Fox News anchor Bret Baier slams Trump, saying January 6 hearings made him look 'horrific'

• Fox News' Bret Baier said a January 6 committee hearing made Donald Trump "look horrific."
• Baier, the network's top political correspondent, has made no secret of his critical view of Trump.

Fox News' Bret Baier said on Sunday that the picture painted by the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot made former President Donald Trump "look horrific."

Baier, the network's chief political anchor, spoke on "Media Buzz" in reaction to Thursday's session, which centered on 187 minutes of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and Trump's actions and communications in that time — including remaining publicly silent as the violence unfolded.

"Laying out all these 187 minutes makes him look horrific, it really does," said Baier, who has long been a critic of Trump. He added that the contrast between Trump's inaction and then-Vice President Mike Pence's attempts to coordinate the administration was "very telling."

"To hear it and see it in that chronological order can be very powerful," he said.

Baier said the hearings highlighting criticism by former Trump supporters and members of his administration — such as the former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger and the former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews — were especially persuasive.

"All of these people who have been testifying at one point or another wanted Trump to win," Baier said. "They served under his leadership. They wanted him to be a success."

Whether it changes the view of Republican voters is another matter, Baier said.

"The charges are that it's just not balanced," he said, in reference to criticism that the hearings are one-sided. (A congressional committee hearing is supposed to publicize already-established findings, and Republican leaders boycotted involvement in the committee.)

Baier also called for more information on exactly what Trump said about mobilizing the National Guard in advance of the riot. If Trump had taken such action, Baier said, "it kind squelches or downplays the thought that he wanted this insurrection."

The Washington Post, with access to some of those conversations, reported that Trump never ordered the troops.

Baier's criticisms of Trump on the Rupert Murdoch-owned network were not unexpected, despite Fox's strongly conservative leanings.

But they by no means reflect the network's mainstream view. Fox News' most watched opinion host, Tucker Carlson, invited the Trump strategist Steve Bannon onto his show Friday just hours after Bannon had been found guilty of contempt of Congress for not complying with a subpoena by the House select committee.

Bannon called for a "real" hearing, baselessly saying the bipartisan committee was presenting "lies and misrepresentations."

But last week's hearings prompted scathing editorials from two other Murdoch properties: the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.

"Trump failed," the Journal's editorial board wrote Friday.

"Trump's silence on January 6 is damning," the Post's editorial board wrote.

Two instances of clear Trump condemnation from outlets that had been reluctant to criticize him were seen by some commentators as a sign Murdoch might be shifting further against Trump.