FNC's Straight News Guy Has Increased Ratings 57 Percent

Bret Baier’s fifth-floor office at Fox News’s Washington, D.C., bureau is filled with memorabilia, including framed letters from a prominent Republican and a prominent Democrat praising his work. “Fair and balanced,” Baier says, echoing a retired Fox slogan that still guides his approach.

His weekday 6 p.m. ET program, Special Report, averaged 3.5 million viewers through April 1, 2025, a 57% increase from the prior year, outpacing CNN’s 595,000 viewers (down 11%) and MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber at 1 million (down 34%), per Nielsen data from Fox. Baier, 54, has even occasionally surpassed CBS Evening News.

Positioning himself as a traditional news anchor in a polarized era, Baier navigates a media landscape where viewers increasingly turn to opinionated podcasts, newsletters, and TikTok. “We’re trying to be a news product in a not news-friendly world,” he says. His interviews feature global figures like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Elon Musk.

A Wall Street Journal story last week reveals Baier divides his time between Washington and Palm Beach, Florida, where his family lives and he has a nearby studio. His day includes morning radio hits, reading newspapers, and managing a 22-person team as Special Report evolves before airing live. He’s typically home by 8 p.m. A source familiar with the matter says Baier earns $12.5 million annually.

Baier frequently speaks with President Trump, their conversations often beginning with golf, a connection sparked at a 2012 charity event. Critics on the left call him too lenient with Republicans, while he notes conservatives also criticize him. 

“He’s not adversarial,” says Fox News Media president Jay Wallace. “He asks tough questions without yelling.”

Baier’s relationship with Trump has had tense moments. After Fox’s 2020 Arizona call for Joe Biden, Baier emailed executives about viewer frustration, suggesting a reversal to avoid “major egg,” per documents from Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox, settled for $787.5 million in 2023. Baier clarified he was noting the narrowing vote margin and supported the accurate call.

Trump has called Baier’s interviews “nasty” (after 2023 questions on classified documents and election fraud) and “soft” on the left (in an October 2025 Truth Social post). Baier responds, “We’re doing our job.” 

ABC’s Jonathan Karl praises Baier’s tough Trump interviews, countering assumptions about his Fox affiliation.

Baier recently criticized the Trump administration’s decision to restrict Associated Press access over its refusal to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” He voiced concerns to Trump and chief of staff Susie Wiles at a lunch and at a February 2025 Semafor event, citing dangerous precedent. A judge restored AP’s access in April 2025.

Baier began his career as a high-school sports editor in Atlanta, later working at small Southern stations before becoming Fox’s Atlanta bureau chief—essentially just him with a cellphone and fax machine. He moved to Washington, succeeding Brit Hume on Special Report in 2009.

 
An avid golfer, Baier watches the Golf Channel, finds HBO’s The White Lotus “edgy,” and is friendly with pros like Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy. He maintains ties with peers like CNN’s Dana Bash, ABC’s Jonathan Karl, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. To bridge political divides, he launched Common Ground in 2022, a Special Report segment uniting figures across ideologies on shared issues.

Engaging critics on X, Baier recently responded to a claim that Fox is a “Trump cheerleading team” by thanking the viewer and noting another who thinks Fox is “moving too far left.”