Maria Bartiromo’s exit reveals the limits of Fox’s loyalty to Trump

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President Trump and Fox News have a mostly mutually beneficial relationship. But every so often, their interests diverge, and Maria Bartiromo is a prime example.

Fox took Bartiromo off the air after she leaked internal network guidance to the Trump White House, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. The guidance specified that Fox’s programs should not follow Trump down a conspiratorial rabbit hole relating to the 2020 election.

For all the talk of Fox being a pro-Trump media brand, which it is, the network still has lines that it tries not to cross.

One of those lines has to do with election fraud conspiracy theories that might land Fox in court again. Fox paid three quarters of a billion dollars to settle Dominion’s defamation lawsuit in 2023 and it is still fighting another such suit, from the voting machine company Smartmatic.

So when Fox says Bartiromo’s exit was a “business decision,” it’s true – the business often involves promoting the president’s agenda, but when his election lies endanger the bottom line, Fox puts its corporate interests ahead of political interests.

Ousting a top star like Bartiromo serves as a message to everyone else at Fox: Don’t betray the boss.

And the boss is not Trump, as much as he’d like to be.

The people actually in charge at Fox are Rupert Murdoch, his son Lachlan and Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott. Their April 2023 dismissal of Tucker Carlson was an assertion that everyone is replaceable, even the top-rated host on Fox.

Carlson had alienated vast swaths of Fox in the run-up to his firing. Bartiromo, similarly, had become increasingly isolated at Fox, the source told CNN.

So she may have lacked internal support when management found out that she had disclosed Fox’s internal guidance to the White House.

On Thursday the network announced that “effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with Fox News Media.”

Bartiromo did not comment on her ouster. But she retained a high-profile entertainment lawyer, Bryan Freedman, who issued a statement on Friday saying “the irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false.”

Television networks sometimes decide to replace a host but still pay the person the remainder of their contract, which may be what Freedman is suggesting.

The Bartiromo dust-up began in mid-July when Trump delivered a prime time speech and made conspiratorial claims about China and the 2020 election.

Major news outlets like CNN fact-checked and debunked Trump’s narrative. But Bartiromo has, for years, defaulted to trusting Trump’s claims, and has displayed an insatiable appetite for MAGA conspiracy theories, including 2020 election lies. She wanted to follow up on Trump’s election fraud stories on TV, but was told not to.

Fox’s lack of interest in Trump’s election fraud speech raised eyebrows at the time. “Trump’s Favorite News Show Totally Ignores His Election Fraud Speech,” The New Republic wrote in a headline the next day, noting that the “Fox & Friends” morning show didn’t follow up at all.

Bartiromo’s morning show on Fox Business also skirted the topic. A Fox Business executive had sent guidance to a team of executive producers directing them not to cover Trump’s conspiracy theories, perhaps due to fear of legal exposure. The written guidance was forwarded to Bartiromo, who then shared it with the Trump White House.

“Basically she was calling daddy to tell on mommy,” CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp said. “She was basically saying, ‘Mommy won’t let me do this, dad. What are you going to do about it?’ Gross.”

The media industry newsletter Status, which first reported on Bartiromo’s disclosure, said “it’s unclear whether Trump ever acted on the information, though one might imagine that upon learning of what happened, he would call Murdoch.”

Trump has a long history of complaining about Fox to Murdoch — while also coveting its support and complimenting its pro-Trump stars.

In his social media posts and public comments about Fox, Trump sometimes acts like he’s in control of the network. The Fox bosses have been known to bristle at that — which helps explain why Bartiromo’s disclosure to the White House was such a big deal internally.

When word of Bartiromo’s back-channeling with Trump got back to Fox management – in other words, when she got caught – she was benched.

But an air of mystery still surrounds Bartiromo’s departure since Fox put up with so much for so long from her.

The network renewed her contract even after her TV segments promoting Trump’s 2020 election lies contributed to both Dominion and Smartmatic suing for defamation.

Perhaps that’s because she continued to attract an audience, both on Fox Business and Fox News, with the type of Trump-is-right commentary that has come to define the Murdochs’ TV empire.

