Maria Bartiromo is no longer with Fox News Media, the network confirmed Thursday, ending a 12 and a half year run that made her one of the most recognizable faces in conservative business and political television. Her exit, described by a Fox representative as effective immediately, comes weeks after she quietly stopped appearing on air, with no public explanation at the time.
Bartiromo had not appeared on any Fox News Media broadcast since August 9, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported her departure. A Fox representative did not provide a reason for her exit but said the network thanked her for her work and wished her well. As The Guardian notes, her nearly month-long absence went largely unnoticed by viewers at first, since cable anchors often take time off in August.
A Sudden End to Two Signature Shows
Bartiromo hosted both Mornings with Maria on Fox Business and Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News, the latter of which regularly drew between 1.7 million and 2 million total viewers during the first part of 2026, making it the highest-rated Sunday show on cable news, per The Daily Signal. Sunday Morning Futures will continue with fill-in hosts until a permanent replacement is named. Mornings with Maria was rebranded Mornings with Fox Business beginning Friday, and Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street became FBN's Wall Street, with Cheryl Casone and Jason Chaffetz named as initial fill-in hosts, according to NewscastStudio.
The abrupt scrubbing of her name from two marquee programs left more than 16 weekly broadcast hours to be filled without a permanent host lined up. Fox has not said when replacements for either slot will be announced.
A Legal Cloud Fox Has Tried to Shed Before
Bartiromo's exit lands amid continued fallout from Fox's coverage of Donald Trump's false 2020 voter-fraud claims, which already cost the network a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. Smartmatic, a separate voting technology company, filed its own $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation, Fox News and individual hosts including Bartiromo in February 2021, a case that remains in active pre-trial proceedings after Fox failed multiple times to get it dismissed, according to reporting on Medium. Notably, Smartmatic's technology was used in only one U.S. jurisdiction during the 2020 election, Los Angeles County, and was never deployed in any of the battleground states where fraud allegations aired on Bartiromo's shows.
Internal messages disclosed during court discovery showed that in November 2020, Bartiromo told a producer that the story Trump supporters wanted most was stop the steal and pushed for Fox to cover it, though she has testified in depositions that she did not know the fraud claims were false, The Guardian reported. Those messages became central evidence in both the Dominion and Smartmatic defamation suits. Fox's pattern of severing ties with hosts entangled in that litigation is not new: the network canceled Lou Dobbs' program in February 2021 immediately after Smartmatic named him and Fox in its suit, even though Dobbs was hosting Fox Business's highest-rated show at the time, as the Los Angeles Times has reported.
A Recent On-Air Apology Preceded Her Exit
Just weeks before she vanished from the airwaves, Bartiromo delivered a 45-second on-air correction and apology on Mornings with Maria after guest Kevin O'Leary falsely claimed that opponents of his proposed Utah data center were funded by the Chinese government. Fox News Media issued corrections across four different shows over O'Leary's unsubstantiated remarks, according to Media Matters.
Bartiromo's departure quickly fueled online speculation that she might be headed for a White House role, potentially replacing Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, whose position the administration is reportedly working to fill. Reporting from Mediaite confirmed she is not leaving for a job in the administration. Bartiromo had maintained close access to Donald Trump, whom she has long supported, and attended his 2025 inauguration dinner.
From Money Honey to Political Lightning Rod
Bartiromo's career began far from the political battles that eventually defined her later years at Fox. She spent 20 years at CNBC, where in 1995 she became the first journalist to report live daily from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, earning her the nickname Money Honey; she was also the first woman to report from the exchange floor. Roger Ailes, of whom she was a protege, recruited her to Fox Business Network in 2013, and she joined Fox News the following year. Rupert Murdoch was reportedly a favorite of hers throughout her tenure.
That legacy as a financial-news pioneer gave way to her role as a major supporter of Donald Trump and a prominent voice amplifying his false 2020 voter-fraud accusations, a shift that made her both a ratings powerhouse and, in more recent years, a recurring legal headache for Fox. Hoodline previously covered Bartiromo touring West Texas energy sites with a congressman for Fox reporting, a reminder of the wide reach her programs carried right up until her sudden exit.
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