Fox News has parted ways with long-time anchor Maria Bartiromo. Her shows, including “Mornings with Maria,” are being rebranded without her name.
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Fox News abruptly announced Thursday that it is parting ways with longtime host Maria Bartiromo, whose close ties to President Trump helped propel her ratings but also ultimately unraveled her Fox career.
“We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 1/2 years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,” the network said in a brief statement. The release contained no remarks from Bartiromo herself, who last appeared on the air in early August.
Bartiromo did not respond to NPR’s multiple efforts to seek comment. But on Friday, her attorney, Bryan Freedman, put out a statement saying assertions that Bartiromo was fired or is no longer working at Fox are “absolutely and unequivocally false.” He called reports of the news “irresponsible” and vowed to prove them wrong.
Bartiromo initially brought credibility and flair to Fox Business Network as a financial markets journalist when she arrived in 2014. She became a highly paid mainstay, hosting more than 16 hours a week of programs on the business network and its corporate sibling, the Fox News Channel.
She later provided an insider’s line to President Trump, fueling ratings and access to the Oval Office.
Vice President JD Vance paid tribute to her during a press briefing at the White House on Thursday, saying “I love Maria. I think she’s an amazing person, amazing talent.”
Trump posted on Truth Social that he could not believe she’d no longer be on the air. “Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy,” Trump wrote.
In another measure of their mutual admiration, Trump appointed Bartiromo — and Fox News star Laura Ingraham — to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center, which has been a source of controversy throughout Trump’s second term.
Those close ties ultimately helped to enmesh Fox News in a spectacular scandal, however, after she embraced and promoted Trump’s lies about being cheated of victory in the 2020 race for the White House. She was named as a defendant in two multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuits against Fox for her treatment of Trump’s baseless allegations.
The following account of the reason Fox forced out Bartiromo was offered by a person with knowledge of events. The person spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak about internal network matters.
In July, Trump sought to return to the question of election security in a speech he wanted covered by the television networks. A Fox Business executive texted the executive producers atop several shows to instruct them not to give the speech more oxygen by continuing to talk about it on the air the next day — given the network’s history, and Trump’s, on the subject.
The executive producer of Bartiromo’s morning business show forwarded the text to Bartiromo – who sent a screengrab to a Trump associate. The White House then challenged Fox on its decision not to carry the speech, according to the person with knowledge of events.
Fox’s controlling owners — Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch — have struck an alliance of convenience with Trump. But they have sought to avoid following his election claims over a cliff once more.
Bartiromo’s earlier decision to spread unfounded theories of conspiracy fraud helped to land Fox in court.
Her shows featured prominently in a defamation case against Fox brought by the voting technology company Dominion Voting Systems. Fox settled the case for more than $787 million just as the trial was about to begin.
Bartiromo also features heavily in a second multibillion dollar defamation suit. That one was filed by Smartmatic, another voting software company, also against Fox News over statements it broadcasted about the 2020 vote. That case is ongoing.
Until Thursday, Bartiromo was the only individual defendant in the Smartmatic case still working at the network.
Fox’s legal team appeared in court Thursday morning in a hearing on the case.
The court cases have yielded mortifying revelations. In one November 2020 program in which Bartiromo and a guest alleged electoral fraud, Bartiromo relied on a memo written by a woman who said the wind talks to her and who admitted her own claims were “pretty wackadoodle.”
Her former colleague, the late Lou Dobbs, was fired a day after Smartmatic filed suit in early 2021. Former Fox host Tucker Carlson was ousted in 2023 just after the Dominion settlement had been struck and days after a former producer on his primetime show, Abby Grossberg, filed suit against him over workplace issues. Former Fox host Jeanine Pirro, a fellow defendant in both cases, was named last year by Trump as the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.
Her program inspired a third defamation suit earlier this year, from the remarks of another Bartiromo guest, the entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary. He alleged that critics of his proposed data center in Utah were funded by the Chinese Communist Party. Fox apologized for those claims, which O’Leary backed off. Some of those critics sued him and Fox.
Once announced on Thursday, Bartiromo’s departure from Fox was immediate and near absolute.
Her bio page now reads: “Server error. Person not found.”
