Ed Butowsky, the Dallas wealth manager and frequent Fox News guest who facilitated a private investigation into the murder of Seth Rich, is friends with and claimed on his website to serve on the board of an organization started by White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.



"I consider him a friend and a very nice man," Butowsky told BuzzFeed News of Bannon.

According to his website, Butowsky "serves as a Board Member for Reclaim New York, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to advancing a grassroots conversation about the future of New York." Per tax filings, Bannon was Reclaim's vice chairman. (The group's secretary and treasurer are Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer, the powerful daughters of right-wing moneyman and Trump champion Robert Mercer.)

A spokesperson for Reclaim told BuzzFeed that Butowsky "has never had any formal involvement with the organization." Furthermore, per the spokesperson, Steve Bannon left the organization's board in August 2016.

Butowsky and Bannon know each other through Breitbart News, of which Bannon was executive chairman and to which Butowsky has contributed articles. In 2015, Bannon interviewed Butowsky for a Breitbart radio program.



Both Butowsky and a White House official deny speaking about Seth Rich.

Over the past week the Rich story has captivated conservative media, following a Fox News report that linked the murder of the 27-year-old Democratic National Committee Staff member with email hacks of the DNC that may have helped then-candidate Trump in his campaign against Hillary Clinton. Such a finding would contradict the view, widely held in the intelligence community, that Russian intelligence was behind the theft — a key point for those who believe there was an improper relationship between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.



Fox's report — a conspiracy theory with no corroborating evidence — was based on an interview with a private investigator, Rod Wheeler, who Butowsky introduced to the Rich family and offered to pay for. (Fox News yesterday retracted its story.) The Rich-as-leaker narrative's rise is the clearest example yet of the way an insurgent pro-Trump media has been able to push dubious stories beneficial to the administration into the limelight.

And the news that their benefactor has ties to a key figure in the administration — and the godfather of the pro-Trump media — has left the Rich family stunned.

“The family is in shock to learn that Ed Butowsky is both friends with and served on a board with Steve Bannon," Brad Bauman, a spokesman for the Rich family, told BuzzFeed News Wednesday. "We are very much trying not to rush to judgment in order to allow this story to develop.”

Bannon declined to comment for the story.

Butowsky has long said that he heard about the Rich case from a friend, though he can't remember whom, and that he was motivated to connect the Rich family with Wheeler because he was moved by their story.

In an interview Tuesday outside Del Frisco's Steakhouse in Manhattan, where he was watching pigeons eat, Butowsky told BuzzFeed News that he had never discussed the Rich case with Bannon, and qualified their friendship as warm but not close.

"It's not like I have a Steve Bannon teddy bear," he said. "I've never eaten a meal with the guy."

A photograph on Butowsky's Facebook page shows him in the White House briefing room on March 22. Butowsky did not comment on the record why he was at the White House, but did clarify that he had not met with any White House officials.

Butowsky added that his association with Reclaim was distant and purely based on his wealth management expertise.

"Am I really on the board?" Butowsky asked when informed that his website claimed he was on the board. "I've never been to a board meeting."

Prior to his career as a wealth manager — his clients include a number of athletes and celebrities — Butowsky worked for nearly two decades at Morgan Stanley, where, according to his LinkedIn, he ran one of the highest earning teams at the firm.</s>On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.

We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.</s>MANHATTAN (CN) — In the sexual-harassment saga underway at Fox News, the lawsuit lobbed last month by ex-host Andrea Tantaros stood out as one of the more bizarre turns.

Accused by Tantaros of using a “highly complex and extremely high-tech” campaign to torment its enemies, Fox News called these allegations so outlandish that her lawyers should face sanctions and professional discipline.

“The allegations of the complaint read like the plot of a television drama: plaintiff Andrea Tantaros claims that her then-employer, Fox News Network … hacked her laptop computer, tapped her telephone, and then tortured her with the information gathered from those acts by sending her coded messages through a ‘sockpuppet’ social media account,” Andrew Levander, an attorney for Fox, wrote in a 25-page memorandum on Wednesday.

“But pleadings in federal court are not supposed to be works of fiction; they must be grounded in fact,” added Levander, a partner with the New York office of Dechert LLP. “The allegations in the complaint are not just false, they are outrageously and flagrantly so.”

Levander’s motion for sanctions comes exactly one month after Tantaros accused Fox News of conspiring with a social-media marketing company to engage in “digital character-assassination” that involved “criminal conduct,” a phrase that attorney Judd Burstein emphasized with bold letters in the complaint.

The 34-page filing accused Fox News of having used “illegal electronic surveillance and computer hacking” to obtain information that network-controlled fake accounts later used to “intimidate, terrorize, and crush [Tantaros’] career through an endless stream of lewd, offensive, and career-damaging social media posts, blog entries and commentary.”

But Fox News says the allegations crumble under the barest scrutiny, hinging on a Twitter account credited to Daniel Wayne Block.

