“The president’s roll-out of explaining this has not been clear. The Washington Post says it’s a flat-out lie in their fact-checking,” said Bret Baier, anchor of Fox News’ “Special Report,” to co-anchor Sandra Smith Friday on the network’s “America’s Newsroom.”

Smith started the segment by pointing out how the president’s denial of advanced knowledge of hush money payments to two women made on his behalf by his lawyer, Michael Cohen, appears to contradict earlier statements that he knew nothing of the payments at all.

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Earlier this week, Cohen pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in the form of those hush money payments.

Friday’s exchange came hot on the heels of the bombshell news about Allen Weisselberg’s receipt of immunity — and his corroboration of Cohen’s version of events.

Weisselberg is the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.

“I think you could look back at the statements and clearly he was not 100 percent truthful as he laid that out,” said Baier.

“The bottom line here, though, is there were all these reports that he knew about a lot of things,” Baier continued.

“He knew about the Trump Tower meeting before it happened. And that was cited to Mr. Cohen. Well, it turns out, Lanny Davis [Cohen’s lawyer], came out and said, ‘He never said that.’ And he testified that that was not the case.”

Cohen, of course, was Trump’s personal lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign and once claimed in a Vanity Fair interview that he “would take a bullet for the president.” But Cohen has since entered into a plea deal with federal prosecutors, announced Tuesday, on eight felony counts — two of which concerned alleged campaign finance law violations.

“I think you have a lot of anonymous sources saying a number of things,” continued Baier. “What we have to go on is what people are saying to the cameras and by name.”

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“And you have now, a situation where more and more people are being kind of rounded up and used in this investigation. To what end? I think we have to find out.”

Baier’s down-the-middle, old-school newsman style is well-respected among peers and fans.

Their reactions to his uncharacteristic comments on social media were, predictably, mixed.

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette.