Lou Dobbs, conservative political commentator and former host of Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN and Fox Business Network, has died. He was 78.
“Lou was a fighter till the very end — fighting for what mattered to him the most, God, his family and the country,” said a statement on his X account.
Dobbs was one of the staunchest on-air defenders of former President Donald Trump, who announced his death on 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 fixture personality in business news, stretching back to the earliest days of CNN, before he eventually landed at the Fox Business Network. It was there that his hosting and commentary became increasingly political, particularly during Trump’s presidency, when he was one of his staunchest on-air defenders.
But his career at the network came to an end in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, as Dobbs advanced conspiracy theories of ballot rigging. On Feb. 5, 2021, Fox canceled Dobbs’ show, the day after election systems company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against the network.
The lawsuit, which still has not gone to trial, claimed that Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Judge Jeanine Pirro, along with guests Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, spread falsehoods that the company was involved in doctoring the results of the election.
Dobbs later moved to host The Great America Show on iHeartRadio.
He was at CNN from its start in 1980, specializing in business reporting, as a reporter and a network vice president. He served as host and managing editor of Moneyline, which premiered in the same year.
He resigned from CNN in 1999 and rejoined the network in 2001, then resigned for a time in 2009. He hosted Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox Business Network from 2011 to 2021.
During his career, he drew much greater attention as he began adding commentary to his telecasts, particularly about illegal immigration, something that reportedly led to clashes with network executives. Dobbs elevated a conspiracy theory that then-President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, giving voice to “birtherism” on a mainstream news outlet. After he departed CNN, he defended spotlighting the story, telling Esquire, “I ask a question, and I am attacked from the extreme left as a quote-unquote birther. I mean, what the hell is that? When you can create a controversy by asking what seems to me still a perfectly common sense question?”
A spokesperson for Fox News said in a statement posted on FoxNews.com, “We are deeply saddened by the passing of Lou Dobbs. 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’ amplification of conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential election also made him one of the central figures in another lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems. In one tweet that Dominion cited, Dobbs wrote that “The 2020 Election is a cyber Pearl Harbor: The leftwing establishment have aligned their forces to overthrow the United States government #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs.” He linked to a document that made a number of false claims about Dominion and Smartmatic. Dobbs was scheduled to be called during the trial, but Fox settled the suit for $787.5 million.
Fox had maintained that Dobbs was expressing his opinion, protected by the First Amendment, and Dobbs’ attorneys maintained that he had informed viewers of Smartmatic’s denials of the allegations and “often asked his guests if they could substantiate their claims.”
Dobbs was born on Sept. 24, 1945 in Childress, Texas, but his family moved to Rupert. His father worked for a propane business and his mother was a bookkeeper. From a young age, Dobbs made money during the summer by working in potato fields, and he and a group of friends later created a hay-hauling business. He got a scholarship to Harvard, and it was there that he gained an interest in economics and politics, according to a biography he did for the Horatio Alger Association, which honored him in 1999.
Dobbs recalled to the organization that he attended a debate at MIT between economists Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman, and “for the first time, I had a sense of the relationship between economics and politics. That night I understood the relationship between capitalism and democracy in terms that I carry with me to this day.”
After graduation, he held a number of jobs, including projects with the Department of Labor to help unemployed workers, and later took a job with Union Bank in Los Angeles. But he decided to break from that career path to become a reporter, first in Yuma, AZ, and later in Phoenix, where he was a news anchor. He eventually landed in Seattle as an anchor and business reporter.
He joined CNN at its launch in 1980, and helped pioneer business journalism on television. His show Moneyline was rebranded as Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN, as it increasingly provided commentary on economics and politics. Among other honors, he received the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the 1987 stock market crash.
DEADLINE RELATED VIDEO