Host Straight-Up Asks Fox News Anchor Bret Baier About Playing Golf With Trump: ‘Does He Cheat?’
Fox News anchor Bret Baier was asked straight-up about golfing with President Donald Trump — specifically “Does he cheat?”
NOTUS (News of the United States) — which bills itself as a nonpartisan nonprofit newsroom dedicated to “honest reporting” — held a journalism forum on Wednesday morning, hours after Trump delivered a 99-minute address to a joint session of Congress.
The program, entitled “Media and Democracy: Covering Trump 2.0,” consisted of a panel moderated by NOTUS White House reporter Jasmine Wright and consisting of Politico White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett, ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl, and MSNBC host Ali Vitali.
The headline attraction was a Q&A with Baier moderated by Josh Dawsey of The Wall Street Journal, during which Dawsey brought up Baier’s time spent with Trump off-camera — including golfing with him “rarely”:
JOSH DAWSEY: You’ve spent a lot of time with Trump off camera and playing golf, I think with him at times and talking to him on the phone and sort of having a relationship with him.
For sort of a sophisticated Washington audience who watches him, you know, nonstop on TV, sees him everyday on camera, sees him, you know, to the point sometimes I think some people probably get tired of seeing him. Others might want to see him more.
What might surprise them about what he’s like when the camera’s not running? When you’re just with him in a room, you’re at one of his clubs, you’re talking to him. You’re sort of, you know, pitching him an interviewer, interacting with him.
Because I can think of several things from my perspective. But what might these folks not know about sort of how he behaves when he’s not, when in the glare of the camera is not on him?
BRET BAIER: Yeah. First of all, those interactions and the golf and everything is not happening all the time. It’s a it’s a rare event, but it’s it’s definitely happened. And and I have had those interactions and I think any journalist would take the off the record time with a president of the United States to pick his brain on what’s next, to talk about what the next thing might be that he doesn’t talk about publicly.
And he’s very open like that. If you talk to Democrats who’ve been around him in those settings off camera, he really one, is funny and can make people laugh, and two, focuses on them like they’re the one in the room that he has is is the attention.
And, you know, I’ve seen it firsthand. Now he can go off the rails and say something that everybody goes, whoa, wait a second.
But you also learn about what’s driving him. You know, I think he likes making the left’s head explode when he muses that he’s going to run in 2028.
He’s not running in 2028. He’s done. I think he like has fun in that.
Sometimes, you know, people say he goes over the edge a lot. Sometimes it’s by design and he’s much more laid back in in person behind the scenes. He is a very good golfer. And he will tell you that.
JOSH DAWSEY: Does he cheat?
BRET BAIER: No. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it. Now, caddies may be very active, but I haven’t seen it in person.
JOSH DAWSEY: There was a book written by Rick Riley, a journalist, called Commander in Cheat that’s sort of documented, according to that book.
BRET BAIER: Now he will tell you, I can’t attest to the 33 club championships.
JOSH DAWSEY: He’s won in a row–
BRET BAIER: But I can attest that I’ve played with him and he’s a very good golfer.
JOSH DAWSEY: I was listening to audio he did of a fundraiser recently for my book, and he was talking about that after he got shot in the ear.
Secret service really beefed up its security on his golf courses, and he was telling these donors that the worst part is I can’t kick the ball out of the rough anymore, because every time I look up as a Secret Service guy behind a tree.
Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.
Watch above via NOTUS.
