Politics

Emails reveal White House calling Fox News host Baier ‘a lunatic’

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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Back in 2009, the feud between the Fox News Channel and President Barack Obama’s administration reached its height. Then-White House Communications Director Anita Dunn publicly attacked the network on CNN, and former Fox News host Glenn Beck spearheaded an effort that resulted in the resignation of White House “green jobs czar” Van Jones.

That dust-up led to White House rumblings about excluding Fox News from the official press pool, a notion from which the Obama administration promptly backed away.

But in the lead-up, White House officials had some choice words for “Special Report” host Bret Baier. According to a press release, emails obtained by the the watchdog group Judicial Watch reveal that then-Deputy White House Communications Director Jennifer Psaki threatened to put dead fish in “the fox cubby,” and also called Baier a “lunatic”:

“Regarding general anti-FNC bias within the Obama White House in an October 23, 2009, email exchange between Jennifer Psaki, Deputy White House Communications Director and [then-Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the Treasury Department Jenni] LeCompte, Psaki writes, ‘I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby – just cause.” In an email on the night of October 22, 2009, commenting on a report by Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier noting the exclusion of the network from the pool, Psaki writes to Compte and fellow White House colleagues, ‘…brett baier just did a stupid piece on it — but he is a lunatic’.”

Oct. 22, 2009 email:

Oct. 23, 2009 email: