Lou Dobbs, Fox Trump Booster and Obama Birther, Dead at 78

Longtime conservative political commentator and Fox News host Lou Dobbs has died, former president Donald Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“The Great Lou Dobbs has just passed away—A friend, and truly incredible Journalist, Reporter, and Talent,” Trump wrote. “He understood the World, and what was “happening,” better than others. Lou was unique in so many ways, and loved our Country. Our warmest condolences to his wonderful wife, Debi, and family. He will be greatly missed!”

Dobbs was a prominent supporter of Trump’s conservative policies and his “ unofficial policy whisperer ,” while he served in the White House with unbridled access to the former president in ways most journalists couldn’t fathom.

Fox News parted with the host in 2021, 24 hours after Dobbs and the broadcasting company were named in a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit for peddling false claims about the 2020 presidential election. He eventually began hosting The Great American Show on iHeartRadio, though he hadn’t appeared in several weeks, according to The New York Times.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Lou Dobbs,” a Fox News statement released Thursday said. “An incredible business mind with a gift for broadcasting, Lou helped pioneer cable news into a successful and influential industry. We are immensely grateful for his many contributions and send our heartfelt condolences to his family.”

Dobbs’ family confirmed his death in a message on X on Thursday, asking supporters to pray for his wife, Debi, and their children and grandchildren.

“Lou was a fighter til the very end—fighting for what mattered to him the most, God, his family and the country,” the family wrote. “Lou’s legacy will forever live on as a patriot and a great American.”

Dobbs was born in Childress County, Texas, in 1945, the second son of a father who worked in a propane business and a bookkeeper mother. After the propane business collapsed, Dobbs and his family moved to Rupert, Idaho, according to a 2007 New Yorker profile . His teachers urged him to apply to Harvard, where he graduated in 1967 with an economics degree.

He then worked in federal anti-poverty programs in Boston and Washington, D.C, before moving to Los Angeles to work at Union Bank. After chatting with friends who were journalists, however, Dobbs decided to make a pivot. He uprooted his family to take a job as a police and fire reporter for a local television station in Yuma, Arizona. “I found what I really loved to do,” he told the magazine. (Dobbs had four children, two sons with his first wife and two twin daughters with his second, former CNN anchor Debi Lee Segura, according to the New Yorker profile.)

Dobbs shuffled to stations in Phoenix and Arizona before he was recruited to join CNN. At the behest of founder Ted Turner, Dobbs helped launch the network in 1980, spearheading its financial news with CNNfn and Moneyline. He also became an executive at the network, a testament to how helpful his hand was in creating the 24/7 cable news titan.

The first chapter of his CNN career came to an abrupt end in 1999 after Dobbs ordered a crew to cut away from then-President Bill Clinton’s speech following the Columbine High School shooting. After CNN President Rick Kaplan ordered Dobbs to return to the speech, Dobbs blasted him on air. Within days, Dobbs was ousted from the network.

After two years away with a brief interlude at space.com , Dobbs returned to the network at Turner’s urging. Moneyline relaunched, and Dobbs regained additional control over some of CNN’s editorial operations.

It was then that Dobbs’ public political views began to shift. He often made false claims about undocumented immigrants, including that “illegal aliens” made up a third of the U.S.’ total prison population, a statement he later retracted. After years of more public pronouncements disparaging undocumented immigrants—and continuing to feed into birtherism hysteria that questioned whether former President Barack Obama was a natural-born citizen—Dobbs left CNN.

What finally ended his time at the network was a plan to change CNN's code of standards to prohibit anchors from expressing opinions on air, according to The Washington Post. Once Dobbs was presented with the new standard, he negotiated his exit.

Dobbs joined Fox Business Network in 2010, where he continued to make specious claims about birtherism and undocumented immigrants. It was through his punditry that he caught the eye of Trump, who led the movement questioning where Obama was born.

His comments regarding undocumented immigrants slapped him in the face, however, when The Nation reported in 2010 that undocumented immigrants worked on many of Dobbs’ properties, including a 300-acre horse farm in New Jersey. The work included maintaining the horses his daughter, award-winning horse jumper Hillary Dobbs, rode, according to the magazine’s yearlong investigation titled “Lou Dobbs, American Hypocrite.” Dobbs assailed the piece as a hit job, though he told a radio network it was not his responsibility to check the citizenship status of people who work for him.

Also in 2010, Dobbs played himself in an episode of The Good Wife , telling the Wall Street Journal , “When I walked on set all I could think was, ‘Oh my God, where has my hubris taken me this time?’”

Trump often listened to what Dobbs had to say, entertaining the anchor’s thoughts throughout his first term as president. Trump would often tout Dobbs’ show on Twitter, and he told the Post in 2019 that Dobbs served as a reliable messenger for his message.

“I think he respects what I’m doing, and I respect the job he does,” Trump said. “He really gets the word out. There’s no question about it.”

In 2020 Dobbs repeated the president’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. He condemned Republicans for not helping the president claim “what is rightfully his.” Dobbs eventually ran a fact-check on his show debunking many of the false claims he himself made on the air, though that didn’t stop him from expressing his frustration that no claims of election fraud materialized.

“We’re eight weeks from the election, and we still don’t have verifiable, tangible support for the crimes that everyone knows were committed—that is, defrauding other citizens who voted with fraudulent votes,” Dobbs said in January 2021. “We know that’s the case in Nevada, we know it’s the case in Pennsylvania and a number of other states, but we have had a devil of a time finding actual proof. Why?”

Dobbs’ cable news career ended a month later, after voting software company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and three of its hosts, including Dobbs. The network announced the following day it had parted ways with the host and canceled his show, though it claimed the separation was solely due to “planned” programming changes.

Dobbs eventually reemerged nine months later as the host of a new podcast and radio show, The Great America Show, that centered on the Superman themes of “truth, justice, and the American way,” he noted in his announcement . On the show, he hosted the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), and Trump. He continued working on the show through to his death.

Dobbs’ close kinship with the former president only made the announcement of his death by Trump more fitting, coming from the man who elevated the cable news anchor’s ideas from television to the West Wing.

Earlier this month, Dobbs interviewed Trump for Lindell TV, the platform created by MyPillow creator and Trump ally Mike Lindell.

“You are the perfect leader for the times,” Dobbs told Trump. “And your leadership is critical to the survival of the Republic itself.”

“I don’t think you know how important a voice you are. You are an important voice, Lou,” Trump later told the host. “And keep it going.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

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