Cigar Aficionado

Bret Baier is the anchor and executive editor of “Special Report With Bret Baier,” the top-rated cable news program in its time slot, which is viewed by more than two million people every night. The 54-year-old Baier has been with Fox News for 27 years, and has had a front-row view of American politics and world affairs. Over his long career he has interviewed some of the most important people in the world, including several sitting American presidents (President Donald Trump, President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush), Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and many other people of influence.

Given Baier’s access and insight into the workings of American politics, Cigar Aficionado’s editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken invited Baier to the magazine’s New York City offices for an in-depth interview about the state of America and the prospects of the two candidates hoping to become the next president of the United States. The two smoked 1993 Hoyo de Monterrey Double Coronas from Cuba as they spoke on September 12, less than two months before the election.

A video of this interview can be watched here, in our video gallery, as well as on the magazine’s YouTube page.

Shanken: It’s great to have you here. This is such a timely subject, given that the election is less than two months away. The stakes have never been higher. What is your view on the future of America for our children?

Baier: Marvin, that’s a great question and I think a lot of parents especially ask that question. I’ve written a number of books about past presidents and studied the history for a long time. And I think even though we go through bad times and we’re very divided as a country, I have this hope that we as a country are kind of resilient, that no matter what we go through we can bounce back. But we are in a place where there’s a choice. There are two different paths to take here, and that’s why elections are so crucial. The last few have come down to the wire. It’s a really divided country, almost perfectly split. We have big challenges that we as a country have to deal with together.

Shanken: Two nights ago, we had the first, and what may be the only, debate between the two candidates.

Baier: We hope not.

Shanken: I understand that. In your view, who won?

Baier: So if you look at the points, just the debate points, it seemed like Kamala Harris was very well prepared, very well practiced, and then you put it up against the June 27th debate with President Biden. It was night and day obviously, because he had such troubles. So I think most people looking at it objectively say she had a good night. And he left some low-hanging fruit that he could have really taken advantage of, and maybe was baited into answering some questions he really didn’t have to. Now that’s the analysis from some left and right pundits looking at it objectively. However, since the debate, listening to people talk about it, and Middle America especially, they didn’t see it the same way. It was more about wanting to know more about policies, and they didn’t feel like they have an answer to what Kamala Harris was for. They know Donald Trump, and despite whatever you think about his antics and how he does things, they kind of know what he’s about and who he’s about. So how it moves the needle or if it moves the needle I think is the bigger question ahead of the election. It’s not for me to say who won; I think on points, she did very well. In the big picture, it may not have changed this election dynamic that much.

Shanken: In your view, what are the singular issues that are going to determine who is the next president?

Baier: The economy drives pretty much every election. How people think about their personal situation, as they’re sitting at the kitchen table with their family, doing the budget on the back of an envelope. Figuring out how to make ends meet. Inflation and how much things cost really hits home. I think that drives a lot of it, which is why Trump is doing so well as he hits on that issue again and again. Democrats are trying to paint the picture of turning the page, moving forward, but it’s tougher when you have an incumbent vice president who has been there for three and a half years. So, they push issues like the threat to democracy, and January 6 and most importantly abortion, because they think that that really moves [people]—especially suburban women—and it does. So on the Democratic side, I think abortion and “I’m not Donald Trump” drives that, and on the Republican side, inflation, the economy and immigration are the top pillars. How this country deals with that, and whether they think that Kamala Harris can change their current status, is going to be what determines the election.

Shanken: What are the fundamental reasons not to vote for Donald Trump?

Baier: So someone who is not voting for Donald Trump would say they’re doing it because they think he’s erratic. They are not sure what his foreign policy would look like, whether it’s too protectionist, nationalistic, that January 6 and how he handled that day sits in their minds and they have a lot of questions about the way forward. Should he not have guardrails the second time and who he’s going to put around him in office. They say those things, about character, are the motivating factors to try to get back to something normal, when you listen to people who are against Donald Trump.

Shanken: And what are the reasons not to vote for Kamala Harris?

Baier: Trump ers would say that she is an amoeba on policy, she’s all over the place. In 2019 when she ran for president she had a list of very progressive policies: providing [gender] transition surgeries for illegal immigrants, opening the border, no fracking, green new deal, energy-squelching policies in order to fight climate change. And what they feel are stifling regulations and more of the same as far as the economy goes. They think she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing when it comes to a progressive idealogue. And they point to interviews just recently, from Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said yeah she is doing what she needs to do to get elected but she’s still a progressive. And that she’s been in office for three and a half years, so why didn’t she do the things she’s talking about now?

Shanken: Conversely, what are the reasons for someone to vote for Donald Trump?

Baier: ers will say he is who he is. He is strong, he is decisive, and they point back to his time in office and how they felt about their own personal situation, their economy, foreign policy. He didn’t get America engaged in more wars . . . . And they feel like he’s somebody who can kick the table over and shake up Washington. That’s the biggest thing. I took 36 different Ubers in swing states in 2016, and as I was taking these Uber rides I would say, listen, if you don’t mind, can I ask you about the election? How are you going to vote? Thirty four out of 36 said they were voting for Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton. And I’m talking every race, every ethnicity, every background. And I said why is that? And most of them said the exact same thing, or something similar. Both sides suck, and we need to kick the table over and try something different. And that’s the mentality, shake up a system that is entrenched and needs to be woken up. They think Donald Trump is the change agent.

Shanken: And, what is the reason to vote for Kamala Harris?

Baier: If you think that there is a threat from Donald Trump, that he is unstable as far as his decision making as you point back to January 6 and other things. If you think he is a threat to democracy, as her ers do, as she’s talking about the economy she is pledging to do more things to bring people together, she is talking about immigration and ing a bipartisan immigration bill, she’s talking like a center-left politician would talk. And to not threaten the normality of our country, shake things up and turn Washington upside down. And if you believe in the foreign policy of ing Ukraine against Russia, if you believe in, generally, what the Biden istration has focused on in both foreign and domestic policy. You know they tout a lot of things: the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan effort on climate change, which they call the Inflation Reduction Act. They talk about what they see as major economic trends heading in the right direction. They want to finish the job that Biden started. So if you’re ing Kamala Harris you believe that finishing that job is important.

Shanken: I try and channel surf, and [you see that] she’s winning, [then] he’s winning, swing states, she’s ahead, he’s ahead. We know what happened with Hillary [Clinton]. Are polls meaningful or meaningless? And how can we get polls to be more forthright and accurate in the future?

Baier: This is a great question, because I think a lot of people are frustrated by polls. We have so many of them, and they have different methodologies, different ways that they do—

Shanken: But people rely on them.

Baier: And they do rely on them. A poll really is a snapshot in time and a place. We, in 2016, realized how screwed up the system was. It missed things. We were in the exit poll meeting that night on election night and thought that the election was going to be called for Hillary Clinton by 11 pm. It was off by five, six points. So we started systems that started to do it differently. We realized Trump voters answer things differently—sometimes they don’t want to answer the pollsters, sometimes they’re not picking up the phone. Sometimes you deal with landlines and not cellphones. And we have an issue of trying to figure out how to get to the Trump voter. Now, eight years later, it’s better. They’re doing better at getting those voters, but it still—most pollsters will tell you—undercounts the Trump vote by two or three points. So if you look at a poll that’s tied in a state, and it is Trump against Kamala Harris, you can assume that there is an undercounted Trump vote by two or three points.

Shanken: If you’re The New York Times and you’re a liberal newspaper you probably want it to come out better for the Democratic candidate. Can they finesse the audience that they’re polling in order to achieve the result that they prefer?

Baier: The short answer is yes they can. The long answer is most pollsters want to be the most accurate at the end, closest to the end result, so that they can say that they’re the closest. But during the election those polls do influence people. There was a poll before the last election that had Trump trailing by 17 points in Wisconsin—it ended up being less than one percent in Wisconsin.

Shanken: Well what was the explanation for that?

Baier: No one went back and challenged them. The point being, there are different people who are called, they do try to figure out what the best cross section is, but it’s imperfect. And to be real, we need to get ourselves off of relying and focusing so much on polls, and get out and about and talk to people, actually sit in a diner and talk to people. That’s the difference.

Shanken: But in fact there are six or seven states that determine the winner.

Baier: It’s worse than that. Let’s say seven states and those states represent about one sixth of the population. So you’re talking about maybe a grand total of 300,000 people in seven states in a country of 330 million. Think about that. And so that’s where the focus is, those swing states.

Shanken: Which brings us to an obvious question: electoral vote versus popular vote. I’ve heard arguments on both sides. It should be the popular vote, is the Democratic point of view, for the most part, and the electoral vote more or less on the Republican side, because the popular vote is almost always Democrat. Given the makeup of our country, how strongly do you feel that it should be one or the other and why?

Baier: I think the founders thought about this a lot in the Constitutional Convention in 1787. And believe it or not they battled over whether this was the right way to go or not. They realized the smaller states needed a voice that Middle America—in those days it wasn’t middle but it became Middle America—needed an equal voice. If you did it only by popular vote, you’re right, the big population centers which trend to the left would dominate almost every election. So the system we have does work, it just gets tested when we’re this close, a divided country. Kamala Harris needs to win by four or five points in the popular vote to win the electoral college. That’s the bottom line. Donald Trump could lose the popular vote, and has, and still win the Electoral College. Or, the Electoral College, as crazy as this sounds, could come out to a tie. At which point it’s sent to the House of Representatives, and each state representative votes on the presidency. Currently, Donald Trump would win that, but it’s the new Congress that votes on that. So, just imagine the Constitutional crisis if we got to that point: 269 to 269.

Shanken: OK, so while you’re there, roll back the tape. A few weeks ago we almost lost one of the candidates. [This interview took place before the second assassination attempt on Trump.]

Baier: Which is hard to believe, when you think about where we are now.

Shanken: It’s hard to believe, but I’m asking you—and I don’t know the answer—suppose the sniper was successful? What would be happening right now?

Baier: I honestly don’t know, Marvin. I think the country would be in chaos. There would be a major uprising—there would be major problems.

Shanken: Apparently we were an eighth of an inch away from that happening.

Baier: Yeah, and you think about what would have happened if he had been assassinated. I think people would have taken to the streets. JD Vance hadn’t been announced, that didn’t happen officially until the convention. I’m guessing it would have been like this mini-primary to find out who was going to run.

Shanken: They would have had to postpone the election.

Baier: It would have been a total, total mess.

Shanken: We still don’t know the motive of the shooter, or why the Secret Service would not have covered a rooftop in plain sight, easy distance—the whole thing is totally crazy.

Baier: It’s egregious. It is egregious that it’s been this long and we don’t have more answers to how that happened. Some people lost their jobs but most importantly we have to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Shanken: Make sure it doesn’t happen again begs the question. How something as simple and primary as protecting the rooftops, where there’s a direct view, and a short distance, could not be protected, and a man can walk in, climb a roof, have a rifle, take aim and shoot.

Baier: Because of lack of information, because of the lack of answers it is easy to jump to conspiracy theories. It’s really easy. It’s a short hop. And I’m telling you that some very well-known people have already gotten there. So there’s a real push, a bipartisan push—

Shanken: Supposedly the FBI or the CIA uncovered plans for Iran to do something—not necessarily that day and that place but why can’t they determine what motivated this kid?

Baier: They have to. There’s no reason why it’s taken this long. And hopefully these investigations on Capitol Hill are going to lead to something.

Shanken: There are a lot of people who have no faith [in our government], based on a lot of things that have happened over the past number of years.

Baier: And that brings us back to one of the biggest reasons for Trump ers, that’s one of the biggest reasons they’re ing him, because they feel like there’s been this effort to take him down at all costs and that there’s some effort behind the scenes to make that happen.

Shanken: So recently Harris selected her vice-presidential candidate, and people then, and even more so now think she made the wrong choice. People were thinking that she would have selected Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Who should she have selected and why?

Baier: Clearly she’s comfortable with Gov. Walz of Minnesota. I think he has presented some problems as far as trying to portray that they’re somehow coming towards the center. He has a lot of progressive policies that he signed onto as governor of Minnesota. I’m not sure exactly what the thinking was, except that he is this Middle America guy, he’s a gun owner who is from a Midwestern state and she felt comfortable with him. But just electorally the advantage she would have had if she had chosen Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania—Pennsylvania is such a key state—that if they [were to win] Pennsylvania the rest of the dominos would have fallen [into place].

Shanken: I thought that was, by a wide margin, the person that she would pick. Same thing with Trump. I’d never heard of JD Vance. I know that there were some very big issues with Nikki Haley, but a lot of people thought that if he really wanted to win he should have picked Nikki Haley.

