President Trump unloaded on Fox News over its Iran coverage, calling out correspondent Jonathan Hunt and telling Bret Baier to get his staff in line.
The president’s message arrived while Thursday’s Special Report was still on the air. By the end of the broadcast, Baier had answered him directly.
At the center of the August 27 exchange: who wants a meeting with Iran, and what the network had actually said about the administration’s pressure campaign.
The White House shared the president’s statement that evening:
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 27, 2026
Full text of President Trump’s statement:
“Jonathan Hunt of FoxNews did a particularly inaccurate report on the Failing Islamic Republic of Iran. I don’t want to meet, they do.
“In fact, they are begging to make a deal. Bret Baier should straighten out his flunkies, for a change! President DJT”
Trump was emphatic that Tehran wanted an agreement and that he was not seeking a meeting. That was his account of the diplomatic situation, not an announced deal.
The Washington Examiner detailed how Baier introduced the report: regional allies were trying to broker an agreement, while Trump said there were no new negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Hunt then described Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s effort to enlist other countries in increasing economic pressure on Iran.
Bessent was expected to speak with G20 counterparts in North Carolina over the weekend. Hunt described strains inside Iran’s economy and said the administration hoped additional pressure would eventually force its leaders to compromise.
His report did not describe a completed agreement or a scheduled Trump meeting with Iranian officials. Baier’s response drew a distinction between those separate tracks: Trump meeting Iran, American officials consulting partners, and regional governments seeking concessions from Tehran.
Here is Baier’s on-air response from the same August 27 broadcast:
TRUTH SOCIAL REACTION: "First of all, Mr. President, we didn’t say you wanted to meet. In fact we played a soundbite you didn’t want to meet and there are negotiations. We said that Treasury Secretary Bessent is hoping to meet with G-20 countries to increase the pressure on… pic.twitter.com/7RxHoHlLJJ
— Special Report (@SpecialReport) August 27, 2026
Baier defended Hunt and said Fox had already aired Trump’s own remarks declining a meeting. He also pointed to Qatar and other Gulf allies as participants in the regional diplomatic effort.
Mediaite documented how Hunt’s initial report said there had been no major progress toward ending the conflict and included the president’s comments that the United States was not pursuing talks. The segment also acknowledged that American sanctions were putting Iran’s economy under strain.
Trump then issued his criticism, and Baier returned to it before the show ended. The anchor read the president’s message aloud, defended his correspondent’s work and disputed the suggestion that the report had portrayed Trump as seeking a meeting.
Trump challenged the report’s accuracy and insisted Iran was eager for a deal. Baier maintained that Fox had already made clear the president was not asking to meet.
Meanwhile, the financial pressure discussed in the broadcast continued. On August 28, Bessent addressed a new action involving a bank in the United Arab Emirates:
Treasury promised to sever every economic lifeline Tehran has left and finally end the threat of the Iranian regime. We also warned that Iran’s enablers cannot continue to enjoy access to the U.S. dollar and the global financial system. Banque Misr UAE decided to find out the… https://t.co/bMPIrlbrFF
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) August 28, 2026
The Treasury Department announced that FinCEN had proposed cutting Banque Misr UAE off from correspondent banking access through U.S. financial institutions. Treasury estimated that the bank processed approximately $1.8 billion between January 2024 and June 2026 for 103 companies potentially connected to Iranian shadow-banking networks.
That banking restriction was a proposed rule, with a public-comment period, not a completed ban. Treasury specified that the proposal applied to Banque Misr’s UAE operations rather than the bank’s operations in every country.
Separately, officials imposed sanctions on the manager of Bank Melli’s Dubai branch and a Hong Kong-based company accused of helping an Iranian exchange house move money. Those actions fell under Operation Economic Outcast, the administration’s effort to restrict the regime’s financial access.
Thursday’s clash put Trump’s criticism of Fox and Baier’s defense of his reporting on the record. The next day’s Treasury announcement showed what the administration was doing beyond the television dispute: pursuing another financial channel it said was helping Tehran.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
