Ex-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields’ future as a Fox News guest is unclear after she accused a top Donald Trump aide of manhandling her following a campaign event last week.
The Daily Beast reported Thursday that a producer for Eric Bolling’s weekly Saturday show “Cashin’ In” called to tell Fields she was done appearing as a guest, citing anonymous sources. Politico also reported in a Thursday night email blast that Fields was “bumped” from the Fox show, although the live version of its story no longer uses that language.
But Fox News said Friday there was no discussion about booting Fields from the show over the controversy. Fields “mutually agreed” to assess her role week by week with a producer, a Fox spokesperson said in a statement provided to TPM.
“There was never any discussion or directive to remove Michelle Fields from the program and certainly not by Eric Bolling,” according to the statement. “The only recent conversation about her appearances on Cashin’ In was with a show producer Wednesday night and they mutually agreed to take her role as a guest panelist on a week to week basis.”
The Fox senior producer on that call, John Huber, told Adweek he reached out to Fields on Wednesday to see how she was feeling as the story continued to dominate media news.
“Since we were talking about candidates in segments, Trump would come up, so obviously, she would have to comment on it. She felt, with everybody twisting her words, she would like to lay low for a while, and we both agreed that for her personally it was good,” Huber said.
Fields won’t appear on “Cashin’ In” Saturday morning, according to Adweek, but Bolling will acknowledge her absence and tell viewers to look forward to her return.
Fields was a paid contributor to the network until last year, when she became a weekly guest on “Cashin’ In.” She did not respond to TPM requests for comment Friday afternoon.
Fields has scrubbed any mention of the show from her public Twitter profile. Until Thursday, her page featured a massive background image promoting #CashinIn and the Fox show’s day and time, according to snapshots captured by the internet archival service Wayback Machine.
Her bio now simply reads, “Always smiling, but sometimes arguing on your TV” with a blank teal background.
On Fox property “The Five,” the weekday program where Bolling also appears, he said March 11 if Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski did grab Fields, he owes her an apology.
She resigned her post at the conservative news site late last week, saying Breitbart didn’t stand by her after the incident.
In a 2014 BuzzFeed profile, Fields said her ultimate career ambition was to host her own TV show, “ideally” on Fox.
I think Michelle’s future started out as unclear —
And the great parade of ruin continues as Republicans eat their own.
I have to think she’ll have a place to sit tonight on Bill Maher’s show.
I’d feel bad about this, or something, but when you sleep with dogs… I was saying this before, but the lack of integrity and horrible practices that these “news” outlets have regularly practiced never bothered her or the other losers that fled Breitbart until that awfulness was turned on them. I guess wing-nut welfare is a fickle mistress…