For Fox News, blind servility to Trump is fine until it hits the bottom line.
Until she was abruptly fired on Thursday, Maria Bartiromo had been a longtime fixture on Fox News. (Bartiromo denies she was fired, noting that she is still on contract, but the network is certainly acting as if there has been a severance.) She’s worked on the network since 2012 and at the time of her firing was the host of no less than three programs: Sunday Morning Futures, on the flagship Fox News network, as well as the daily program Mornings with Maria and the Friday evening show Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street. On any given week, an avid Fox viewer could see her for around 16 hours. In addition to her prominence, she set the political tone for the network. Fox News has since its inception been right-wing, but few at the network could outdo Bartiromo’s servility to Donald Trump.
After Trump lost in 2020, Bartiromo was at the forefront of voicing unfounded allegations of voter fraud, which she and others at the network knew to be false. This made Bartiromo a central figure in two major lawsuits against the network launched by two voting software companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Fox settled the Dominion suit in 2023 by acknowledging the claims of fraud by Dominion were false and agreeing to pay $787,500,000. The Smartmatic lawsuit is still ongoing.
The Dominion settlement made Fox News gun-shy. The network, even as it remains a cheerleader for Trump and MAGA, has been wary of...
The attorney for Maria Bartiromo, the longtime Fox News anchor, Friday denied media reports that she was fired from the network. Fox News on Thursday announced the departure of the host, who was o...