Bartiromo – once an acclaimed business journalist and interviewer – became a “true believer” in Trump years ago, numerous sources said.

Her credulousness has actually served Fox as a legal defense, since a person has to know a statement was false or show reckless disregard for the truth in order to be held liable for defamation.

In the new book “Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody,” about Dominion’s case against Fox, author Ian Rosenberg writes that Bartiromo and other Fox stars “were exposed for caring more about protecting Trump’s claims than presenting accurate information.”

That’s the perpetual tension for Fox in the Trump era. The network and the president basically share an audience of viewers and voters. Trump might say the audience is more loyal to him, and the Murdochs might say they’re more loyal to Fox.

There’s no need to test that loyalty as long as Fox carries Trump’s water. But whenever Fox very visibly challenges Trump, things get awkward.

The mid-July directive to ignore Trump’s election claims was meant to be invisible. Fox’s shows didn’t refute or ridicule Trump’s obsession with the 2020 election on air; they simply chose other stories to talk about.

But if the plan was to let sleeping dogs lie, Bartiromo interfered by passing along the internal guidance.

Ultimately, “this is a Fox-Trump fight over his election lies,” Amanda Carpenter, a writer and editor at Protect Democracy, wrote on X. It’s about “their unwillingness to promote the lies and also publicly cross Trump over it.”

Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

特朗普总统和福克斯新闻的关系总体上是互惠互利的。但偶尔，他们的利益也会出现分歧，玛丽亚·巴蒂罗姆就是一个典型的例子。

据一位知情人士向CNN透露，巴蒂罗莫向特朗普白宫泄露了福克斯电视台的内部指导方针后，福克斯电视台已将其停职。该指导方针明确指出，福克斯的节目不应追随特朗普，深入探讨与2020年大选相关的阴谋论。

尽管人们都在谈论福克斯新闻是一个亲特朗普的媒体品牌（事实也的确如此），但该电视台仍然有一些它尽量不逾越的底线。

其中一条线索与选举舞弊阴谋论有关，这可能会让福克斯再次被告上法庭。福克斯在2023年支付了7.5亿美元与Dominion公司达成和解，以了结其诽谤诉讼，目前仍在应对另一起来自投票机公司Smartmatic的类似诉讼。

所以，当福克斯说巴蒂罗莫的离职是一个“商业决定”时，这是真的——商业行为通常涉及宣传总统的议程，但当他的选举谎言危及利润时，福克斯会将公司利益置于政治利益之上。

开除巴蒂罗莫这样的顶级明星，是对福克斯电视台所有人的一个警告：不要背叛老板。

而真正的老板并非特朗普，尽管他很想成为那样的人。

福克斯新闻的实际掌权者是鲁珀特·默多克、他的儿子拉克兰·默多克以及福克斯新闻媒体首席执行官苏珊娜·斯科特。他们在2023年4月解雇塔克·卡尔森，这表明每个人都是可以被替代的，即使是福克斯收视率最高的主持人也不例外。

卡尔森在被解雇前已经疏远了福克斯新闻的大量员工。消息人士告诉CNN，巴蒂罗莫的情况也类似，他在福克斯新闻内部日益孤立。

因此，当管理层发现她向白宫泄露了福克斯的内部指导意见时，她可能缺乏内部支持。

周四，该电视台宣布“自今日起，玛丽亚·巴蒂罗莫不再是福克斯新闻媒体的员工”。

巴蒂罗莫本人并未对被解雇一事发表评论。但她聘请了知名娱乐律师布莱恩·弗里德曼，弗里德曼于周五发表声明称：“有关玛丽亚·巴蒂罗莫被解雇或不再是福克斯员工的报道纯属无稽之谈，完全是彻头彻尾的谎言。”

电视网络有时会决定更换主持人，但仍然支付原主持人剩余的合同款项，这可能就是弗里德曼所暗示的。

巴蒂罗莫事件始于 7 月中旬，当时特朗普发表黄金时段讲话，并对中国和 2020 年大选提出了阴谋论。

包括CNN在内的多家主流媒体都对特朗普的说法进行了事实核查和驳斥。但多年来，巴蒂罗莫一直轻信特朗普的说法，并且对“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）的阴谋论表现出极大的兴趣，包括2020年大选的谎言。她原本想就特朗普在电视上散布的选举舞弊言论进行后续报道，但被告知不要这样做。

