Fox News Corp. didn't just cut loose Maria Bartiromo; it may have revealed a crack in the MAGA media machine.
On Sept. 3, the network announced that Bartiromo would no longer host her Fox Business show, though it didn't explain why. What has been reported by Status and others, however, is that Bartiromo allegedly shared information with President Donald Trump's administration about why the network refused to cover his false allegations that the 2020 election was "rigged" and that China obtained voter information.
Bartiromo’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, denied that she had been fired, though he refused to answer questions about clarification.
The network’s sudden split with one of Trump's most devoted on-air defenders comes after years of litigation that has required a hefty $787.5 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems over 2020 election lies about the company. The network is still in talks with Smartmatic, which is continuing forward with its $2.7 billion lawsuit over the 2020 election lies.
The Columbia Journalism Review cited Nielsen data reported by The Wall Street Journal, saying Maria Bartiromo's "Sunday Morning Futures" averaged 1.8 million viewers so far this year. That is a large audience, but it trailed other Fox News hosts, including Jesse Watters at 3.2 million viewers, Sean Hannity at 2.8 million, and Bret Baier at 2.7 million, who appear in prime time on weeknights. Fox Business News generally has significantly lower ratings than the flagship Fox News Channel.
While Fox broadcast Trump's speech about the 2020 election, Bret Baier, Fox News' chief political anchor, said the network was “not in a position to assess the accuracy of the president’s statements.” There were no further comments about Trump's allegations in the days that followed.
But Bartiromo wanted to defend the president and sought Peter Navarro to appear on her show, but she was blocked by the higher ups.
Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, which has been a Fox watchdog for ages, told CJR that the Bartiromo ordeal shows the difficult dance that Fox must do with the White House.
Gertz called Fox host a "second Cabinet of advisors." Indeed, Sean Hannity was accused in 2018 of "basically" having "a desk" at the White House.
"The conservative commentator is so close to Trump that some White House aides have dubbed him the unofficial chief of staff," said the Washington Post at the time.
Gertz said that Trump expects "that everyone at Fox will be maximally supportive of his administration at all times. When he sees any coverage that is anything less than that, he will speak out against it.”
Bartiromo's problem, Gertz argued, "may have been that she made all of Fox’s other hosts look bad in the eyes of the White House," said the CJR.
“I don’t know the extent to which there’s a broader strategy at play,” Gertz said, “versus trying to ensure something like that doesn’t happen again."
The Smartmatic lawsuit has been damaging to the Fox Corporation, as thousands of emails and text messages were turned over as part of discovery in the lawsuit. What it uncovered was a lot of familiarity with top Trump officials and allies in hundreds of exchanges.
The CJR cited a Los Angeles Times report that put Bartiromo's contract at $6 million, and the network must pay out the contract.
"That’s a lot of money, but still pocket change compared with the 787.5 million dollars it was forced to pay Dominion to settle that case," the report noted.
Journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher said that she sees corporations making a huge shift away from Trump given the likelihood that Congress will change hands after the November election. Among the pledges is to investigate many of the corporations for their cozy relationship with the White House that could involve anything from pay-to-play or quid pro quo to score federal contracts.
Unlike other hosts like Tucker Carlson, Bartiromo is still under contract, so she can't start her own streaming show just yet. Navarro, the report said, called it a "golden muzzle." She might, however, end up as the new White House press secretary given her loyalty to the president.
Bartiromo, however, is among the last of the ride-or-die MAGA loyalists like Hannity, carrying the president's message to the base.
Navarro wrote for the Washington Times that Fox's CEO, Suzanne Scott, should “prostrate before Mr. Trump for disrespecting the office and to Trump Nation for suppressing MAGA news.”
Jeet Heer wrote for The Nation that ousting Bartiromo could be "motivated by expedience, a way to limit the risk of future lawsuits." It's unclear how far that preemptive strike against litigation could carry to the other Trump loyalists on Fox's networks.
