Lou Dobbs on the set of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" in September 2019. Photo: John Lamparski/Getty Images
Fox News has cancelled its business network's “Lou Dobbs Tonight" and will air the program's final show on Friday night, the LA Times first reported.
Why it matters: Dobbs, former President Trump’s favorite TV host, helped promote the baseless assertions of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Conservative-leaning media companies, including Fox, are in the throes of navigating a post-Trump landscape.
The big picture: The cancellation comes after Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, some of the network's hosts — including Dobbs — and members of Trump's entourage for launching a "disinformation campaign" against the company.
What they're saying: "...FOX News Media regularly considers programming changes and plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate post-election, including on FOX Business — this is part of those planned changes," a Fox News Media spokesperson told Axios.
- “Lou Dobbs is and was great,” Trump said in a statement, per the New York Times. “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 state of play: Instead of Dobbs' show at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. EST on the Fox Business Network, the slots will be filled starting Monday with "Fox Business Tonight," which will be hosted by Jackie DeAngelis and David Asman on a rotating basis.
- Dobbs, 75, remains under contract at Fox News.
Go deeper: The right-wing media decoupling