Ari Melber Rips Bret Baier After Leaked Call Showed He Worried Election Coverage Was Angering Fox News Viewers

MSNBC host Ari Melber took Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum to task after a newly-reported 2020 Zoom call showed they were concerned about viewer backlash over their network’s election coverage

Fox News was the first major network to call Arizona for Joe Biden, which ultimately turned out to be the correct call. However, the move angered many Republicans at the time, so much so that Baier suggested Fox reverse itself, according to a Nov. 16, 2020 Zoom call reviewed by the New York Times.

“If we hadn’t called Arizona, those three or four days following Election Day, our ratings would have been bigger,” said Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on the call.

MacCallum suggested that the network’s coverage of elections should be presented while factoring in potential viewer reactions.

“In a Trump environment,” she said, “the game is just very, very different.”

“We are still getting bombarded,” Baier added, referring to viewer backlash. “I know the statistics and the numbers, but there has to be, like, this other layer” to “think beyond, about the implications.”

On Monday’s edition of The Beat, Melber first highlighted a comment Scott made on the call.

“But I think we’re living in a new world in a sense, where half of the voting population doesn’t believe in big corporations, big tech, big media,” she said. “There’s a lack of trust. And when they feel like things are being done behind closed doors in rooms that they can’t understand, it exacerbates the emotion and how they feel about the process.”

“This is such B.S.,” Melber responded. “They lie to you, they undermine trust, then they refer to a lack of trust out there which is their justification for what they’re doing.”

He then pointed to a remark from Baier suggesting Fox News withdraw its call for Arizona.

“The sooner we pull it even if it gives us major egg. And put it back in his column. The better we are. In my opinion,” Baier said.

“Damn,” reacted the MSNBC host. “People just telling on themselves. Mr. Baier clearly didn’t know this Zoom call would get out to the whole world.”

Fox News issued a statement to the Times: “Fox News stood by the Arizona call despite intense scrutiny. Given the extremely narrow 0.3 percent margin and a new projection mechanism that no other network had, of course there would be a wide-ranging post-mortem surrounding the call and how it was executed no matter the candidates.”

The network has been under fire since last month when a court filing revealed that some Fox hosts knowingly pushed dubious claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Dominion Voting Systems is suing the network for $1.6 billion in damages after several hosts and guests suggested or claimed outright that the company had rigged the election against Donald Trump. The network denies the suit has merit.

Watch above via MSNBC.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!