Longtime conservative commentator Lou Dobbs has died at age 78, former President Donald Trump announced on social media Thursday.
“The Great Lou Dobbs has just passed away — A friend, and truly incredible journalist, reporter, and talent,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He understood the world, and what was ‘happening,’ better than others.”
Trump praised Dobbs as “unique in so many ways” and sent his condolences to the TV personality’s wife, Debi, and the Dobbs family.
“He will be greatly missed!” Trump wrote.
A short time later, an Instagram page tied to Dobbs confirmed the broadcaster’s death.
“It’s with a heavy heart we announce the passing of ‘The Great Lou Dobbs,’” the message read, remembering him as a “patriot and a great American” and “a fighter till the very end.”
A cause of death was not reported.
The former president’s Truth Social post appeared to be the first announcement of the death of Dobbs, who spent more than 20 years at CNN and a decade at the Fox Business Network.
Dobbs was a loyal Trump supporter known to promote conspiracy theories. His tenure with the Fox family ended in 2021 when “Lou Dobbs Tonight” was canceled in the throes of two defamation lawsuits filed by voting technologies companies against Fox News, which also named Dobbs.
CNN sources indicated at the time the lawsuits from Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, the latter of which settled with Fox for $787.5 million, weren’t solely to blame for Dobbs’ severance from the right-wing media operation.
Dobbs, a Texas native who attended Harvard University, was with CNN at the cable news channel’s inception in 1980.
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award in 2005.
