Donald Trump’s supporters are vowing to turn away from Fox News after the network abruptly parted ways with longtime anchor Maria Bartiromo last week.
Over the weekend, MAGA-aligned users flooded social media with anger and speculation over Bartiromo’s unexpected departure.
The high-profile exit has quickly become a flashpoint online, with senior Trump adviser Peter Navarro suggesting Friday that censorship concerns and Bartiromo’s connections to the administration may have factored into the decision.
Some critics focused their frustration on former congressman and Trump critic Paul Ryan, who sits on the Fox Corporation board. Others pointed more broadly to the Rupert Murdoch-owned network’s recent coverage of the president, arguing it has taken on a sharper, more critical edge.
‘Blame Paul Ryan,’ MAGA influencer Gunther Eagleman announced Monday to his nearly 2 million X followers. ‘The boardroom donor-class Republicans have spent years sanding the edge off Fox, and viewers keep paying the price.’
‘If the network keeps sidelining voices who tell the truth about Trump, it should not act shocked when the audience walks.’
The post included a still from Trump’s Truth Social account, showing the commander-in-chief resharing a report late Sunday that repeated Navarro’s claims to Puck. Navarro said Bartiromo had sent him a screenshot last July of a text message she received from a Fox executive.
That message reportedly instructed Bartiromo and others to steer clear of Trump’s election-related speech that month. Her decision to forward it to Navarro ultimately forced Fox’s hand, Status reported Thursday.
Fox News cut ties with longtime anchor Maria Bartiromo last Thursday, prompting swift reaction from reporters and across the internet
‘Blame Paul Ryan,’ MAGA influencer Gunther Eagleman announced Monday to his nearly 2million X followers, pointing to the former Congressman-turned-Trump critic’s place on Fox’s board of directors and a Sunday post from Donald Trump on Truth Social
Eagleman’s post was re-shared by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, and echoed by several other popular conservatives.
A user with the handle @PatriotWoman22, for instance, pointed out how Ryan ‘runs the board of directors’ at Fox.
‘Just like they shut up Tucker [Carlson] before the [2024] presidential election when they held him to his contract but would not let him on TV, they’re doing the same to Maria Bartiromo,’ she wrote.
‘If you haven’t canceled Fox news yet, you should.’
Fellow influencer Pamela Hensley expressed similar sentiments.
‘Fox didn’t fire Maria Bartiromo. They pulled her off the air and will keep paying her through 2029, silencing her until after the 2028 election. Paul Ryan strikes again,’ they wrote.
Both posts referenced a portion of the JusttheNews.com report that the president re-shared. The report contrasted with Fox News Media’s official statement Thursday asserting Bartiromo ‘is no longer with Fox News.’
Our News Outlet approached the network – one of the few to air Trump’s election speech – for comment. Ryan, a former Speaker of the House and vice presidential candidate, joined the board of directors of Fox Corporation in March 2019. He retired from Congress that year.
Several MAGA-aligned accounts fumed at the decision to let Bartiromo go
In years since, Ryan has surfaced as one of Trump’s fiercest critics, after two years of cooperating with the president during his first term as a high-ranking member of Congress.
‘Trump’s not a conservative,’ Ryan said at a virtual event for CEOs in 2023. ‘He’s a populist, authoritarian narcissist.’
A few months earlier, he revealed his approach to Trump while still in Congress.
‘We needed to make it work,’ he told The New York Times Magazine.
‘Did I think he was going to improve and grow in the job? Yeah. He didn’t. It was after I left when he really went off the rails. He was getting rid of the people who were telling him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear.’
A source familiar with the details of Bartiromo’s exit told Our News Outlet it was Fox’s decision.
Bartiromo had been missing from Fox’s airwaves for weeks beforehand, last appearing on Sunday Morning Futures on August 9.
At the time of her exit, Bartiromo had been the last remaining defendant at Fox News Media in a lawsuit from electronic voting system Smartmatic alleging hosts peddled Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims.
A similar suit led to a huge settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in 2023.
Paul Ryan – a former Speaker of the House and vice presidential candidate – joined the board of directors of Fox Corporation in March 2019. He retired from Congress that year, after keeping relatively quiet about Trump during the president’s first term. He is now an outspoken critic
Court documents from that suit revealed how Bartiromo took in $70 million since joining Fox from CNBC in 2014.
Bartiromo’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, framed reports suggesting Bartiromo was no longer with Fox as ‘irresponsible’ and ‘absolutely and unequivocally false’ in a statement to Our News Outlet on Friday.
‘Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise.
‘Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth.’
