Assistant to the President and Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro unloaded on Fox News leadership over the departure of pro-Trump host Maria Bartiromo, accusing the network of retaliating against her and censoring issues important to President Donald Trump’s MAGA base. Navarro specifically targeted Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, alleging that she uses high-profile firings to frighten other hosts into following the network’s editorial line. He also claimed Fox wants to keep its conservative audience without upsetting powerful corporate advertisers.
The fiery exchange happened during an appearance with Newsmax host Greg Kelly following Fox News Media’s announcement that it had “parted ways” with Bartiromo. Kelly began by asking Navarro whether he had violated Bartiromo’s confidence by forwarding a text message in which she reportedly expressed alarm over the network’s handling of a presidential address. Navarro flatly denied betraying her and said he had a responsibility to pass the message along.
“Absolutely not. The text was sent to me. It was my duty to forward on,” Navarro said. “And Maria Bartiromo was aghast at what the network was doing.” He said the dispute involved a rare prime-time address from Trump concerning alleged Chinese Communist Party efforts to hack more than 200 million voter files and interfere in an American election.
During the Newsmax interview, Navarro argued that viewers should stop thinking of Fox as a reliably conservative or pro-Trump network. “Suzanne Scott is the enforcer,” he told Kelly. “They’ll feed you some red meat over there. You know, the easy stuff. You know, the trans stuff, stuff like that. But when it comes down to MAGA things, Suzanne Scott gets rid of everybody over there who wants to talk about MAGA issues.”
Navarro pointed to the previous departures of Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson, arguing that both men ran into trouble after covering topics the network wanted avoided. He said removing major personalities sends a warning to the remaining anchors. “You fire people like Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, now Maria Bartiromo, that throws fear into all these other anchors and keep them in line,” Navarro said. “It’s like, don’t talk about kind of Trump stuff, right?”
Kelly pressed Navarro on what he did with Bartiromo’s message and who received it but Navarro refused to reveal those details, citing his previous imprisonment following his refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena connected to the January 6 investigation. He did, however, say Scott received a call and was told by the White House that the network’s conduct was unacceptable. “She didn’t accept that at all. She just went out and fired Maria Bartiromo, and that place is out of control,” he alleged.
Watch Navarro tear into Fox News leadership here:
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Navarro also accused Fox executives and producers of keeping pro-Trump issues out of the network’s programming. He named Fox Business senior vice president of programming Ralph Giordano as Scott’s “tip of her spear” and alleged that hosts are discouraged from covering January 6th defendants and other subjects important to Trump supporters. When Kelly asked why Fox would be hostile toward Trump, Navarro said the answer involved advertisers rather than a personal feud between Trump and Rupert Murdoch.
“It’s about the advertisers,” Navarro said. “The big advertisers are also terrifying. Don’t offend, basically, Big Pharma. Don’t offend the multinational corporations that ship over all of the jobs to China.” He argued that Fox’s business model requires the network to satisfy its audience while avoiding subjects that could antagonize major corporate sponsors, calling that the “buzzsaw” encountered by Dobbs and Carlson.
Navarro said he’d spoken with Bartiromo since her departure and described her as “fine” but unhappy with how she’d been treated. Kelly asked whether a private company’s decision to restrict certain coverage technically qualifies as censorship. Navarro responded, “When your brand is fair and balanced, and you’re supposed to report prime-time news, president in the Oval Office national address, you bet your ass it’s censorship, and it’s retaliation on Maria Bartiromo. Full stop.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.