Trump Turns Putin Summit Into Wall-to-Wall Foxathon
The president will sit for interviews with Fox News immediately before and after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Where President Donald Trump goes, he makes sure Fox News follows.
The right-wing network will have exclusive access to the president in the critical moments just before and after his Friday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, according to CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter.
Joining Trump on Air Force One is Fox News host Bret Baier, who is reportedly slated to tape interviews with the president en route to and from the country’s northernmost state.
Waiting for Trump on the ground in Anchorage at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson will be his longtime pal Sean Hannity, another Fox host. Trump has run to Hannity for positive spin after previous foreign trips—like after his “disastrous” Helsinki press conference with Putin and a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—in 2018.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a photo of President Donald Trump being interviewed by Fox News host Bret Baier on Air Force One as it was en route to Alaska.
White House
Hannity was Trump’s first interview after those high-profile meetings. The Fox host will get first dibs on Friday, too, CNN reports.
“[Hannity’s] Trump sit-down will take place mere minutes after the summit concludes with what is expected to be a joint press conference,” writes CNN’s Brian Stelter. “While reporters from dozens of outlets will jostle for a question, Hannity will get unfettered one-on-one time to ask the president a series of supportive questions while Air Force One waits on the tarmac.”
President Donald Trump admitted he did not prepare ahead of a 2018 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. His performance was harshly criticized by the media, including by Fox News.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
The president’s network of choice has already received some exclusive access to the administration in the build-up to Friday’s meeting.
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On Thursday, Trump told Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio that “there is a 25 percent chance this meeting will not be a successful meeting.”
Sean Hannity presented an award to Donald Trump during the FOX Nation's Patriot Awards in December.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also ran to Fox to temper expectations, noting that the meeting is to open up discussions—not to end the bloody war between Russia and Ukraine right then and there.
“What comes after that meeting is up to President Trump, and that’s part of the reason he is going,” Leavitt told Fox & Friends on Thursday. “He has incredible instincts, and he wants to sit down and look the Russian president in the eye and see what progress can be made to move the ball forward to end this brutal war.”
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