Wallace made the stunning announcement at the end of “Fox News Sunday,” the channel’s flagship weekly program he has hosted since 2003.
“After 18 years, this is my last ‘Fox News Sunday’. This is the last time, and I say it with real sadness, we will meet like this,” Wallace said.
Wallace described his time on Fox News as a “great ride.” He said that after nearly two decades he was “ready for a new adventure” and wanted to “try something new to go beyond politics to whatever interests me”.
Shortly after its announcement on Fox, CNN announced that Wallace would join CNN +, the news agency’s streaming product launched in early 2022.
“I’m excited to join CNN +. After decades of broadcast and cable news, I’m excited to explore the world of streaming. I look forward to the new freedom and flexibility that streaming offers by interviewing major personalities. the information landscape – and finding new ways to tell stories, ”Wallace said in a statement. “As I embark on this adventure, I am honored and thrilled to join Jeff Zucker and his great team. I can’t wait to get started.”
Fox News said it would run “Fox News Sunday” presenters until a permanent host is appointed.
Fox touted the renewal of Wallace’s “long-term contract” in September 2017. That contract expired this year and Wallace decided he didn’t want to renew it, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Wallace is known for his harsh, but fair, interrogation of Democratic and Republican politicians. His reputation for grilling members of both parties has made him highly respected in journalistic circles, but has often angered Fox News audiences who have shown immense loyalty to former President Donald Trump. This was especially true when Wallace called Trump directly, especially when he said the former president “has engaged in the most direct and sustained attack in our history on the free press.”
In recent years, Fox News, which has always leaned to the right, has evolved into a hyper-partisan, right-wing chat network that regularly defends conspiracy theories on a wide variety of topics. Even many of the network’s so-called “direct” presenters have abandoned any pretense of impartiality.
Fox News lead host Tucker Carlson has drawn extraordinary criticism for producing an entertaining special on the misconception that the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill was a federally-orchestrated “false flag”. Carlson also trafficked anti-vaccine rhetoric and pushed the racist “Big Replacement” conspiracy theory on his show.
This is a developing story and will be updated.