Baier let Zeldin define the stakes and avoid the consequences of Trump’s EPA rollbacks

During the nearly 10-minute interview, Fox anchor Bret Baier invited Zeldin to frame the EPA’s endangerment finding — the legal foundation for greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act which Zeldin recently announced plans to revoke — on his own terms. 

First, Zeldin dismissed the finding as a series of “mental leaps,” a line that Baier let stand without noting its legal basis in the Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision or its firm grounding in scientific consensus. When Baier pivoted to discuss the Biden administration’s climate funding, he allowed Zeldin to parrot debunked allegations of “waste and abuse.” The Fox “news-side” anchor also credulously echoed Zeldin’s talking points about “pass-throughs” rather than pressing him on what canceling $29 billion in grants for programs such as Solar for All would mean for emissions, public health, or making energy more affordable for low-income communities. Baier ended the interview by paraphrasing Politico’s description of Zeldin’s former congressional colleagues being “mystified” by his actions as EPA administrator. This provided Zeldin with an opportunity to rebut his critics while avoiding questions from experts, industries, or communities affected by his policies.

In May, Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo referenced the same Politico description during her program, setting Zeldin up to defend himself in similar fashion. By raising vague criticisms from colleagues instead of hard questions about policy impacts, Bartiromo and Baier provided Zeldin with an easy stage to launder administration talking points and reframe catastrophic policy rollbacks as common-sense governance.

Baier promised a “fair” and “balanced” interview with Zeldin, but he delivered only the facade of actual journalism — a flattering segment dressed up as accountability that, in practice, serves to mislead viewers and shield the administration from scrutiny.

Special Report launders Fox’s climate denial narratives into “straight news”

Fox News has long amplified fossil fuel industry talking points and elevated climate contrarians to downplay or dismiss the scientific consensus on global warming. Several such figures — Judith Curry, John Christy, Steven Koonin, and Roy Spencer — recently helped co-author the Department of Energy’s widely discredited “critical review” of climate science, which is being used to justify rolling back the endangerment finding and other protections. Fox has played a key role in the decades-long campaign by right-wing groups to dismantle the finding itself.

This pattern of denial and distortion also runs through Special Report. For years, Fox’s flagship “straight news” program has consistently softened or distorted the stakes of global warming and climate action. Between 2009 and 2021, more than 87% of its climate segments contained misinformation or misleading narratives.

Zeldin has slotted into this system seamlessly. During his first 100 days as EPA administrator, Zeldin made 36 cable news appearances, 35 of them on Fox networks — more than any other Trump Cabinet official. He has used this saturation to shape the climate discourse, pushing talking points that frame climate funding as corruption, environmental regulation as overreach, and fossil fuel expansion as common sense. Fox has amplified these claims across its networks, airing more than 50 segments portraying the Biden administration’s $20 billion in climate funding as waste, fraud, or abuse. By repeating Zeldin’s rhetoric and omitting the evidence that undermines it, Fox has helped harden these claims into conventional wisdom for its audience.

Together, Fox’s opinion shows and its “straight news” programs such as Special Report form a unified ecosystem that primes viewers to accept the right’s policy priorities without question. By the time the Trump administration moved to repeal the endangerment finding, Fox had already established the narrative for Zeldin’s talking points.

Fox rarely, if ever, holds Trump administration officials accountable. By contrast, networks like CNN have aired critical segments and investigations, even if their rare live interviews with Trump officials too often miss the mark. And while CNN and other outlets must do better when they have rare opportunities to interview administration officials, Baier’s role is different. 

Special Report is the program Fox relies on the most for its credibility as a news network, and that is why Baier’s handling of Zeldin matters. In presenting the Trump EPA administrator’s comments without pushback under the network’s “straight news” banner, Baier helped the administration to justify repealing the endangerment finding — potentially the most consequential climate rollback in modern history.