As reported by multiple news outlets, Fox News has canceled “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” While the cancellation appeared to be abrupt, Fox said in a statement it was “part of planned changes” under consideration since at least October.

“As we said in October, Fox News Media regularly considers programming changes and plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate post-election, including on Fox Business,” the representative said in a statement. “This is part of those planned changes. A new 5 p.m. program will be announced in the near future.”

Here’s a bit of background, via The LA Times:

Dobbs, who was signed to Fox News by its former chief executive Roger Ailes in 2011, has long been the company’s most outspoken supporter of Trump’s economic and immigration policies.

In the weeks after the election, he expressed anger on his program that the Republican party did not do more to act on the former president’s claims that the election was rigged in favor of Biden.

Dobbs also gave free rein to Trump lawyers Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell to push conspiracy theories about the election that were either rejected or never presented in court. Giuliani and Powell also are defendants in the Smartmatic defamation suit.

As reported by The New York Times on Thursday, Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion suit against Fox News, accusing the network of “promoting a false narrative about the 2020 election that damaged the company.”

The suit pits Smartmatic, which provided election technology in one county, against[…] three Fox anchors; Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, all ardent supporters of the former president. […]

In addition to Mr. Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, Fox News and the three star anchors, it targets Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, lawyers who made the case for election fraud as frequent guests on Fox programs while representing President Trump.

As the LA Times reported, Dobbs told Powell on his Nov. 30 show he believed Trump needed to take “drastic action…”

“[The president needs to take] dramatic action to make certain that the integrity of this election is understood or lack of it, the crimes that have been committed against him and the American people.

“And if the Justice Department doesn’t want to do it, if the FBI cannot do it, then we have to find other resources within the federal government.”

Next week, Fox Business will begin airing “Fox Business Tonight” in the interim. It will be hosted by Jackie DeAngelis on Monday and Tuesday, and David Asman Wednesday through Friday. And Lou? What’s the over/under on Newsmax TV?