Maria Bartiromo reportedly shared sensitive internal information about Fox News in the weeks leading up to her unexpected departure on Thursday.
According to Oliver Darcy at Status, the longtime anchor allegedly told the White House that Fox News gave limited airtime to President Donald Trump’s July primetime remarks about the 2020 election because network leadership had issued guidance urging journalists not to legitimize the president’s claims.
Bartiromo is also said to have forwarded White House staff the actual text message she received from Fox News executives, a move that reportedly may have breached the terms of her employment agreement.
Fox News leadership ultimately learned of Bartiromo’s actions when it received a call from the White House, and she was pulled off the air on August 9, according to Puck News.
The Fox Business host had caused previous trouble for the network when she questioned Dominion Voting Systems’ technology and methods following Trump’s 2020 election loss. Dominion filed a lawsuit against the network over the claims, for which Fox News paid a $787.5 million settlement in 2023.
Around the same time, Bartiromo was reportedly trying to develop a separate story focused on China, the 2020 election and Trump’s allegations of Chinese interference, according to Puck.
Her final Fox Business broadcast aired Thursday morning, with Cheryl Casone stepping in to host the program.
Maria Bartiromo, pictured in 2024, has dramatically exited Fox News after almost 13 years at the popular cable network
Maria Bartiromo is pictured with Donald Trump in 2024. The Fox News host exited the network on Thursday
Bartiromo’s Fox Business show will now be hosted by a rotating cast of anchors and will be renamed Mornings With Fox Business.
Her other Fox Business show, Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street, will have her name stripped from it as well, the company said.
‘We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 ½ years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,’ a spokesperson for the network said in a press release on Thursday.
When asked about the reports suggesting she was ousted after she revealed Fox News’ guidance about Trump’s claims, a spokesperson simply told Status it was a ‘business decision and the release speaks for itself.’
The Daily Mail has also reached out to Fox News and the White House for comment.
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But court documents from the 2025 defamation lawsuit against Fox revealed she took in an eyewatering $70 million since joining the network from CNBC in 2014. She joined the latter in 1993 after being hired by then-CNBC President and future Fox exec Roger Ailes.
Ailes resigned from Fox in 2016, after former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson accused him of sexual harassment. Bartiromo became a regular target of criticism around that time, due to her kind coverage of Donald Trump.
President Trump accused China of accessing 220 million American voter files in his primetime speech in July
Such coverage was vital to the defamation claims made by Dominion Voting Systems, in a different lawsuit that Fox News ended up settling for $787.5 million.
In another lawsuit, filed by Smartmatic, Bartiromo was named as a defendant – the only one still working at the network as of Thursday.
Bartiromo allowed false claims about the 2020 presidential election to air in an effort to keep viewers, the lawsuit claimed.
During a broadcast that aired in December 2020, she outright said that an ‘intel source’ told her ‘President Trump did in fact win the election.’
Her lawyers, though, fought back arguing that the lawsuit ‘acknowledges that Bartiromo pressed the President’s lawyers for evidence, repeatedly reminded viewers that the President’s lawyers needed to back up their claims with proof and interviewed guests who were skeptical or dismissive of the claims the President and his legal team were pressing,’ according to Deadline.
They also argued that Smartmatic failed to allege in the lawsuit that Bartiromo engaged in actual malice, which is necessary in proving defamation.
The case is still pending as Smartmatic seeks a trial.
Meanwhile, in June, Bartiromo welcomed a fiery rant from White House trade adviser Peter Navarro that credited former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) head Anthony Fauci with creating the coronavirus.
As news of her surprise exit rang out, Vice President JD Vance downplayed rumors that she was in line to replace Karoline Leavitt as the next White House press secretary.
‘I don’t know, man,’ he told a reporter who asked with a laugh. ‘No, I don’t think so.’