It certainly wasn’t the first time President Barack Obama has called out Fox News by name, but that’s all fine and good as far as Bret Baier is concerned.
During Tuesday’s “Special Report,” the Fox News political anchor, along with columnist Charles Krauthammer, seemed to relish the president’s apparent viewership of network, with Baier saying that it seems as though Fox is “on his mind a lot.”
The comments from Baier and the all-star panel came after Obama name-checked the network at a conversation on poverty at Georgetown University Tuesday morning. (RELATED: Obama Accuses Fox News Of Spreading Negative Stereotypes About The Poor)
“I think the effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leeches, don’t want to work, are lazy, are undeserving got traction. And look, it’s still being propagated,” Obama said. “I mean, I have to say that if you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu — they will find folks who make me mad. I don’t know where they find them. They’re all like, ‘I don’t want to work. I just want a free Obamaphone,’ or whatever.”
“That becomes an entire narrative that gets worked up and very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress, which is much more typical, who’s raising a couple of kids and doing everything right but still can’t pay the bills,” Obama added.
Starting with Krauthammer, the panel wasn’t having any of what the president was selling.
“Well, the president speaks with such authority about what is on Fox News. He says, ‘if you watch Fox News on a regular basis,’ so he seems well-acquainted with what we do,” Krauthammer told Baier. “I think Fox ought to run a full-page ad welcoming Obama into the viewership of the number one network. He should be proud of us.”
“He does seem to have us on his mind a lot,” Baier told The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard
“I think he does more watching than people would suspect,” Stoddard said. “You know, this is something he’s done before. He mentions Fox News a lot, and it’s actually interesting that if you look at what is going on with Mayor de Blasio, Sen. Warren, President Obama — you know, there is a big question about how much to indulge the left right now, and where was Hillary Clinton at the poverty conference?”
“Come on. If he actually watched Fox News — I mean, remember back to the number of people on this network who criticized Mitt Romney for his 47 percent comments, or for his comments that we shouldn’t be concerned about the very poor,” Steve Hayes said. I mean, it’s a distorted view of Fox. it’s not the first time, it surely won’t be the last.
“Mr. President, if you’re watching us right now, you’ve got a tick. It can be cured,” Krauthammer added.