Baier: I hear that all the time from Trump ers. You have to look through the prism of where he was looking. At that time he was running against President Biden, he was doing exceptionally well in the polls, clearly felt like he had an advantage, and at that point doubled down on MAGA and his legacy instead of thinking maybe more about what someone like Nikki Haley would do. But both of these vice-presidential nominees have caused their tickets some problems.

Shanken: So these are all “what if” kinds of questions: Right now, the Republican party is Trump’s party. If he loses, what does the leadership of the Republican party look like going forward?

Baier: That’s a fantastic question, and honestly I think it’s wide open. There could be a cast of thousands in the next election.

Shanken: Who would be in the top? I can’t imagine—cause he’s so dominant.

Baier: That’s true. And there would be some people who come forward and try to take on the MAGA mantle, and continue that, thinking they’ve changed the party into more of a worker party. Then there would be more traditional, establishment Republicans who think this is the time for the empire to strike back and get back to what they consider a normal Republican party.

Shanken: But consider the dilemma—neither one of us even has a list.

Baier: No, but I could get you a list of governors, I can get you to prominent senators—

Shanken: But nobody stands out.

Baier: Not right now. They can’t stick their head out like that right now. But again, it’s a hypothetical, I do think if he wins it changes the dynamic as far as the party being more like him. But I think there would be a real battle for the heart of the Republican party if he loses.

Shanken: Same question. Kamala loses. Who are the future leaders of the Democratic party?

Baier: Clearly Gavin Newsom has ambitions higher than Governor of California. I think Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has ambitions. There are others who were considered [for] VP that would probably step up. But again there would be a battle for the heart of the Democratic party. Just like MAGA and the establishment Republicans, there is the progressive side under Bernie Sanders and then there is a more centrist side that so far has been losing a lot on policy.

Shanken: Gov. Ron DeSantis [of Florida] was like the No. 2, then Nikki [Haley] made a run, maybe it’s one of those.

Baier: Definitely they both still have ambitions. They still think that they have a path. Clearly Nikki Haley will try to step up.

Shanken: Powerful competitors all of them.

Baier: Let me add something: In this time, with social media and online, people getting information from all different places, it is tough for people to understand what’s true and what’s not. And that’s one of the reasons I look at my job as something that, one I love to do, I’m ionate about, but also I take a real responsibility. Because there are a lot of people who need to tune into something that they can trust.

Shanken: I’m so happy you brought that up. How about the fundamental media? The news media is in silos today. A young person who went to journalism school in the old days learned the Walter Cronkite view of journalism, which is objectivity, source your information, and give both sides and let the reader or the viewer decide. Our media today, ABC is a perfect example the other night, where they fact-checked repeatedly Trump and didn’t fact-check Harris. But you don’t even need that as an example, when the New York Post disclosed about the [Hunter Biden] laptop, it wasn’t covered by the traditional media. Can it ever come back to the point where an American can trust the media? And all the polls say they don’t trust the politicians. It’s a horrible dilemma that our country is in today.

Baier: I agree, and I’m trying to be an oasis of sanity in a crazy world. I do think it is a smaller universe of news shows, and news that is trying to achieve what I’m trying to achieve. Fortunately, the leaders at Fox—I’ve been there 27 years, I took over for Brit Hume 16 years ago—empowered me as executive editor of the show to do what I’m doing, which is to give all sides a shot, to lay it out there and let viewers decide. And I tell people watch my show three times, left, right and center, and drop me an email or a tweet or a message and tell me if you thought it was fair. And people who go through that exercise come back and usually tell me it is. We have a lot of Democrats and independents who watch the show, evenly split, according to Pew Research and others. I think it’s a really important conversation to have. Because there are more and more outlets that want to cater to people who want to hear what they want to hear and there’s plenty of places to look for that. There’s not a lot of places that cover the news, and I’m trying to do that. But it’s a problem, Marvin, it’s a real problem.

Shanken: Why don’t the people at the top of all these powerful, multinational news organizations give a dictum down to their key executives and say we need to be fair to all Americans? We need to be unbiased? I’m talking about news shows, not opinion shows.

Baier: I think the answer to that question probably comes in the bottom line. They see audiences that expand when they play to a certain base. And I assume that is some of the decision making. All I know is leaders at Fox, there’s clearly an opinion side that does a great job, and they come from a conservative point of view, different flavors of opinion, but just like a newspaper with a news page and an opinion page, we have a different section that deals with news. I wish more and more people would do it, I wish there were more news programs. But I just don’t see them.

