Fox News Cut Maria Bartiromo Loose in August. It Waited Until Thursday to Say So.
Network leadership decided in August to remove its most Trump-aligned anchor after she forwarded internal Fox guidance to the White House. Her last broadcast was August 9, and the president found out with everyone else.
Fox News announced Thursday that it had parted ways with Maria Bartiromo, the anchor who spent a decade as the network's most reliable conduit to Donald Trump. The statement was eleven words long on the substance: "We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 1/2 years and wish her all the best on her next chapter." It gave no reason. It also did not mention that Bartiromo had already been off the air for more than three weeks.
Her final broadcast was August 9, when she anchored "Sunday Morning Futures" on Fox News. Fox leadership had decided to remove her sometime in August, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity. The immediate trigger, that person said, was Bartiromo's disclosure of confidential company information to the Trump White House. Patrick Ignozzi, the executive producer of her weekday Fox Business program "Mornings with Maria," was pushed out at the same time.
The disclosure traces back to mid-July, when Trump delivered a prime-time speech on the election system that included conspiratorial claims about China and the 2020 vote. Bartiromo wanted to discuss those claims on air, according to the media trade publications Status and Puck. A Fox executive instructed the network not to cover them. Bartiromo then texted a copy of that internal guidance to White House officials — in effect, telling the administration that the blackout was not her doing. Word got back to Fox management, which concluded she had violated her employment agreement.
Fox said the departure was "effective today," a formulation that denied Bartiromo any on-air goodbye, and a spokesperson called the split a "business decision." She had time left on her contract. Trump learned of it the way the public did, and posted on Truth Social: "I can't believe Maria Bartiromo is no longer going to have her great show(s) on FoxNews/Business." He added, "Maria is a total professional, and a true warrior. Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy."
Bartiromo joined Fox in 2014, hired largely to make Fox Business competitive with CNBC, and she did. But the past ten years defined her differently. She was the first Fox anchor to air the false claims about the 2020 election that led the voting-machine company Dominion to sue Fox for defamation. Internal messages surfaced in that litigation showed Fox executives alarmed by her coverage; one described her program as featuring "tons of crazy" in the weeks after Trump's defeat. Fox settled with Dominion in April 2023 for $787.5 million. The network is still defending a suit from Smartmatic, another voting-machine company, in which Bartiromo is named extensively.
Her closeness to Trump bought her access — exclusive interviews, a line into the president's circle, an appointment to the Kennedy Center board last year — and it repeatedly created problems for the people who employed her. This is the largest personnel upheaval at Fox since Tucker Carlson was forced out in April 2023, and it followed the same pattern: an abrupt announcement, no explanation, and a star who did not get to say goodbye. Bartiromo has not commented publicly or posted about the exit. Speculation that she is bound for the White House press secretary's podium circulated Thursday on social media, unsupported by any reporting.
Originally reported by CNN.