Fox News host Bret Baier weighed in on what it was like to interview President Trump, noting that there’s “a lot to fact-check.”
Baier sat for an interview with NOTUS for a newsroom forum
on Wednesday, just hours after Trump delivered a joint address to Congress.
He was asked what the most challenging part of interviewing Trump is. Baier interviewed the president
just before the Super Bowl last month.
“The fact-checking real time, you have to debate what is worth dying on that hill and having that moment,” Baier said. “Because there’s a lot to fact-check, as you know, through something he says.”
“But in an effort to get news, I think you try to steer him to the questions you’re trying to go to, to the heart of the issue,” he added.
During his interview with Baier, Trump defended his plan to place tariffs on neighboring country Canada because three is a trade deficit between the two countries.
“Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially, in subsidy to Canada?” Trump said.
According to the Census Bureau
, the trade deficit with Canada last year far less, at about $63 billion.
Economists noted
that the deficit is not a subsidy. The money is going to buy goods and services with value, not heading to Canada out of American goodwill.
Trump has since said the tariffs were intended to curb the flow of migrants and fentanyl coming into the U.S.
During the Fox News interview, Trump also said the U.S. is “not that rich right now.”
“We are $36 trillion [in debt], that’s because we let all these nations take advantage of us,” Trump said.
According to information from the World Bank Group, the U.S. gross domestic product is the world’s biggest by far, at $27.7 trillion.
While Baier admitted it’s hard to get Trump to truthfully answer questions, he noted that he often speaks with the media, unlike former President Biden.
“He does answer more questions than any other president I’ve ever seen. I think he’s already answered some 1,400 questions from the press in some way, shape or form,” Baier said. “Comparison to the last president, contrast rather, night and day.”
“He eventually answers the question, you just have to give him some time to get there, and that’s a challenge in a TV interview,” he added.
Chicago’s historic Biograph Theatre, the home of the long-dormant Victory Gardens Theater Company, will reopen next month with a new play by David Mamet titled “Henry Johnson.” The show will be directed by Eddie Torres, a longtime Chicago actor and the former artistic director of Teatro Vista, and will star Thomas Gibson, best known for playing Greg on the TV show “Dharma and Greg,” and for his work on the CBS show “Criminal Minds.”
Performances of the play are scheduled to begin on April 9.
Keith Kupferer, the Chicago actor who received widespread acclaim for the 2024 movie “Ghostlight,”
is also in the cast, as are the Chicago actors Al’Jaleel McGhee and Daniil Krimer.
Krimer’s Relentless Theatre Group, a new Chicago theater company that calls itself a “theatrical home for public discourse, freedom of expression, and brilliant creation,” is a co-producer.
Dennis Začek, the former artistic director
of Victory Gardens for 34 years who retired in 2010, is an executive producer. “Eddie Torres is my protege,” Začek said in a telephone interview from Florida. “And it’s Mamet.”
In an interview, Krimer said he believed “Henry Johnson” to be “one of the best plays that Mamet has written.” The play was generally well-received following its 2023 premiere at the Electric Lodge in Venice, California, starring Shia LaBeouf, although it also flew under many radars, somewhat by design. It has not had any other U.S. productions.
Torres described the play, which has a running time of a little over an hour, as “interrogating the grey area of morality.” The title character is a college student who is easily influenced by others.
Thomas Gibson on June 9, 2011, at the Monte Carlo Television Festival in Monaco. (Francois Durand/Getty Images)
Victory Gardens is calling the staging its “50th anniversary production.” The company has not announced further producing plans, should there be any, although the Biograph, located at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, has attracted plenty of attention from potential future mainstage tenants and will likely see more shows in 2025.
Victory Gardens has not produced
itself since 2022 following a rift between its board of directors, its resident artists and some of the members of its long-standing playwrights ensemble. The acrimonious dispute
, driven by disagreement over the hiring of artistic and executive directors, led to the mainstage theater going dark for years, negatively impacting surrounding Lincoln Park blocks, and the historic building itself falling into some disrepair. The company does not currently have an artistic director or any permanent artistic staff.
Krimer said that the companies were “rebuilding infrastructure” for this show, although it was not yet clear whether this would be a one-off or the return of Victory Gardens as a viable entity. The Victory Gardens board did not respond to a request for comment. Zacek said that the future remains to be seen.
Mamet, of course, has a singularly illustrious history in Chicago and New York and also is seeing a high-profile revival of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago drama “Glengarry Glen Ross” on Broadway this spring, starring Kieran Culkin, a recent Oscar winner. However, Mamet’s emergent conservative and libertarian politics are at odds with the many progressives in the theater community and certainly the majority of the Chicago artists who protested against the Victory Gardens board, although some of those artists no longer live and work in Chicago.
