Peter Doocy knows that the best way to kick off a new show is to book the biggest fish. That’s why he’s interviewing President Donald Trump on the debut episode of The Sunday Briefing, in his first official anchoring gig for Fox News.
Fresh off covering the official state visit to the UK, Doocy is set to sit down with Trump at the White House on Friday, which will air as part of the show’s Sunday premier. “I’ve never had a chance to call a guest and say, ‘I can put you on for up to an hour,’” he tells Vanity Fair, adding that in his role as senior White House correspondent he is far more accustomed to grabbing a “sound bite,” from interviews with officials.
One recent clip from an Oval Office event included Doocy, bluntly asking the president how he found out “he had died,” after rumors rampantly circulated about his health on social media throughout Labor Day weekend. The question “was probably written a little too straightforward for my own good,” Doocy admits. But he argues that since Trump “tracks a lot of that stuff online,” it felt like fair game to pose it to him directly. While it appeared that Trump was broadly aware of what Doocy was referring to at that moment, “it was definitely probably jarring to him and everybody else that was standing there to have a reporter ask how he found out that he died,” he tells me.
He’ll remain in his role covering the White House for Fox News, posing questions to the current administration and churning out said clips (including his continued feud with the White House lawn birds). But on Sunday, Doocy steps into the anchor chair–a role he will share with senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich in a weekly rotation–bringing him even closer to following in his father’s direct footsteps.
Given Steve Doocy’s extensive career with the network, joining when it launched in 1996 and becoming a cohost of Fox & Friends two years later (a role he remains in today, even after giving up his spot on the couch to relocate to Florida in May), one might say Peter grew up in a Fox hole. Doocy embraces his nepo position admitting that his familial ties “definitely opened the door getting into Fox in the beginning,” when joining the network in 2009. Since then, he says, he has proved himself through his coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential field, eventually leading to his appointment covering the Biden White House. And while he’s not convinced Joe Biden “started out his time as a candidate or a president as a Doocy fan,” the correspondent thinks he “won him over by the end.”
Now comes the task of winning over the Fox News Sunday audience.
VF: Sunday morning is a politics heavy lineup across TV news. What this show is going to provide that other programs might not?
Doocy: It’ll still be politics heavy but my vision for it would be that it can be a next generation Sunday show. We don’t know what that’s going to look like yet. But every week, when we talk to either President Trump or Karoline Leavitt, there’s always stuff in the news cycle that we want to talk to them about but we only get like two minutes every couple hours at the tent on a show. Inevitably, things fall off that are still really interesting but there’s no time to get to them during the week. I will have an hour every other week.
Given that both you and Jacqui are hosting solo every other week, how will viewers feel the difference?
We both have our own unique styles, our own approaches to how we tackle the day or when it’s our turn to go in. And I think they’re both strong approaches. People will definitely notice some subtle differences, but the main point is that it’s just going to be a look at everything that neither one of us has time for because we’re on other people’s shows.
Approaching that transition to the anchor chair from reporting on the White House, what experiences are you planning to bring with you?
I have no solo live anchoring experience. The solo anchoring live part is all new to me. But my whole life, when I’m not at home, is just fully immersed in things that the administration is doing and that includes the last administration, and the one before that. I like to think that I have a pretty good perspective on what’s interesting, what viewers think is interesting. I am very mindful of the very short attention spans that are getting shorter and shorter as people are watching TV while also looking at their phones. So we will incorporate all of that. It should be a faster paced Sunday show, which is why I think of it as a next gen Sunday show.
Can you speak to your experience covering this current administration? Have you found the level of access to the President and his staff satisfactory for your reporting thus far?
The thing that I always think about when I’m going into a spray with President Trump is whether I’m going to have enough questions, because he is going to do a Q&A for 45 minutes to an hour every time that he hosts an event. That’s a completely upside down approach from the way that it was during the Biden years, where I had to spend days before it was our turn, thinking of a one sentence question that I could ask that would get his attention and get a quick answer that the mics could pick up over aides yelling at us to go away. So in that sense, the access is a lot better.
