Fox News has put Larry Kudlow in the temporary chair on “Sunday Morning Futures” after Maria Bartiromo’s abrupt exit, with a permanent host still to be named later.
USA TODAY reported that Fox News announced on Sept. 25 that Kudlow will host the weekend program starting Sept. 27 and continuing through Nov. 8, the weekend after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The network said a permanent host will be chosen at a later date. Kudlow’s first interim episode features an interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent airing Sept. 27.
The move fills a high-profile slot left open when Fox News Media parted ways with Bartiromo earlier this month after more than 12 years. The network offered no detailed public explanation and framed the split as a business matter while thanking her for her work.
Kudlow already anchors the market-close program “Kudlow” on Fox Business Network, which he joined in 2021. Fox cast the interim assignment as a natural extension of that work.
In its announcement, the network said, “Throughout his tenure with the network, he has interviewed key politicians, business leaders and administration officials including President Donald Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson, among others.”
Fox also noted that he “has also provided economic and political commentary across FOX News Media platforms.”
That record stretches well beyond cable. Kudlow served as director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy from 2018 to 2021 during President Donald Trump’s first term. Under President Reagan, he worked as associate director for economics and planning at the Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to 1985. He later held senior roles at Bear Stearns long before the firm’s 2008 collapse, and he previously appeared on CNBC as a senior contributor and host, including “The Kudlow Report.”
Putting a known free-market voice in the chair through the midterms keeps the program’s economic and political lane intact while Fox decides on a lasting replacement, another in a series of on-air lineup changes at Fox News filling prominent vacancies.
Fox News Media announced on Sept. 3 that it had parted ways with Bartiromo after more than a dozen years at the network. She had hosted “Sunday Morning Futures,” along with “Mornings with Maria” and “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street,” after joining Fox in 2014 following two decades at CNBC.
The network did not spell out a specific cause beyond describing the departure as a business matter. That silence quickly fueled competing accounts of how the relationship ended, including coverage of the high-profile Bartiromo exit that drew intense attention.
Bartiromo’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, pushed back hard the next day. In a Sept. 4 statement shared with USA TODAY, he rejected reports that she had been fired.
Freedman said, “Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise.”
That warning left open the possibility of a legal fight even as Fox moved ahead with an interim host. The dispute over how the exit should be labeled remains unresolved in the public record Fox has released.
Related reporting on how Bartiromo’s lawyer disputed the firing narrative underscored the same point: the network’s “business matter” phrasing and the attorney’s denial do not line up cleanly.
On Sept. 10, Bartiromo posted on Instagram to thank supporters. She wrote, “I love you all and I promise to be back soon [with] my next moves.”
The message did not address the network’s account or her lawyer’s threat of evidence and witnesses. It did signal that she intends to stay in the public arena rather than exit television for good.
Fox, for its part, has already locked in the short-term plan. Kudlow runs the show from Sept. 27 through Nov. 8. After that, the network says it will name a permanent host. No further guest slate beyond the Bessent interview was detailed in the announcement.
Personnel fights inside major cable newsrooms rarely stay tidy, and Fox has faced other internal controversies in recent years, including claims from former employees over COVID vaccine mandates that clashed with on-air messaging. The Bartiromo matter adds another unresolved chapter.
The timing is deliberate. Kudlow’s temporary stretch covers the final weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections and ends on the weekend that follows. Sunday morning remains one of the main venues where administration officials, congressional leaders, and business figures face extended questioning on spending, growth, and regulation.
Fox’s own description of Kudlow’s interview list, Trump, Bessent, Musk, and Speaker Mike Johnson among them, shows why the network reached for an in-house economic heavyweight rather than a blank-slate fill-in. Viewers who tuned in for markets and policy still get a host who has worked those beats in government and on air.
What remains unsettled is the larger picture around Bartiromo’s departure. Fox has not supplied a fuller public rationale. Her attorney says evidence and witnesses exist and may surface in court or elsewhere. She says she will return with new plans. Kudlow holds the chair in the meantime.
When a top network quietly calls a star exit a “business matter,” then slots a Trump-era economic adviser through Election Day, viewers are entitled to plain facts, and to notice what still has not been explained.