Chris Wallace Celebrates 25 Years of Fox News Sunday, Recalls Interviews With Clinton, Trump, Putin

Fox News Sunday is coming up on 25 years on the air, and on Friday, anchor Chris Wallace shared a few of his favorite moments with Bill Hemmer on America’s Newsroom.

“One is in 2006, I interviewed Bill Clinton,” Wallace said. “I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business?’ He went off on me, a White House official said ‘We call that the purple rage.’”

Wallace also recalled his 2018 interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“Why is it that so many of the people that oppose Vladimir Putin end up dead, or close to it?” Wallace asked an unsmiling Putin in 2018.

“That was pretty extraordinary, and the crazy anecdote, the button to that story is the next day my wife Lorraine and I went to Russia for a week’s vacation,” Wallace told Hemmer. “On second thought, I’m wondering why did I do that? Although it turned out great,” Wallace added.

Wallace also recalled his wild, widely–praised 2020 interview with then-President Donald Trump, in which Wallace challenged many of Trump’s false and exaggerated statements.

“We got into kind of a dispute about Covid, the number of cases, the number of mortalities,” Wallace told Hemmer.

“You know, it’s been the job of a lifetime, Bill,” Wallace said. “To get to go to the places we go, to get to talk to the people we talk to … I get up every Sunday, even at 5:15, and I’m excited.”

“We’ve had some really good, tense moments, funny moments, touching moments,” Wallace added.

Wallace has long maintained that although Fox’s opinion hosts – some of whom have targeted Wallace himself – get a lot of attention, he and his colleagues on the news side have stayed focused on practicing straight journalism at the conservative network.

“I am proud of the fact that Mitch McConnell has said that I am the toughest Sunday show interview in town, and when new senators come into Washington, he always says to them, don’t be fooled, just because it is on Fox don’t think that you will get an easy interview from Chris Wallace,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Fox News Media president and executive editor Jay Wallace had high praise for Chris Wallace, according to an internal email obtained by Mediaite.

“In December 2003, Chris Wallace took over the reins of the program and made FOX News Sunday must-see Sunday morning television thanks to his legendary interviews with some of the most consequential newsmakers of our time,” Jay Wallace said in the email, noting that Chris Wallace is the “only anchor to moderate two different Sunday shows in his storied career.”

“Chris likes to say he is similar to an umpire in a baseball game, calling balls and strikes as he sees them,” Jay Wallace added. “He doesn’t pull punches, equally grilling Washington luminaries on both sides of the aisle which has greatly contributed to the success and longevity of the program. FOX News Sunday continues to set the gold standard in journalism and we are extremely proud of Chris and the entire team behind the program.”

Fox News Sunday launched in 1996, and was originally hosted by the late Tony Snow until 2003, at which point Wallace took over as anchor.

“When I came on [in 2003], I wanted to put Fox News Sunday at the forefront of the conversation, that it would be taken as seriously and make as much if not more news than any of the other Sunday shows,” Wallace told Forbes. “And I think we’ve succeeded at that.”

Fox News Sunday airs on local Fox stations nationwide on Sunday mornings, and on the Fox News Channel on Sunday afternoons.