Shanken: Moving around: China, Russia, Iran. Not so much North Korea anymore. Who is our greatest threat, who are we underconsidering, who should we be fearing, who should we be protecting ourselves from going forward?

Baier: I’ve asked that question to a lot of national security experts on both sides of the aisle. Most come back with China being the biggest competitor. Iran with nuclear weapons is a game changer. And supposedly they’re only a couple of weeks away to have enough enriched uranium to have a nuclear weapon. Russia obviously is an aggressor, and also has nuclear weapons. So that’s the big threat, the big picture, but as far as a global competitor China is probably our biggest issue.

Shanken: You think about today, and Putin has actually murdered a significant number of Ukranian people, bombed hospitals, schools, apartment buildings and so forth. Many of his own soldiers have died. In this day and age, how do you justify it and get away with it?

Baier: Well, you can’t, and you’re seeing this fight in Ukraine over this very fact. That’s a huge foreign policy issue. There are two different sides to this election. One would do something completely different than the other. And how people look at that, and the role of the U.S., is a big determination.

Shanken: What do you think our role should be with ing the Ukraine?

Baier: I travelled there, I went over and did an interview with Zelensky on the front lines about a mile and a half from Russian forces.

Shanken: Congratulations: I watched that, it was amazing to see.

Baier: Artillery was coming in during the interview, it was really quite something. They were clearly trying to hold onto their country asking us for help. Former President Trump thinks he can get a negotiated settlement. What that looks like, I don’t know. He doesn’t really go down that road too far as far as specifics. What does it look like? Does Putin get what he wants?

Shanken: It probably includes land.

Baier: It probably includes Eastern Ukraine. And does Putin stop there?

Shanken: And a lot of people think we have given so much money to Ukraine and a lot of it is not ed for, and we don’t know what’s happened to it.

Baier: That’s true too. Corruption is a problem in Ukraine. So there’s a lot of feelings about it. Although if you’re in Eastern Europe, and you’re a NATO country, you’re worried, because you feel like Putin can keep rolling.

Shanken: But on a world front, if we look at the three countries, we have Russia, overtly attacking and destroying human life, and we have Iran, attacking directly or indirectly human life as pertains to ing Hamas and Hezbollah and so forth as relates to Israel. Should we be negotiating with Iran? It doesn’t seem to be working, or it has not worked. What should America be doing in the Middle East?

Baier: It’s such a complicated place. I think that you can point to the success of the Trump istration and the Abraham Accords, and dealing with the Gulf nations and getting them to agree to a deal with Israel. I went over and did an interview with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Nothing was left off the table. I asked him about 9/11, I asked him about the [Jamal] Khashoggi murder, and one thing I asked was, there’s talks about Israel and Saudi Arabia doing a deal, but maybe it’s falling apart. He said no, it’s very much on the table. And we could get a deal. So the camera cut off and we were walking and doing a shot, and he said Bret you need to know this is on the finish line. We can really get this deal done and it’s going to change the face of the Middle East. And how every country deals with each other. Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Shanken: But it didn’t get done.

Baier: So that interview ends, I get to the airport in Saudi Arabia, and I get a call on my satellite phone from [Israeli prime minister] Bibi Netanyahu and he says I need you to interview me now. I’m in New York. So I fly here to New York, I change my flight, I land at 8:30, I sit down with Prime Minister Netanyahu at 11:30, and I said you just watched this interview with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, what’s your response? And he said, in the words of a very smart man in the Middle East we’re getting closer every day and it’s going to change the face of the Middle East. I asked him a whole bunch of questions. That camera cuts off. He says Bret you need to know this is going to happen. I’m going to grab the brass ring. And it’s really close. That was eight days before October 7, when Hamas launched the attack into Israel. And it changed everything. Now Iran obviously saw that they were getting very close, and obviously flicked the switch and said ‘It’s time.’ They were funding Hamas, they were funding Hezbollah, they were funding the Houthis [of Yemen]. And I think it did change everything, that attack. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that after this operation, which should get done sooner rather than later, according to both sides—

Shanken: This operation referring to what?

Baier: Israel taking out Hamas in Gaza. As much as they can. That Saudi Arabia and Israel still have hopes to make that deal.

Shanken: To your knowledge, at this moment, is there some kind of a settlement that’s imminent between Israel and Hamas? They’ve been talking about it for many months.

Baier: The problem is Hamas. Hamas has never stopped saying publicly that they’re going to attack again. So negotiating a ceasefire with that mentality is a little tough, and it hasn’t been fruitful. That said, there is a lot of pressure for the fighting in Gaza to end.

Shanken: I hear Biden is slow-walking weapons that Israel needs in order to put pressure on them to settle with Hamas.

Baier: It was true, at one point. I think it has changed now. But at the beginning they were not giving the bombs that they wanted because of the pressure to try to get them to stop. It was counterintuitive after Congress ed its law, and Biden signed it into law. So their push is to get this negotiation to come to fruition. But they did slow-walk weapons for some time.

Shanken: And by the same token with Ukraine, they were asking for F-16s. Ukraine is in a war where it’s a defensive war. In the early part they were not allowed to have an offense against Russia, but meanwhile Russia has an offensive war where they’re destroying the Ukranian people and country. And you’ve been there, cities small and large, large portions demolished. They can try and defend themselves but they had no retaliation.

Baier: Yeah, the criticism of the Biden istration is that it took a long time to get these weapons moving.

Shanken: Some say the war would have been over but long ago, and they would have had a settlement.

Baier: Ukrainians will tell you that privately. They’re obviously very appreciative of everything they get, but there’s a lot of criticism on Capitol Hill that it took this much time. Then there was this evolution. There were no F-16s, now there are F-16s, now they’ve got weapons where they’re actually attacking into Russia.

Shanken: Trump and others say if he were still president Putin would never have attacked Ukraine. And, in fact during the four years he was president, they didn’t. Do you believe that?

Baier: I believe that’s possible. It’s tough to prove.

Shanken: By the same token, there’s many who say Iran, via Hamas, would not have attacked Israel if Trump were in office. I mean that’s more speculative.

Baier: Trump ers would tell you that they felt like they had the boot on the neck of Iran economically, with sanctions, and Iran was really hurting.

Shanken: They were broke. So why did Biden open the spigot to make them rich literally overnight?

Baier: Thought that there would be a positive side in negotiations with Iran on the nuclear front, or to try to do what Obama was trying to do, make Iran the center of Middle East policy.

Shanken: Still the Biden istration is in power. Upon reflection, do they acknowledge that they made a mistake in allowing Iran to become economically strong so that they could afford to the activities they’re ing in of destroying or trying to destroy Israel?

Baier: They don’t talk about that, or acknowledge it, but privately there’s a lot of people who say yeah, this is clearly being funneled to these terrorist proxies. And that’s a big problem. So, you know, foreign policy doesn’t factor into elections that much, but this year it could.

Shanken: Do you think the various lawsuits against Trump are because of weaponization of our government under Biden?

Baier: I think it’s tough to get to where Trump talks about it, which was “Biden ordered it.” I think there is this broad sense that some of these lawsuits—and some of these efforts—were unfair to him on a number of different fronts and wouldn’t have been brought if his name wasn’t Donald Trump. It’s easy to get to there. It’s tougher to get to Biden directing prosecutors to do X, Y and Z. But I think broadly, if you ask people in polls, getting back to polls again, there is a sense that there was an unfair element to it.

Shanken: So what motivated Biden to reverse on day one the regulations that were inhibiting the flow of illegal immigrants on the southern border?

Baier: So in the first days of the Biden istration there were more than 90 executive orders that were overturned, and a lot of them had to do with dealing with the border and all of these different policies. His homeland security secretary said it was about turning the page and trying to fix the immigration system, but in reality it was working. Now, three and a half years later, some of those executive orders are back in place, because they finally did it. And that was the biggest question of the debate: Why didn’t you do that on day one, leave what I had in place, when it came to those executive orders? Democrats point to this negotiated bill in the Senate that was conservatives and Democrats and that Donald Trump politically asked them not to go forward with it because he wanted the issue for the election. That is factual, he definitely made those calls. So for the political issue, Democrats are hanging their hats on the negotiated bipartisan deal. I think immigration has a personal effect on a lot of people around the country. It’s not just border states, as you know, it’s a lot of cities. Here in New York, it’s a major issue.

