Bret Baier’s Interview With Donald Trump Draws 2.6 Million Viewers

Bret Baier’s newsmaking interview with former President Donald Trump drew an audience of 2.6 million viewers Monday night, making Special Report with Bret Baier the highest-rated show in cable news among viewers 25-54, the key demographic valued by advertisers. The show finished second overall among total viewers—up 50 percent from its average for the month of June.

The interview drew intense interest, as Baier confronted Trump with his election lies about the 2020 presidential election—when Trump insisted that he won re-election, Baier told Trump “you lost the 2020 election.”

Baier also pressed Trump on his time in the White House, why so many of the people he hired to work in his administration had become fierce critics, and how he thought he could bring independent voters to support him given his legal woes, including the federal case accusing Trump of mishandling government documents.

Asked about the documents and why Trump hadn’t simply returned them when he was asked to, the former president said he was “too busy.” The only way the National Archives could get documents back, he said, would be to say “please, please, please, could we have it back?”

Ratings for Monday night’s telecast of Special Report were up more than 20% compared to the show’s year-to-date average, and up 68% in the key demo compared to the month-to-date average for June.

Boosted by the Trump interview, which was covered extensively on Fox and the other cable news networks, Fox News Channel won in prime time Monday night, with an average audience of 1.9 million viewers, and 235,000 viewers in the key demo. FNC’s The Five was the highest rated show in cable news among total viewers, with an audience of 2.8 million viewers.