Trump adviser accuses Fox News of muzzling MAGA after Maria Bartiromo ouster

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Fox News is “suppressing MAGA news” and enforcing a “shadow ban” of some of President Donald Trump’s surrogates, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro charged in an audacious op-ed on Tuesday.

Navarro also defended Maria Bartiromo, the longtime Fox host and Trump friend the network ousted last week. And he addressed his role in the Bartiromo dust-up.

Tuesday’s op-ed is part of a deepening dispute between Fox News and the Trump White House over coverage of Trump’s election fraud claims.

The drama dates back to mid-July, when the president delivered a prime-time speech and made many claims about election vulnerabilities, including supposed interference by China.

Fox News showed the speech live — unlike some other networks — but didn’t dwell on Trump’s conspiratorial narrative. “Fox & Friends,” often dubbed the president’s favorite show, didn’t mention it at all the next day.

Bartiromo, it turns out, wanted to follow up. She booked Navarro for her Fox Business Network morning show.

However, Navarro wrote, “Hours later, she told me Fox had clamped down on any coverage and forwarded the text that had gone to her producers.”

Navarro published the internal guidance, which he said was sent by Fox Business executive Ralph Giordano. It said: “Hi – We don’t want to promote it or push to the speech at all. We don’t want to do 2020 election segments at all Thurs or Friday.”

Giordano evidently didn’t say why “we” wanted to avoid the subject, but one logical explanation is legal exposure. Trump’s 2020 election lies were promoted on several Fox News shows, including Bartiromo’s, and led to numerous defamation lawsuits.

The best-known suit, filed by Dominion Voting Systems, was settled on the eve of trial in 2023 for a jaw-dropping $787.5 million. A similar suit filed by Smartmatic is still pending.

So, with those defamation-related dangers in mind, Fox has shown uncharacteristic caution at times when Trump has revisited his 2020 election lies.

And that has created a bit of a wedge between the network and the president, one that Navarro highlighted in Tuesday’s op-ed.

He singled out Fox News Media’s CEO, stating, “I don’t know whether Suzanne Scott is a Trump-hating RINO. I do know her business model is.”

Navarro asserted that Fox’s biggest advertisers “despise key MAGA issues,” so the network is careful about its topic selection: “Scott feeds the audience conservative red meat — Democrat socialists, biological men in women’s sports, illegal alien rapists and murderers — but keeps it inside guardrails that wall off MAGA themes such as election integrity, Big Pharma and benefits of the Trump tariffs.”

Tuesday’s op-ed praised Bartiromo at length, suggesting that Navarro might be going to bat for a friend.

Bartiromo was taken off the air after Fox management learned that she had shared the mid-July internal guidance with the White House.

Navarro confirmed in his op-ed that “Scott got an angry call from the West Wing” about the directive not to cover Trump’s election claims.

He said it was his “duty” to pass along Bartiromo’s text to White House colleagues.

Bartiromo was quietly benched at first, but her exit was made public last week, leading the president to express shock on Truth Social.

“Maria is a total professional, and a true warrior,” he wrote. “Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy. God bless you, Maria!”

Trump sometimes portrays Fox as an adversary too, despite the network’s day-in-day-out promotion of his presidency and his agenda. His usual complaint is that the network isn’t sycophantic enough.

A Fox News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

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白宫贸易顾问彼得·纳瓦罗周二在一篇措辞大胆的评论文章中指责福克斯新闻“压制MAGA新闻”，并对唐纳德·特朗普总统的一些代理人实施“影子禁令”。

纳瓦罗还为玛丽亚·巴蒂罗莫辩护，这位长期担任福克斯新闻主持人、与特朗普关系密切的主持人上周被该电视台解雇。他还谈到了自己在巴蒂罗莫事件中所扮演的角色。

周二发表的这篇评论文章，是福克斯新闻与特朗普白宫之间就特朗普选举舞弊指控的报道问题而日益加剧的争端的一部分。

这场风波可以追溯到 7 月中旬，当时总统在黄金时段发表讲话，对选举漏洞提出了许多说法，包括中国可能进行的干预。

与其他一些电视台不同，福克斯新闻直播了特朗普的演讲，但并未过多关注特朗普的阴谋论。“福克斯与朋友们”（Fox & Friends）——通常被认为是总统最喜欢的节目——第二天也只字未提此事。

事实证明，巴蒂罗莫想跟进此事。她邀请纳瓦罗参加她在福克斯商业频道的早间节目。

然而，纳瓦罗写道：“几个小时后，她告诉我福克斯电视台已经停止了所有相关报道，并将发给她制片人的短信转发给了我。”

纳瓦罗公布了这份内部指导意见，他说这份意见是由福克斯商业频道高管拉尔夫·乔丹诺发出的。意见内容是：“您好——我们完全不想宣传或推广这次演讲。我们周四和周五完全不想播出任何与2020年大选相关的节目。”

乔尔达诺显然没有说明“我们”为何要回避这个话题，但一个合理的解释是担心法律风险。特朗普在2020年大选中的谎言曾在包括巴蒂罗莫主持的节目在内的多个福克斯新闻节目中被广泛传播，并引发了多起诽谤诉讼。

其中最引人注目的一起诉讼是由 Dominion Voting Systems 提起的，该诉讼在 2023 年开庭前夕以惊人的 7.875 亿美元达成和解。Smartmatic 提起的类似诉讼目前仍在审理中。

因此，考虑到诽谤相关的这些风险，每当特朗普重提他在 2020 年选举中的谎言时，福克斯新闻都表现出了反常的谨慎态度。

而这在电视台和总统之间造成了一些隔阂，纳瓦罗在周二的专栏文章中强调了这一点。

他特别点名批评了福克斯新闻媒体的首席执行官，说道：“我不知道苏珊娜·斯科特是否是一个憎恨特朗普的共和党建制派人士。但我知道她的商业模式是这样的。”

纳瓦罗断言，福克斯最大的广告商“鄙视MAGA的关键议题”，因此该电视台在选择话题时非常谨慎：“斯科特向观众提供保守派的煽动性内容——民主党社会主义者、女性体育运动中的生理男性、非法移民强奸犯和杀人犯——但将其限制在一定的框架内，从而排除了MAGA的主题，例如选举公正性、大型制药公司和特朗普关税的好处。”

周二的专栏文章对巴蒂罗莫大加赞扬，暗示纳瓦罗可能是在为朋友挺身而出。

福克斯管理层得知巴蒂罗莫将7月中旬的内部指导意见透露给了白宫后，便将她停职。

纳瓦罗在他的专栏文章中证实，“斯科特接到了白宫西翼打来的愤怒电话”，内容是关于不得报道特朗普的选举声明的指示。

他说，将巴蒂罗莫的短信转达给白宫同事是他的“职责”。

巴蒂罗莫最初被悄悄地撤职，但她上周的离职被公开，导致总统在 Truth Social 上表示震惊。

“玛丽亚是一位十足的专业人士，也是一位真正的战士，”他写道。“她的粉丝众多，他们肯定不会高兴。愿上帝保佑你，玛丽亚！”

尽管福克斯新闻日复一日地宣传他的总统任期和他的政策纲领，特朗普有时仍然将福克斯新闻视为对手。他通常抱怨福克斯新闻不够阿谀奉承。

福克斯新闻发言人未回应置评请求。