You asked Trump about the rumors over Labor Day weekend that he had died. What did you make of his reaction to that question and why did you think it was necessary to ask him?
Sometimes, especially coming off a weekend, there are so many different directions that you can go with the questions because there’s two or three days of stories that have built up. There’s really no break on the Trump beat. I got so many messages and texts from people who don’t necessarily follow the 24 hour news cycle, that they had seen posts that there was something wrong with the President.
I know that the President tracks a lot of that stuff online, which is why I asked him about it in a way that was meant to be as straightforward as I could be about such a serious topic. It seemed like he knew generally what I was talking about but it was definitely probably jarring to him and everybody else that was standing there to have a reporter ask how he found out that he died.
It almost seemed like he was prepared to answer questions about the rumors but “he had died” struck him as surprising.
It was probably written a little too straightforward for my own good.
Why do you think his health is a ripe subject for conspiracy theories?
I couldn’t tell you. There are professional, I guess you would call them influencers, who are just looking for anything with top Republicans. Even though we see him basically every day, the brief time away from the cameras was enough for people to take it a little too far.
Recently the news cycle has been taken over by Charlie Kirk’s shooting. Did you know him at all and if so, what was that relationship like?
I met Charlie Kirk a few times at the White House, and my read on him was that he was a very nice guy who was a lot more concerned with policy than the caricature that people on the left and people on the right put forward. Most of the time he seemed like he was really taking advantage of the opportunity to be at the White House and it seemed like that’s the reason why all of these very high level White House folks, including the President, liked to have him around. He wasn’t just somebody who was there to help them own the libs. He wanted to talk about policy and things that he thought would be important and helpful to the country. So I did not know him well, but in my very limited interactions with him, that’s the reason I got.
How did you learn what happened and what have you made of the general public and the administration’s response thus far?
I heard what happened while I was on vacation in California, and I was getting a lot of text messages about it. My heart breaks for his family. I have kids who are about the same age, and it’s really unimaginable to think about everything that he leaves behind, and the lack of an opportunity to say goodbye to his young kids.
The administration’s response so far fits with how they viewed Charlie Kirk. If you’re going to fly Air Force Two out there with the vice president to take him home, and you’re going to have the president at an arena in Arizona for the funeral that is something that is typically reserved only for heads of state, but that’s how important he was to a lot of these White House guys.
I wanted to switch gears back to Fox. You have a particularly unique familial connection to the network. What influence did your dad have over you in terms of not only ending up in journalism but also at Fox?
A lot of influence, and in the best kind of way. When I started, I did not really have a great idea about what was going on and I was still living at home and every night at dinner, we would talk about the way that the job is supposed to work. He helped me in the beginning a lot with my writing, and he helped me years later, when I was getting more into the question asking business. He helped me a lot trying to figure out ways to ask meaningful questions that will get a memorable response. I think the number one thing that I learned from my dad is that there’s a great benefit to taking the issues really seriously, but approaching things with enough of a sense of humor that the subject is going to feel comfortable talking to you.
Have there been any moments where you think your last name helped either open a door or even made a door harder to open?
It definitely opened the door getting into Fox in the beginning, for sure. But over the last couple of years, my assignments before I was on the White House beat was to cover the Democratic presidential field, and we still turned out a product with all these different primary candidates that I would put up against anybody from any of the other networks. I think we did the best and that bore out of my relationship with Joe Biden, who I don’t know started out his time as a candidate or a president as a Doocy fan, but I think I won him over by the end.
You think you won Biden over?
Oh, yeah.
He told you as such?
No.
Is there anything you wanted to add about the show or your expanded role?
I’m still going to be at the White House for every opportunity that there is to ask questions in briefings or presidential events. In the beginning, we’re going to see what works and what doesn’t. We’re going to try to have as many big guests as we can get because I’ve never had a chance to call a guest and say, I can put you on for up to an hour. It’s always like I can talk to you and I will use a sound bite.
Who’s the biggest fish? Trump?
If we’re going to do a show that is based on the administration, I think the President would be the biggest guest.
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