Rebuffed yet again in coaxing Hillary Clinton onto Fox News, executives at the network had an outside-the-box idea last month that would have made primary debate history: a face-off between Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the equally fiery candidate on the Republican side, Donald J. Trump.
The Trump campaign was initially very interested, according to Fox officials, and the Sanders campaign was on board. But before the debate could be announced, the Trump campaign pulled out, citing scheduling conflicts, so the network planned to welcome just Mr. Sanders in an hourlong town-hall-style event, hosted by Bret Baier as part of his “Special Report” program.
Late on Friday, the network received a surprise call. Mrs. Clinton would participate, ending her two-year absence from the network that her liberal base loves to criticize.
“It’s a good opportunity for us, and it’s one that I take seriously,” Mr. Baier said in an interview on Monday before the event. He would, he said, take the same tough-but-fair approach that he and his fellow moderators had brought to the Republican debates, which were well received and which some view as a reason the Democrats might have been more willing to go on the network.
“I don’t want to come with a fire torch,” Mr. Baier said, “so there’s a balance there.”
To accommodate Mrs. Clinton, Fox News scrambled at the last minute, working late into Monday afternoon refining questions, logistics and staging, down to the chairs they would use (which were eventually scrapped for Mrs. Clinton’s part of the event after a back and forth over their height with the campaign).
The event featured questions that both pressed the candidates and opened them up. Mr. Baier challenged Mr. Sanders on his plans to pay for his wide-ranging proposals, and he pressed Mrs. Clinton on the F.B.I. inquiry into her private email server.
Mr. Baier also questioned them on the issue of abortion.
“Neither of them has taken a question in the debate or town halls about life, so I figured this was an opportunity,” Mr. Baier said.
But it was a 13-year-old named Samuel who perhaps got the most open response from either candidate.
“Secretary Clinton, when you think of Senator Sanders, do you consider him an enemy or an ally?” he asked.
Mrs. Clinton smiled and, without wasting a breath, said, “Oh, an ally for sure.”
To some observers, the event held the potential for a thaw between Democrats and Fox News, which has not hosted a presidential campaign event with all of the party’s candidates since 2004.
“In a sense, it’s an opening for them, which I think they’ve earned in a couple of Fox debates that I’ve watched,” said Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who now contributes to MSNBC. Mr. Dean, who joked that he used to call “Fox News an oxymoron,” said that the Fox moderators had “portrayed themselves well so far.”
Mrs. Clinton, however, has made very few recent appearances on the network. During her 2008 campaign against Barack Obama, she sat for an hourlong interview with Bill O’Reilly. Though the first question was about the charged atmosphere surrounding Mr. Obama’s ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., with Mrs. Clinton having to partly defend Mr. Obama, some from her campaign viewed the interview favorably.
“There was internal tension around doing that interview, but she decided to have fun with it and was totally charming,” said Doug Hattaway, a senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign. “I don’t recall it generating any negative coverage or conversation.”
As part of her “Hard Choices” book tour in 2014, Mrs. Clinton and her team wanted to work with Fox News on an interview with Mr. Baier and Greta Van Susteren.
“They came back and said, ‘Hey, we like Greta, we like Bret,’ ” said Michael Clemente, the executive vice president of news at Fox News, noting that the Clinton team wanted to sit with both of the anchors. So the network had them interview her at the same time, splitting the differential across the shows.
Even toward the end of the 2012 presidential campaign, the Obama campaign was open to working with the network.
“I always thought it was a mistake to ignore them,” said David Axelrod, a former senior strategist to the Obama campaign and White House who now contributes to CNN. He added: “Obviously there’s a bent to Fox and the viewer. But they have a pretty large audience, and they’re not all conservative Republicans. There are independent voters there.”
The network is seeing tremendous viewership and interest in the 2016 campaign. In the primary and caucus-laden month of February, Fox was not just the No. 1 cable news network, but it was the No. 1 cable network in total viewers in both prime time and the full day.
For the Sanders campaign, reaching this broad audience was an important goal.
“I don’t think we think that boycotting that network is a way to gain political advantage with voters,” said Tad Devine, Mr. Sanders’s senior campaign adviser. Mr. Devine said he expected to see Mr. Sanders on the network a lot more. “If we have these opportunities in the future, I think we’ll try and take advantage of them,” he said.
But despite Fox News’ gains in reputation among some Democrats and in audience reached, those in the Democratic National Committee have been reluctant to agree to an official debate.
Last month, Mr. Baier, noting that there were four more Democratic debates on the books, interviewed Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the committee chairwoman, and asked, “How about letting the Fox News debate team handle one of those?”
She laughed at first. “There aren’t a whole lot of Democrats who come on,” she said, “and I always look forward to our conversations, Bret — look forward to sparring with you and some of your hosts all the way through the campaign.”
Mr. Clemente said the network was continually asking the committee to let it hold a debate, but the answer had been “no, no, no.”
“It’s just like we talked about with Mr. Trump and Megyn Kelly: If you can’t answer a question from a Bret Baier or a Chris Wallace or whoever, seriously?” he said of the committee’s reluctance to agree to a debate. He added: “It may not be pleasant, it may not be what you want to do, but my God, you’re running for president. So, you know, grow up.”
Before Monday’s event, committee officials were less than optimistic about the treatment the candidates would receive.
“We don’t expect fair and balanced, but we know our candidates can handle anything thrown at them, and as president either will be ready to represent every American,” said Luis Miranda, the committee’s communications director, before the event.
But afterward, Mr. Baier said, the candidates were happy.
“She said she was pleased, and she said she’ll come back,” he said. “And so did Sanders.”
While the network angles for another debate, Mr. Baier had a more simple wish.
