Fox News' Bret Baier responds to book's report that he wanted to rescind his network's Arizona call in 2020: 'I never said the Trump campaign 'was really pissed''

• The book "The Divider" recounts Bret Baier pushing Fox to rescind its decision to call Arizona for Biden.
• Baier tells Insider the "full context" of his email was not reported in the book.

Fox News anchor Bret Baier responded to a new book's portrayal of an email he wrote after the 2020 presidential election, pushing for the network to rescind its decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden and "put it back in his column."

"His column," according to "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021," refers to Donald Trump's wins in the 2020 election, which never included Arizona.

Baier didn't address this noteworthy line of his email in his statement to Insider, but he said via a Fox News spokesperson "The full context of the e-mail is not reported in this book."

"I never said the Trump campaign 'was really pissed'– that was from an external email that I referenced within my note," his statement says. "This was an email sent AFTER election night."

He said he also noted that he supported the Decision Desk's call and would defend it.

The book recounts Baier's email to Jay Wallace, the president and executive editor at Fox, after the news organization decided on election night to call Arizona for Biden ahead of other networks. Baier was "ready to give into" pressure from the Trump White House, wrote New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker and New Yorker staff writer and CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser.

"'It's hurting us,'" he wrote, according to the book. "'The sooner we pull it — even if it gives us major egg — and we put it back in his column the better we are in my opinion.'"

Baier, in his statement to Insider, wrote that vote margins in Arizona "narrowed significantly" in the days immediately following the election, and "I communicated these changes to our team along with what people on the ground were saying and predicting district by district."

"I wanted to analyze at what point (what vote margin) would we have to consider pulling the call for Biden," he wrote. "I also noted that I fully supported our decision desk's call and would defend it on air."

Glasser, in an email to Insider, said she and Baker stand by their reporting and noted that Baier's statement doesn't deny the accuracy of the email they reported.

"In addition, it's especially notable that Baier wrote in the email that it would be better for Fox News 'to put it [Arizona] back in [Trump's] column,'" she wrote. "In fact, Arizona was never in Trump's column."

In the book, Glasser and Baker called this particular statement from Baier "stunning."

"The leading news anchor for Fox was pushing not just to say Arizona was too close to call but to pretend that the president had won it," they wrote.

Here is Baier's full statement: