White House adviser Peter Navarro wants the Trump administration to stop supplying guests to Fox News. The proposal follows Fox’s participation in a television pool decision to suspend coverage of events designated for the president after the White House barred CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. Navarro argues that officials should stop giving Fox interviews, exclusives, and bookings. He also urged viewers to stop watching what he called the network’s “dangerous drivel.”
The dispute began after President Donald Trump barred the three outlets from the White House, accusing them of publishing false reports. Bryan Boughton, Fox News’s Washington bureau chief, chairs the White House television pool, whose member networks share footage from events that can’t accommodate every camera crew. The pool stopped covering events designated as presidential pool coverage, while continuing other assignments. Fox News Media also joined ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN in a statement objecting to the restrictions.
Navarro took particular aim at Fox’s role in that decision. Because Fox markets itself to conservative viewers, he argued, its participation carried more weight than opposition from networks whose coverage he already distrusts. He accused the network of siding with CNN while still relying on Trump administration figures to fill its programming. His proposal would turn that relationship into a point of pressure on Fox.
As Just the News reported, Navarro called for officials across the administration to decline Fox appearances. His list reached beyond Cabinet members to agency heads, White House aides, press staff, and outside surrogates. He also proposed withholding advance stories and exclusive interviews. The column made clear that he wanted the restriction to apply to both Fox News and Fox Business.
In the column, Navarro suggested two responses to the pool’s decision. The White House could provide its own camera feed to news outlets or allow other networks to cover the events, he wrote. His second proposal was to cut Fox off from administration guests altogether: “Not one Cabinet secretary,” he wrote, followed by a longer list of officials he wanted to stay off the network.
Navarro argued that a halt in guest appearances would hit a part of Fox’s schedule that depends on access to administration figures. He suggested trying it for 30 or 60 days and seeing how the network’s audience responded. He also claimed that Fox already limits appearances by some Trump officials, including himself, when their views fail what he called its “Karl Rove RINO filter.”
His complaints about Fox extend beyond the television pool. In the column, Navarro cited the departures of Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, and Maria Bartiromo as examples of what he sees as the network’s treatment of figures willing to cover Trump’s agenda. He tied Bartiromo’s departure earlier this month to a dispute over internal Fox Business guidance concerning coverage of a Trump speech. Fox has publicly described its split with Bartiromo as a business decision and hasn’t corroborated Navarro’s account of why she left.
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Navarro also addressed how the White House could carry out his proposal. He argued that the president could direct his scheduling office to withhold administration guests from Fox, leaving the network to fill those interview slots with other voices. Navarro characterized that decision as one Fox couldn’t challenge in court, drawing a distinction between officials declining interviews and the separate legal fight over White House press credentials.
The fight over White House access also changed after Navarro wrote his column. Early Thursday, September 24th, a federal judge ordered the White House to restore CNN, MS NOW, and Politico’s access under a 14-day temporary restraining order while their lawsuit proceeds. That ruling addresses the restrictions that prompted the television pool’s protest. Navarro’s separate call for Trump officials to stop appearing on Fox still depends on an administration decision.