“It was good,” he said after the event, slinking into a chair and exhaling for perhaps the first time in an hour. “But I wish it was two hours.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/u...n-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
The Trump campaign was initially very interested, according to Fox officials, and the Sanders campaign was on board. But before the debate could be announced, the Trump campaign pulled out, citing scheduling conflicts, so the network planned to welcome just Mr. Sanders in an hourlong town-hall-style event, hosted by Bret Baier as part of his “Special Report” program.
Late on Friday, the network received a surprise call. Mrs. Clinton would participate, ending her two-year absence from the network that her liberal base loves to criticize.
“It’s a good opportunity for us, and it’s one that I take seriously,” Mr. Baier said in an interview on Monday before the event. He would, he said, take the same tough-but-fair approach that he and his fellow moderators had brought to the Republican debates, which were well received and which some view as a reason the Democrats might have been more willing to go on the network.
“I don’t want to come with a fire torch,” Mr. Baier said, “so there’s a balance there.”
To accommodate Mrs. Clinton, Fox News scrambled at the last minute, working late into Monday afternoon refining questions, logistics and staging, down to the chairs they would use (which were eventually scrapped for Mrs. Clinton’s part of the event after a back and forth over their height with the campaign).
The event featured questions that both pressed the candidates and opened them up. Mr. Baier challenged Mr. Sanders on his plans to pay for his wide-ranging proposals, and he pressed Mrs. Clinton on the F.B.I. inquiry into her private email server.
Mr. Baier also questioned them on the issue of abortion.
“Neither of them has taken a question in the debate or town halls about life, so I figured this was an opportunity,” Mr. Baier said.
But it was a 13-year-old named Samuel who perhaps got the most open response from either candidate.
“Secretary Clinton, when you think of Senator Sanders, do you consider him an enemy or an ally?” he asked.
Mrs. Clinton smiled and, without wasting a breath, said, “Oh, an ally for sure.”
To some observers, the event held the potential for a thaw between Democrats and Fox News, which has not hosted a presidential campaign event with all of the party’s candidates since 2004.
“In a sense, it’s an opening for them, which I think they’ve earned in a couple of Fox debates that I’ve watched,” said Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who now contributes to MSNBC. Mr. Dean, who joked that he used to call “Fox News an oxymoron,” said that the Fox moderators had “portrayed themselves well so far.”
Mrs. Clinton, however, has made very few recent appearances on the network. During her 2008 campaign against Barack Obama, she sat for an hourlong interview with Bill O’Reilly. Though the first question was about the charged atmosphere surrounding Mr. Obama’s ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., with Mrs. Clinton having to partly defend Mr. Obama, some from her campaign viewed the interview favorably.
“There was internal tension around doing that interview, but she decided to have fun with it and was totally charming,” said Doug Hattaway, a senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign. “I don’t recall it generating any negative coverage or conversation.”
As part of her “Hard Choices” book tour in 2014, Mrs. Clinton and her team wanted to work with Fox News on an interview with Mr. Baier and Greta Van Susteren.
“They came back and said, ‘Hey, we like Greta, we like Bret,’ ” said Michael Clemente, the executive vice president of news at Fox News, noting that the Clinton team wanted to sit with both of the anchors. So the network had them interview her at the same time, splitting the differential across the shows.
Even toward the end of the 2012 presidential campaign, the Obama campaign was open to working with the network.
“I always thought it was a mistake to ignore them,” said David Axelrod, a former senior strategist to the Obama campaign and White House who now contributes to CNN. He added: “Obviously there’s a bent to Fox and the viewer. But they have a pretty large audience, and they’re not all conservative Republicans. There are independent voters there.”
The network is seeing tremendous viewership and interest in the 2016 campaign. In the primary and caucus-laden month of February, Fox was not just the No. 1 cable news network, but it was the No. 1 cable network in total viewers in both prime time and the full day.
For the Sanders campaign, reaching this broad audience was an important goal.
“I don’t think we think that boycotting that network is a way to gain political advantage with voters,” said Tad Devine, Mr. Sanders’s senior campaign adviser. Mr. Devine said he expected to see Mr. Sanders on the network a lot more. “If we have these opportunities in the future, I think we’ll try and take advantage of them,” he said.
But despite Fox News’ gains in reputation among some Democrats and in audience reached, those in the Democratic National Committee have been reluctant to agree to an official debate.
Last month, Mr. Baier, noting that there were four more Democratic debates on the books, interviewed Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the committee chairwoman, and asked, “How about letting the Fox News debate team handle one of those?”
She laughed at first. “There aren’t a whole lot of Democrats who come on,” she said, “and I always look forward to our conversations, Bret — look forward to sparring with you and some of your hosts all the way through the campaign.”
Mr. Clemente said the network was continually asking the committee to let it hold a debate, but the answer had been “no, no, no.”
“It’s just like we talked about with Mr. Trump and Megyn Kelly: If you can’t answer a question from a Bret Baier or a Chris Wallace or whoever, seriously?” he said of the committee’s reluctance to agree to a debate. He added: “It may not be pleasant, it may not be what you want to do, but my God, you’re running for president. So, you know, grow up.”
Before Monday’s event, committee officials were less than optimistic about the treatment the candidates would receive.
“We don’t expect fair and balanced, but we know our candidates can handle anything thrown at them, and as president either will be ready to represent every American,” said Luis Miranda, the committee’s communications director, before the event.
But afterward, Mr. Baier said, the candidates were happy.
“She said she was pleased, and she said she’ll come back,” he said. “And so did Sanders.”
While the network angles for another debate, Mr. Baier had a more simple wish.
“It was good,” he said after the event, slinking into a chair and exhaling for perhaps the first time in an hour. “But I wish it was two hours.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/u...n-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
