspective off the record, I don‘t think that’s true.”

He went on to list various news stories that Fox News covered and broke.

“We cover big events, and we’re the most watched. I think that trust is important,” he concluded.

In response to a lawsuit calling for the White House to end its AP ban, the Trump administration took over the press pool and said the White House Correspondents’ Association would no longer control the institution.

Fox News continues to crush its competitors in ratings despite some criticism from Trump over its coverage. Critics say that Fox is only able to defeat liberal and centrist networks because their audience is split, while Fox News is the main source for cable news from the right.

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