Shanken: I mean, we’re all immigrants. And I think a large part of the problem is, it was a free fall. Depending on who you speak to, there were a lot of people in the country that we never would have allowed in for various reasons of their background or what have you. Supposedly there’s even known terrorists in our country. Why couldn’t they have set up a system where you go through and we recognize and qualify and so forth and those people are let in? I mean there are many, many people that have applied legally and unfortunately [it] takes a long time. But they’re here now legally and they’re productive people and many of them are becoming American citizens over time, but it seems like we have chaos in our country now.

Baier: It’s true, and why it is a major, major issue in this election.

Shanken: I’m going to divert for a moment. Because this interview is in a magazine called Cigar Aficionado.

Baier: I know it well. It’s on my table.

Shanken: [laughs] How long have you been smoking cigars, and do you recall who introduced you to cigars and where you were and what your reaction was?

Baier: I guess I started smoking cigars in college. I went to DePauw University in Indiana—

Shanken: On the golf team.

Baier: On the golf team. And I think it was a fraternity brother who probably had some cigars and brought them in. There was something about the experience of sitting around and smoking a cigar and shooting the shit. There was something about just that experience that I loved.

Shanken: Was it a cheap, machine-made cigar?

Baier: Oh yeah, it was cheap, 100 percent. It was not the good stuff. And over time I acquired a taste for other things. I travelled to Cuba numerous times as a reporter.

Shanken: I didn’t know that—what did you do in Cuba?

Baier: I covered Elián González. I went down there six times. And so I had the hand-rolled stuff on the side of the street and I falling in love with Romeo y Julieta and so my taste for cigars increased over time. And it became something after a golf round, sitting around, talking about every hole that you just played, felt pretty good with a cigar.

Shanken: When you started smoking cigars, what did you gravitate to?

Baier: Kind of medium, not so strong, Romeo y Julieta kind of feel.

Shanken: Dominican? Nicaraguan? Cuban?

Baier: I like the Cubans.

Shanken: No, but then.

Baier: At the beginning, Dominican. And I met Rocky Patel, down in Florida. I fell in love with some of his cigars. I smoked the Decade, then A.L.R. [Aged Limited and Rare] most recently.

Shanken: Do you have a favorite cigar?

Baier: I would say right now it’s that one, A.L.R. I think last year you guys had it at No. 4. [The Rocky Patel A.L.R. Second Edition Toro was the No. 4 Cigar of 2024, with a score of 96 points.]

Shanken: Do you smoke mainly Cubans, Nicaraguans?

Baier: That’s a Nicaraguan. I really like Cuban cigars, but I like the medium ones. Not the real forceful ones.

Shanken: [Holding the Hoyo Double he is smoking.] Did you like this one?

Baier: It was beautiful.

Shanken: Well, it was 30 years old.

Baier: Well, I’d only expect the best.

Shanken: Hoyo de Monterrey Double Corona, 1993.

Baier: And my knowledge since knowing you has increased dramatically.

Shanken: Well I smoke on the golf course. So you’re saying that you smoke after the golf course?

Baier: It’s a rare event that I’m smoking on the golf course. We’ll play down in Florida. But, most times, it’s reliving a golf round after, at the 19th hole.

Shanken: Do you collect cigars?

Baier: You know, I don’t have a huge humidor. I keep cigars that I smoke. And so it’s not big.

Shanken: You get your cigars from friends? Mail order? Cigar shops?

Baier: I go to a cigar shop in Palm Beach, and then friends usually send me stuff.

Shanken: But you should share with your buddies. [laughs]

Baier: Exactly. [laughs]

Shanken: I tend to ask this final question whenever I do an interview. Fifty years from now, 2074, you’re dead. There’s a—

Baier: Wait a second—I’d be 104. It’s possible.

Shanken: Alright. So let’s say 75 years from now [laughs]. There’s a new edition of the world encyclopedia just published. And under leaders, notables, there’s the name Bret Baier. What do you want it to say?

Baier: That’s a great question. [pause.] He was fair. Trusted. And somebody who covered things of consequence that made a difference in the world. I was a family man and I had great balance in my life. I think there are a lot of good people in the world, and we need to focus on pulling out the good. I talked about that common ground thing I do. I do think there’s more of that than we think and the more that we can lift that up the better. And if my epitaph is something about that, that would be good.

Shanken: Bret, I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion, I learned a lot, I thought you were very fair and unbiased and I hope our readers enjoy reading it as much as I did enjoy asking you these questions. Thank you very much.