Thursday night, Lou Dobbs, who finished hosting the show, said goodbye to the audience as usual. However, he did not appear in the “Tomorrow” program.
Dobbs is Trump’s “fan” and the most watched host of Fox Business Channel.
But on Friday (5th), Fox announced that it would cancel all Dobbs’s programs on Fox Business Channel, including Lou Dobbs Tonight, the most watched program on Fox Business Channel, hosted by him.
He had been hosting the show for a whole decade before.
Seeing allies “blocked”, Trump also sent warmth in time.
He spoke out that Dobbs was “great”, saying that he and Dobbs supporters would continue to pay attention to his movements.
Although Fox News attributed this to “programmatic adjustments”, CNN analyzed that this may be related to Dobbs’ repeated right-wing remarks.
It is worth mentioning that just one day (4 days) before Dobbs was “blocked”, Smartmatic, a U.S. voting system company, filed a lawsuit against Fox News and three hosts, including Dobbs, as well as two lawyers from Trump, alleging defendants of spreading false information about the company’s “stealing” votes.
The amount claimed is as high as 2.7 billion US dollars.
Allies were “blocked”, Trump expressed solidarity
According to the Hill on the 5th, Dobbs began to host Fox in 2011 and became the most watched host of Fox Business Channel under the Trump administration.
Trump and other White House officials have appeared on several programs hosted by Dobbs, spreading right-wing views on a range of topics such as immigration.
The Huffington Post described Dobbs’ program as almost synonymous with “fausing Trump”.
During Trump’s term, Dobbs made no comments about Trump.
Just three months after Trump took office in 2017, Dobbs called Trump “very close to perfection” in Fox News.
In April 2019, Dobbs suggested that Trump was actually “God-sent”, claiming that Trump’s presence “let the sun shine on the whole White House”; in the same year, he also called Trump “the greatest president in the history of our country” and “as famous as Lincoln”…
During last year’s presidential election, Dobbs also repeatedly spread Trump’s conspiracy theories about “election fraud”.
A Fox TV spokesperson said in a statement on the 5th that the cancellation of Dobbs’ program is part of Fox’s “regular” program adjustment.” Fox News often makes program adjustments, and plans for new post-election programs have been made, including Fox Business Channel. This is part of the adjustment plan, and new programs will be announced in the near future.”
According to the Huffington Post on the 5th, Dobbs is still employed by Fox Business Channel, but he will not appear on other programs in the future.
On the evening of the 5th local time, Amy Kremer, chairman of Women for America First, issued a statement on behalf of Trump, who was “banned” by Twitter: “Dobbs was and is great, no Some people are more patriotic than him.
Dobbs, including me, has a large number of supporters, and they will pay close attention to Dobbs’ follow-up action.”
In his response, Dobbs still called Trump “presidential”.
He wrote: “Thank you for your kind words, Mr. President. May God bless you and all the patriots who make this country great.”
It is worth noting that just one day before Fox made the decision, Dobbs and Fox News had just been involved in a lawsuit.
Smartmatic, a U.S. voting system company, filed a lawsuit against Fox News and three hosts, including Dobbs, as well as Trump’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, claiming $2.7 billion.
The indictment accuses Fox News of publishing at least 13 stories that falsely state or implied that the company had “cluded” with the Venezuelan government to steal the ballot.
Dobbs, for example, accused Smartmatic and its executives of trying to carry out “large-scale network operation Pearl Harbor” through “backdoors” that do not exist in voting software.
However, Fox immediately responded on the same day that they had no problem with their coverage of the 2020 election and would “actively respond to this worthless lawsuit in court”.
CNN: Fox may have been dissatisfied with Dobbs for a long time.
“It seems like an isolated event, not a signal of a shift in Fox’s editorial approach as a whole.” CNN analyzed on the 6th that Fox may have been dissatisfied with Dobbs for a long time and intends to make some changes after the election, and the lawsuit filed by Smartmatic is the “last straw”.
The report revealed that Fox’s employees secretly spread rumors that Booth and Murdoch’s son were at estrecord, but everyone who knew it kept silent.
The report pointed out that Dobbs applied some right-wing rhetorical and insulting remarks to the extreme.
John Huddy, a former Fox executive, said in an email that Dobbs had been “respected as a business reporter”.
But in recent years, he has been “out of control, reckless and grumpy”, which may affect management decisions.
According to another industry insider, although Dobbs is the best-rated host on Fox Business, the title does not justify his remarks.
Moreover, although his audience rating is very high, in fact, the overall rating of the channel is relatively low.
Due to repeated inflammatory remarks in the program, Dobbs’ program did not perform well in advertising, which may also be the decisive factor in Dobbs’ “blocking”.
