he worst fear a parent can have is to outlive their child. Bret Baier almost experienced that nightmare when his son underwent open-heart surgery for the fifth time last year. Now, Paul is sharing his story with others via a new medium.
Paul, 17, who underwent his fifth surgery in April of 2024 to address congenital heart defects he’s had since birth, has just launched a podcast to discuss his journey called “One Step at a Time.”
The “Special Report” star has invited People reporters into his private life as he’s coached Paul through repeated bouts of recovery.
“His heart was essentially pumping the wrong way, and we didn’t know before birth,” Baier explained about his son, who was born on June 29, 2007. Almost immediately, Paul underwent his first open heart surgery as an infant, followed by three more at 10 months, 6 years, and 13 years old.
Doctors thought Paul’s fourth surgery would be his last until his 20s, but fate had other plans. In 2024, Paul suffered a common cold, and his mother, Amy, took him to the doctor for a chest X-ray and an MRI. That’s when the family was dealt another scary diagnosis.
“The MRI comes back, and they sit me down and say, ‘This is a really big deal. This is an aneurysm the size of a golf ball that has formed off of his heart,’ ” Bret told the outlet at the time. “And they didn’t know whether it might burst, but if it did, it might have been fatal in a matter of minutes.”
The stakes had never been higher for Paul than then, Baier, 54, explained.
“It was exponentially more stressful and emergent, and we weren’t prepared for it,” he said shortly before Father’s Day last year. “This happened literally within 12 hours…so it was a heavy lift.”
Thankfully, Paul made it safely through the surgery and has not experienced any complications since, his famous father said.
“The recovery was awesome. The doctors and nurses at Children’s National [Hospital, in Washington D.C.], as always, were fantastic,” Bret said, praising his son’s medical team. “And Paul is in the mind space [that] he just plows through it now. And I think, knock on wood, that that’s the end of the open heart surgeries.”
“He may have to have little things going forward, angioplasties, which are not little, but it’s exponentially less than an open heart surgery,” he adds.
The Fox anchor admitted his son has “missed a lot of school” as a result of his prolonged hospital stays, but said Paul recently finished the courses to complete his junior year and has begun to explore options for a four-year college.
“Bottom line is, we want him to be a normal kid,” Bret said of his and Amy’s hopes for Paul in the years to come. “Seventeen years ago, we would be really, really happy to be right here — after that first surgery as a baby.”
“While we have in the back of our minds, [that he’s] been through all of this and we’re afraid of whatever could happen, we also know that it’s better for him to be a normal kid and to be with his friends and to drive when they drive,” he continued.
“He does sports, he’s very active, and once we got over that last hurdle last year, it’s back to normal, so he’s still beating up his little brother and the whole thing.”
Baier recently admitted he doesn’t get much “downtime” these days amid interviews with world leaders. However, taking his son to a golf tournament or spending a little aimless family time together, it was too precious to pass up, he reflected.
“Everybody has something they’re dealing with in their family,” he observed. “This was our something.”
