“Lou Dobbs Tonight” was the highest-rated show on the network. Here is Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy at CNN:
Lou Dobbs, the longtime host of the signature right-wing talk show on the Fox Business Network, was canned by the network on Friday night.
“Lou Dobbs Tonight” is off the air, effective immediately, a Fox spokesperson confirmed. An interim show will take Dobbs’ place at 5 and 7 p.m. Eastern starting Monday.
It was a head-scratching change by Fox Business, since Dobbs was its highest-rated host, albeit on a relatively low-rated network. He often doubled his lead-in’s ratings, which is a rare feat in television.
Dobbs, a veteran financial news anchor, became known at Fox Business for his sycophantic pro-Trump programs. He was one of the former president’s biggest boosters on television, and Trump regularly thanked him in return.
In one of Trump’s first statements since leaving the White House, he effusively praised his friend, saying Dobbs “is and was great. Nobody loves America more than Lou. He had a large and loyal following that will be watching closely for his next move, and that following includes me.
“The pro-Trump propaganda bent juiced Dobbs’ ratings. But his far-right programming choices repeatedly caused consternation within the company, a source close to the matter said, and his program was a loss leader for Fox because many advertisers didn’t want to be associated with his content.
Most recently, Dobbs was named in a $2.7 billion lawsuit filed by a voting technology company, Smartmatic, on Thursday.
Read the rest here.
Robert Jeffress, one of Donald Trump’s court evangelicals and the pastor of First Baptist Church–Dallas, made a weekly Friday night appearance on the Dobbs show. As expected, Jeffress has responded on Twitter:
Of course Jeffress cannot yell and scream about “cancel culture” or “election fraud” without losing his gig at Fox News.
Here is Jeffress’s last appearance on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” (Dobbs is not hosting):
Of course Jeffress can only the see the world in black and white, good and evil.
He continues to claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.
Jeffress’s concern about abortion is merited. He accuses Biden of contradicting the teachings of his church on abortion and he is correct about this. Biden seems to be making no effort, in the way Bill Clinton or Barack Obama did, to call for a reduction in abortions. Jeffress criticizes Biden for using an executive order to rescind the Mexico City Policy on abortion. He believes that Biden signed a “death warrant for millions of unborn children around the world.” This is not entirely true. As I wrote about last week, studies show that the Mexico City Policy actually led to more abortions in some parts of the world. But why doesn’t Biden talk about this? Biden seems incapable of thinking more deeply about how to merge his pro-choice views with the moral concerns of his Catholic faith. In the process, he comes across as a more of divider than a unifier.
