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Bret Baier appeared on the "Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Wednesday night to discuss politics, his new book "To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876," Fox News' 25th anniversary and how he got his start in journalism.
Baier, host of Fox News’ "Special Report," explained that his book about the 18th U.S. president ends with San Francisco anti-racism protesters from 2020 who couldn’t explain why they were ripping down a statue of Grant.
"I just think it’s important for people to look back in history and realize who did what and how we can learn from it going forward," he told host Stephen Colbert.
"It’s important for people to look back in history and realize who did what and how we can learn from it going forward."
Interestingly, Baier explained that Grant’s real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant but a congressman who submitted his name for admission to the U.S. Military Academy wrote down the wrong name.
"So that became his name," Baier said. "There is no ‘S.’ It doesn’t stand for anything. So his cadets that were with him called him Sam and ‘Uncle Sam’ stuck after that."
‘Grand bargain’
He said he started the book on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot, because on the same date in 1876 Grant made a "grand bargain" with Republicans and Democrats during a contested election that year to "hold everything together."
"That moment, that chaos, that dark day in Washington [in 2021] is similar to what we saw in 1876," Baier said.
Baier also discussed starting out his journalism career at a local station in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he was a one-man band: photographer, editor and reporter covering "big stories like loggerhead sea turtle nesting and what colors the azaleas were in the median."
But he said he also had to hold a couple of other less glamorous jobs while working at WJWJ-TV, such as delivering food and working as a bartender at an Applebee’s restaurant.
"I would finish my day job, do the story, and then I’d be delivering food," Baier told Colbert. "And the guy would say at the door, ‘Aren’t you the reporter at Channel 6?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I am. Did you order the calzone?’"
Baier also briefly mentioned his show "Special Report" where he told Colbert, known for being liberal, "each side gets a say" and touted Fox News’ 25th anniversary, for which Colbert congratulated the network. Colbert added that he watches "Special Report."
Punting on debt
Switching to current events, Baier brought up the deal made Wednesday between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democrats to "punt" lifting the debt ceiling to December, "which is what Washington does quite a lot."
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"McConnell has a short memory and he looks back at when Republicans were forced to vote on a debt ceiling by themselves and this is politics in Washington," Baier told Colbert. "We are always one election away from solving big things, it seems."
Colbert said he thought that was a "really positive" way of looking at politics, joking, "We seem to be one election away from chaos at this point."
Baier agreed that the Democrats’ slim 50-50 majority in the Senate (two Independent senators caucus with the Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris breaks ties) makes it hard to get anything "big" done and "they have to negotiate and we’ll see if they do."
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