Maria Bartiromo Exits Fox News Amid Allegations of White House Leaks

Fox News abruptly announced that longtime host Maria Bartiromo was leaving the network, effective immediately, two days before President Donald Trump was seen golfing with Fox News star Bret Baier.

Fox called Bartiromo's departure a business decision and did not provide further details. Her bio and other information have been scrubbed from the network's website. Bartiromo had been off the air for several weeks, with her last appearance coming on August 9. Fox stated her shows would continue under new names with rotating hosts, including Jason Chaffetz temporarily taking over Sunday Morning Futures.

Reports have linked her exit to allegations that she shared internal network guidance with the White House. Status reported she informed the White House about Fox's internal instructions to avoid promoting Trump's election conspiracies on the air. Bartiromo's attorney, Bryan Freedman, disputed the firing narrative, calling reports absolutely and unequivocally false. Dylan Byers at Puck reported that Ralph Giordano, Fox Business Network's senior vice president of programming, texted Bartiromo's production team instructing them not to cover Trump's July primetime address on the 2020 election.

Bartiromo had planned to cover the speech and book Peter Navarro, a senior counselor to Trump. Navarro told Byers that Bartiromo sent him a screenshot of Giordano's instructions, which he described as censoring it. Navarro said he passed the information up the chain to senior administration officials. An unnamed high-ranking White House official then called Fox News leadership to complain, effectively outing Bartiromo as the source of the leaked guidance.

A journalist who broke Bartiromo's exit predicts Trump might swoop in and hire her. Experts suggest Fox is pivoting away from Trump with Bartiromo's ouster.