当时，福克斯新闻对特朗普关于选举舞弊的演讲漠不关心，这引起了人们的质疑。《新共和》杂志第二天以“特朗普最爱的新闻节目完全无视他的选举舞弊演讲”为题发表文章，指出“福克斯与朋友们”晨间节目对此事完全没有后续报道。

巴蒂罗莫在福克斯商业频道的早间节目也回避了这一话题。一位福克斯商业频道的高管曾向一个执行制片团队发出指示，要求他们不要报道特朗普的阴谋论，或许是出于对法律风险的担忧。这份书面指示被转交给了巴蒂罗莫，巴蒂罗莫随后又将其分享给了特朗普的白宫。

“她基本上是在打电话给爸爸告状，”CNN政治评论员SE Cupp说。“她基本上是在说，‘爸爸，妈妈不让我这么做，你打算怎么办？’真恶心。”

最先报道巴蒂罗莫披露此事的媒体行业通讯《Status》表示，“目前尚不清楚特朗普是否曾根据这些信息采取过行动，但人们可能会认为，在得知此事后，他会给默多克打电话。”

特朗普长期以来一直向默多克抱怨福克斯新闻，同时又渴望得到福克斯新闻的支持，并称赞其亲特朗普的明星。

特朗普在社交媒体帖子和公开评论中，有时表现得好像他能掌控福克斯新闻。众所周知，福克斯高层对此非常不满——这也解释了为什么巴蒂罗莫向白宫披露此事在福克斯内部引起了如此大的反响。

当巴蒂罗莫与特朗普私下沟通的消息传回福克斯管理层时——换句话说，当她被抓到时——她就被停职了。

但巴蒂罗莫的离开仍然笼罩着一层神秘的面纱，因为福克斯长期以来一直忍受着她的种种刁难。

即使在她宣传特朗普 2020 年选举谎言的电视节目导致 Dominion 和 Smartmatic 两家公司提起诽谤诉讼之后，该电视台仍然与她续签了合同。

或许是因为她继续在福克斯商业频道和福克斯新闻频道吸引观众，发表那种“特朗普是对的”的评论，而这种评论已经成为默多克电视帝国的标志。

据多位消息人士透露，巴蒂罗莫曾是一位备受赞誉的商业记者和采访者，多年前就成为了特朗普的“忠实信徒”。

她的轻信实际上为福克斯提供了法律辩护，因为一个人必须明知某个陈述是虚假的，或者对事实表现出鲁莽的漠视，才能被追究诽谤的责任。

在关于 Dominion 公司起诉福克斯新闻的案件的新书《伤害所有人的可怕事情》中，作者伊恩·罗森伯格写道，巴蒂罗莫和其他福克斯明星“被揭露更关心维护特朗普的说法，而不是提供准确的信息”。

这就是特朗普时代福克斯新闻面临的永恒困境。该电视台和总统基本上共享同一批观众和选民。特朗普可能会说观众对他更忠诚，而默多克家族则可能会说观众对福克斯新闻更忠诚。

只要福克斯新闻继续支持特朗普，就没必要考验它的忠诚度。但一旦福克斯新闻公开挑战特朗普，场面就会变得尴尬。

7月中旬发布的无视特朗普选举言论的指令意在悄无声息地执行。福克斯新闻的节目并没有在节目中反驳或嘲讽特朗普对2020年大选的执着，而是选择了其他话题进行报道。

但如果计划是让事情顺其自然，那么巴蒂罗莫则通过传递内部指导意见进行了干预。

“归根结底，这是福克斯新闻和特朗普之间围绕其选举谎言的斗争，”保护民主组织的撰稿人和编辑阿曼达·卡彭特在X网站上写道。“这关乎他们既不愿传播谎言，也不愿公开反对特朗普。”