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Klobuchar to appear in Fox News town hall

Fox News announced Wednesday that it will host a town hall with Sen. Amy Klobuchar next month, its second event of the nascent 2020 campaign with a Democratic presidential candidate.

The town hall is scheduled for May 8 in Milwaukee and is to be hosted by Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

News of Klobuchar’s town hall with the Trump-friendly network comes just days after Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of the Minnesota senator’s opponents for the 2020 Democratic nomination, participated in well-received town hall put on by Fox News. It also comes as Democrats reach out to voters outside their typical audience in an effort to defeat President Donald Trump next year.

Sanders’ town hall on Monday was by most measures a success, drawing the most viewers for any town hall of the cycle despite airing outside prime-time hours. Sanders’ event has prompted at least three other 2020 candidates aside from Klobuchar — Pete Buttgieg and Reps. Tim Ryan and Eric Swalwell — to broach the same idea.

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Fox also hosted a town hall last month with former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has said he is mulling a run for president as an independent in 2020.

The network’s offering of airtime to Trump’s potential rivals has irked the president, who took repeated shots at Fox after Sanders’ town hall for giving prominent Democrats a platform there. In several tweets Tuesday, the president questioned Fox’s hiring of former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile and accused the channel, without evidence, of blocking his supporters from the Sanders event.

Baier, who also hosted the Sanders town hall, responded to the president’s complaints by inviting him to participate in his own town hall, noting that "it’s been awhile" since the president has faced such questions. Trump has often sat for interviews with Fox News but does so mostly with the network’s right-leaning opinion hosts, like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, or with "Fox & Friends," a morning show which gives him reliably warm coverage.

But for all the praise for Sanders’ decision to participate in a Fox town hall, the move drew backlash from many in his base who have derided the network for being too chummy with the president or have sought to pressure the channel into firing hosts when they make controversial comments on air. The DNC appeared to endorse those concerns last month when it rejected Fox’s bid to host a Democratic debate, accusing the network of being too closely tied at its highest levels to the Trump administration.

Despite largely avoiding Fox News during the 2016 presidential contest, Democrats have shown a greater willingness to appear on the network during the 2020 cycle. DNC Chairman Tom Perez, who has defended the DNC’s decision not to partner with Fox News for a 2020 debate, occasionally appears on the network. Buttigieg, who’s surged in recent polls, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” last month and Klobuchar sat for an interview with Baier for his show in February, an interview that garnered 2.4 million viewers, according to a news release.

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