(WND)—In the wake of the mysterious disappearance of Maria Bartiromo off Fox News airwaves, Peter Navarro, the White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, is exposing the network and its CEO Suzanne Scott as anything but friendly toward President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda.
Appearing with Greg Kelly on Newsmax Tuesday night, Navarro said: “The bigger story here, Greg, is forget about anybody thinking that Fox is a conservative network that’s friendly to MAGA, that’s friendly to Trump.
“Suzanne Scott is the enforcer. 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.”
“You fire people like Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, now Maria Bartiromo. That throws fear into all these other anchors and keep them in line. It’s like, don’t talk about kind of Trump stuff.”
“What the producers are told by Suzanne Scott, who’s the CEO at Fox, is, when you craft your segments … you don’t do these MAGA issues. You don’t do pro-Trump stuff.”
As WorldNetDaily reported, Dylan Byers at Puck News explained Bartiromo’s ouster centered on her planned coverage of Trump’s July 16 address focusing on election integrity and his doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential race.
“As it turned out, Bartiromo had been planning to cover Trump’s speech on her show, according to sources familiar with her plans,” Byers wrote. “She had also planned to book Peter Navarro, a senior counselor to Trump who has aggressively pushed the voter fraud narrative, to talk about the president’s remarks and the administration’s broader concerns over election integrity.
“In an interview on Friday, Navarro told me that when Bartiromo received [Fox Business Senior Vice President of Programming Ralph] Giordano’s guidance, she took a screenshot and forwarded it to him to tell him that management was not letting her cover the speech—or, in his words, ‘censoring’ it. Navarro subsequently passed that information ‘up the chain,’ he said, informing senior administration officials of the guidance. One high-ranking White House official, whom Navarro declined to identify, reached out to Fox News leadership to express their frustration with the decision. …
“Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace were angered by Bartiromo’s decision to share internal guidance with the administration. Nevertheless, Bartiromo continued to host her various shows for several weeks, up until her Fox Business broadcast on August 7, and her Fox News broadcast on August 9. Shortly thereafter, according to sources with knowledge of the timeline, Bartiromo was informed that the company would end her shows and she would not return to air, even for a signoff. Officially, Bartiromo remains under contract and is entitled to payment until 2028.”
In a Washington Times column, Navarro disclosed the actual text message stated: “Hi – We don’t want to promote it or push to the speech at all. We dont want to do 2020 election segments at all Thurs or Friday.”
“This is like unbelievable,” Navarro told Kelly. “You got a primetime address by the president of the United States. Those are very rare. And it’s about the Chinese Communist Party basically hacking into more than 200 million voter files and doing other things to interfere in our election. … And Suzanne Scott over at the mothership at Fox didn’t want to have anything to do with that.”
When asked with whom he shared Bartiromo’s text, Navarro refused to specify.
“I’m not going to get into the details. Remember, I went to prison, Greg, for not violating executive privilege. But suffice it to say that Suzanne Scott got a call and basically the White House let her know that that kind of thing is totally unacceptable. She didn’t accept that at all. She just went out and fired Maria Bartiromo. And that place is out of control.”
Bartiromo’s attorney Bryan Freedman denied the journalist was fired, saying on Friday: “The irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false.
“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.”
“Fox is RINO,” stressed Navarro. “When your brand is fair and balanced and you’re supposed to report prime-time news, the president in the Oval for a national address, you bet your a** it’s censorship and it’s retaliation on Maria Bartiromo. Full stop.”
Navarro said he has spoken to Bartiromo since her removal from the air.
“She’s fine. She’s not happy,” he indicated. “She’s not being treated fairly and nobody at Fox is sticking up for her.”
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