February 6, 2021

Fox News Canceled Lou Dobbs Just One Day After a Voting Machine Company Sued for $2.7 Billion

The longtime host was one of the loudest—and most fawning—pro-Trump voices in the Fox orbit.

Lou Dobbs, with Fox News, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Friday, Feb. 24, 2017, in Oxon Hill, Md. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Fox News Media abruptly canceled Lou Dobbs’ nightly show on Friday, putting an end to its business channel’s most popular show—and to one of the most Donald Trump-friendly voices on national television. 

Dobbs was one of the loudest and most aggressive proponents in the national media of the idea that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump, and in particular the various theories that voting machines were rigged against Trump. Dobbs frequently hosted Trump’s attorney Sidney Powell and other guests who pushed the unfounded conspiracies—and raged against guests who weren’t sufficiently on board with the falsehoods.

On Thursday, voting technology company Smartmatic, which Dobbs and others in his circle have falsely accused of helping rig the election, filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Dobbs, several other Fox News hosts, and the channel itself. According to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the news of Dobbs’ cancellation, the decision was not related to the lawsuit, but part of a planned overhaul of the channel’s lineups. However, the decision to immediately pull the plug on Dobbs after last night’s show seems an abrupt way to end the run of Fox Business’ top-rated show.

Dobbs has long been known as a strong conservative voice, railing against high immigration and helping stoke birtherism conspiracy theories, but since Trump’s election, his commentary became increasingly fawning and often bizarre. For example, on the day legendary journalist Bob Woodward released taped phone calls with Trump, revealing that the then-president knew how deadly the COVID-19 pandemic was—while simultaneously downplaying its danger—Dobbs seemed to be broadcasting from a different universe. 

The fawning did seem to pay off for Dobbs, who not only got ratings, but had the ear of the president himself, earning him trips to the White House to consult on policy. He reportedly sometimes spoke to the president multiple times a day to offer advice. 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate