WATCH: Fox’s Bret Baier Reveals He Was in the Process of Booking an Interview With Maduro

Fox News anchor Bret Baier told Fox & Friends Weekend that he had been planning to interview Nicolás Maduro when news broke that U.S. forces apprehended the Venezuelan president and his wife.

President Donald Trump called in to Fox News Saturday morning for a nearly 30-minute interview where he described the U.S. airstrikes in Caracas. Trump said Madro and his wife are on their way to New York to face narcotics trafficking charges.

Fox News hosts asked Baier what Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum must think of the U.S. military action, since Trump has claimed he was acting to eliminate drug trafficking into the United States.

“The Mexican president, the Colombian president…I think all of those leaders have to be looking over their shoulder as far as what that means, and where this goes, and tying to the drug cartels. That’s the ultimate threat here, the drug cartels, and the use of different cartels to funnel drugs into the U.S., thereby making a case against these leaders,” Baier said before telling the story of his proposed interview with Maduro.

“I will tell you something here that I was not going to say — We were contacted through intermediaries to have potentially an interview with Nicolás Maduro in recent weeks. We were in the process of having back-channel communications. They wanted me to come to Caracas. It was not feasible; they couldn’t make a decision. He was worried about security. I was talking to the US about the possibilities, then this came to pass.”

Baier added, “Obviously Nicolás Maduro saw that this was coming. You saw the video of him in the car doing an interview with the Spanish channel saying, ‘I’ll give the U.S. whatever they want. He knew this was transpiring. My wife was not into me going to to Caracas either, but I was ready to go.”

Watch the clip above via Fox & Friends Weekend.

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