Mamet sent the following statement to the Tribune: “Rudyard Kipling wrote, ‘We’ve only one virginity to lose, and where we’ve lost it, there our heart will be.’ I lost it at the Hull House Theater, and at Second City, in the early Sixties, and at St. Nicholas, and the Goodman, and when St. Nicholas left our car barn on Halsted, Steppenwolf took over the space. In short, I’m real real glad to have my work back in the ‘hood.”
Tickets ($64-$69) will go on sale 10 a.m. Friday at victorygardens.stagey.net
. The show is announced as running through May 4 although an extension is possible.
NORMAL — Maggie Jarzemsky
and her St. Edward teammates have had the goal of playing in the basketball state finals since they were little girls.
A torn ACL in April and subsequent June surgery, however, cast some doubt that Jarzemsky would be a part of it if the Green Wave were able to get there. But she stayed optimistic.
“I was always planning on coming back,” Jarzemsky said. “I was hoping to come back a little bit earlier than expected, but that got pushed back. I was able to play the last month of the season.”
Limited to 15 minutes in her 12th game this winter, Jarzemsky scored three points, hauled down six rebounds and added steals Thursday afternoon for the Green Wave in 54-41 loss to Pecatonica in the Class 1A state semifinals at CEFCU Arena.
The senior forward has provided a big boost to St. Edward (26-11) despite being on on minutes restriction, including Monday’s 56-43 supersectional win over Willows that clinched a lifelong dream of playing at state.
Savannah Lynch
led the Green Wave on Thursday with 17 points and seven rebounds. Jordin Sauls
added eight points. Elaina Rager
topped all scorers with 25 points for Pecatonica (31-6).
After all the hard work behind the scenes, just being on the court at Illinois State was a dream come true for Jarzemsky and the Green Wave, who face Cissna Park (30-6) at 9:30 a.m. Friday for third place.
“To be able to go down here with my teammates was one of our goals since we were watching the 2017 team down here,” Jarzemsky said of a group that took third in 2A. “It’s an amazing feeling.”
St. Edward’s Maggie Jarzemsky (33) defends Pecatonica’s Ryleigh Alexander (23) during a Class 1A state semifinal at CEFCU Arena in Normal on Thursday March 6, 2025. (Troy Stolt / The Beacon-News)
St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson
was not only impressed with the work the Alma recruit put in physically to overcome her injury. She was also liked with how she stuck together with the team.
“Maggie spent a lot of her time really learning the game, the mental part of the game, and being the best teammate ever for these girls when she wasn’t on the court,” Dawson said.
St. Edward missed two free throws with 3:44 left in the second quarter that would have forced a 17-17 tie. Rager then hit two straight 3-pointers to push Pecatonica’s lead to eight.
That was enough to keep the Green Wave at bay the rest of the game, and they never got closer than five points in the second half.
“In my opinion, that was really the difference,” Dawson said. “Because other than free throws when we had to foul in the fourth quarter, we played them pretty even.”
St. Edward’s Layne Dawson (22) brings the ball up the court against Pecatonica during a Class 1A state semifinal at CEFCU Arena in Normal on Thursday March 6, 2025. (Troy Stolt / The Beacon-News)
On the court, the 5-foot-9 Jarzemsky’s presence in the post created even more depth for St. Edward, which leaned on its entire roster all season.
Between Jarzemsky, Sauls and Amelia Davis
down low, the Green Wave had things covered.
“The three of them are so effective in different ways on the court,” Dawson said. “When we need that defensive spark, we go with Maggie. When we need a quick bucket, Jordin is the one.
“Amelia usually disrupts people with her defense in the paint and pulls down some key boards.”
Sauls certainly appreciated having Jarzemsky back to handle things in the post.
St. Edward’s Jordin Sauls (30) drives to the basket against Pecatonica during a Class 1A state semifinal at CEFCU Arena in Normal on Thursday March 6, 2025. (Troy Stolt / The Beacon-News)
“She’s always so supportive,” Sauls said. “She’s always there for me. She’s got my back on defense. She has great communication. She gets the boards.
“It’s kind of a sense of relief knowing I have another teammate who will help out.”
All in all, the journey back proved to be worth it for Jarzemsky.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to go through this injury with any other team,” Jarzemsky said. “All season long, the coaches and my teammates were so supportive of me.
“From day one, I had so much confidence in them.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
