Newsmax host Rob Finnerty on Monday morning needled Fox News Media for canceling Lou Dobbs’ top-rated FBN show last week, claiming Dobbs was dumped merely for supporting Trump and seemingly suggesting the network instead fire its most famous news anchor.
Over the past few months, Newsmax had witnessed an exponential rise in its viewership—although their ratings have fallen precipitously recently—as it has offered itself to disgruntled MAGA supporters as a more ardently pro-Trump alternative to Fox News. Following former President Donald Trump’s decisive election loss, Newsmax refused to acknowledge Joe Biden as president-elect for weeks while amplifying Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was “stolen,” potentially landing the fledgling channel in legal hot water.
Last Friday, meanwhile, news broke that Dobbs had suddenly been canceled and that the host would no longer appear on any Fox programming. While Dobbs’ cancellation came just a day after voting software company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News and Dobbs, among others, the network insisted that the move was part of programming decisions that had been put in motion months prior.
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Finnerty, in a blatant play for angry Fox viewers upset with the canning of one of Fox’s most loyal Trump sycophants, devoted an entire segment to blasting the network over the firing, while also taking aim at one of MAGA world’s least-favorite Fox personalities.
“If you haven't already noticed, which I'm sure that many of you have, Fox News is just not the old Fox News that it once was,” Finnerty said on his morning show, Wake Up America, as first flagged by Media Matters. “The latest example is Lou Dobbs. Get this: The highest-rated host on Fox Business suddenly had his show canceled on Friday after 10 years.”
“To many, Dobbs was the face of Fox Business,” he added. “The problem, well, Lou Dobbs is a Trump supporter. And oh, he’s even a friend of President Trump’s. But Fox has made several rash decisions lately.”
After snarking about Fox’s recent ratings woes, Finnerty then turned his attention to Wallace, grumbling that the newsman still works at the network even though he “actually said that Joe Biden’s inaugural address was the best he's ever heard.”
“[This] might be a good indication of where Fox News is heading,” Finnerty sneered.
The Newsmax host went on to grouse over Wallace’s recent interview with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), which featured the anchor repeatedly poking holes in the senator’s claim that Trump cannot be impeached for inciting an insurrection.
“I thought I was watching Brian Stelter on CNN,” Finnerty exclaimed. “That is Fox News Sunday. That is Chris Wallace. Sounds like Wallace is working for the wrong network right now.”
He concluded by saying Fox wants to “compete with the mainstream liberal media like CNN and MSNBC” and that is the reason “why Dobbs is now gone and the left-leaning Wallace is there to stay.”
While Newsmax continues to try to hit Fox News from the right in an attempt to snag conservative cable viewers, they’ve also found themselves being attacked by an even further right-wing competitor.
After Newsmax anchor Bob Sellers literally walked out of an interview with Mike Lindell when the MyPillow CEO wouldn’t stop peddling election lies—issuing a groveling apology to Lindell a day later—One America News accused the network of “being swept up by leftist censorship” while sympathizing with Lindell. (OAN would later air Lindell's election fraud “docu-movie” pushing Lindell’s debunked voting machine claims—placing themselves in even further legal peril with voting software companies Smartmatic and Dominion.)