“Mr. Block is a real person living in Gainesville, Florida, who maintains the account in his own name,” Fox’s memo states. “That fact could have been determined in minutes by looking at an online directory.”

Though the Block account was active for just four months in 2016, it posted 6,729 tweets in that short window. Patriotic memes and inspirational quotes account for the bulk of the messages, but photographs of Tantaros, sometimes multiple per day, also dot the timeline.

Tantaros saw a threat, however, even in the benign nature tweets: She claimed that the picture of a Colorado elk that Block posted in June was a veiled reference to a personal conversation she had with her mother about possibly relocating to Aspen.

“But Mr. Block tweeted many pictures of elk, including the exact same image with precisely the same message on May 22, 2016, a month before Tantaros’ alleged June 17 conversation,” Fox’s memo states.

Having deposed Block himself, Fox News claims that the failure of Tantaros’ lawyer to reach out to the former U.S. Airman is either negligence or malicious.

“It is clearly the outlet of a self-avowed fan, who tweeted publicity photos of Tantaros in which he chirped, ‘Good morning, have a great week!,’ or ‘Sweet dreams, ‘Sunshine,’” the memo states. “He also opined that Tantaros is ‘beautiful,’ his ‘favorite’ host on ‘Outnumbered,’ and that she ‘deserves a show of her own!’”

Burstein meanwhile has refused to back down. In a two-page statement picking apart supposed inconsistencies in Block’s testimony, the lawyer calls Fox’s memo its “smoking gun.”

“The real story here is that, in their effort to bully Ms. Tantaros by filing a frivolous sanctions motion, counsel for Fox News has demonstrated its guilt,” Burstein wrote, again in boldface text.

 “While I believe that Fox News’s counsel will be sanctioned for their negligence in submitting a perjurious declaration from Mr. Block, I thank them for doing so,” he added.

Fox News notes that Burstein has been sanctioned before for his aggressive litigation tactics.

Before he rose to his current position on the Second Circuit, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin slapped Burstein in 1999 for “Rambo lawyering,” saying the attorney had threatened to subject his opposing counsel with the “legal equivalent of a proctology exam” if he did not settle a case.

Burstein managed to overturn those sanctions, however, with the federal appeals court finding that Burstein was entitled “to warn the opposing party of his intention to assert colorable claims, as well as to speculate about the likely effect of those claims being brought.”

Depicting this as a case of history repeating itself, Fox News wants U.S. District Judge George Daniels to permanently dismiss Tantaros’ suit, award the network money damages, and refer the case to disciplinary authorities.

“Context matters too,” the network’s memo states. “Burstein’s history of grandstanding and threatening a ‘media event’ betray his true intention: to pressure Fox News to accede to Tantaros’ extortionate settlement demands. Burstein first threatened to take Tantaros’ claims to the media rather than the courts to squeeze Fox News. Then he unleashed the threatened media assault on Fox News and filed a legal action in contravention of his client’s obligation to arbitrate her claims in confidence.”

Fox News has seen its ratings plummet as it hemorrhages hosts like Bill O’Reilly amid a sexual-harassment scandal that put a black mark on the obituary of its CEO Roger Ailes, who died last week.

Burstein twisted the knife in a four-page letter responding to a May 2 warning from Fox’s Levander.

“I certainly hope for your sake that you do not have any daughters because, if they are anything like my daughter, they would be outraged at the way you put your own credibility on the line for people who have engaged in such reprehensible conduct towards women,” Burstein told Levander on Tuesday. “Indeed, on a day when my client has been receiving death threats in the wake of Roger Ailes’s son’s eulogy, your lack of perspective is all the more appalling.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity meanwhile has faced a different sort of pressure: losing an advertiser on Wednesday after using his platform to advance conspiracy theories about the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.

The announcement fell a day after Rich’s family pleaded for Hannity to stop insinuating – without evidence – that the Hillary Clinton campaign had Rich murdered for leaking information to WikiLeaks.</s>The Fox News Channel has retracted a week-old story based on a groundless conspiracy theory involving the death of a staffer for the Democratic National Committee, conceding it did not meet the network's standards.

The retracted May 16 online story claimed to report as fact that the late Seth Rich, a 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer, was actually the person who leaked tens of thousands of emails from the DNC to WikiLeaks and that his murder was tied to that action. Rich was fatally shot last July in what police have called a botched robbery and there is no evidence known publicly to suggest he did share those emails. The Rich family had publicly pleaded with Fox News and others to stop trading in such speculation absent facts.

"The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting," the Tuesday statement read. "Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards." The Fox News statement did not apologize or specify what went wrong or how it did so, and it did not bear the name of its author. But it promised to continue to investigate the story and provide updates.

Fox News' star host Sean Hannity, who had pushed the theory relentlessly, said on his radio show that he retracted nothing. He also tweeted the importance of finding out the truth. On television Tuesday night, Hannity said he would no longer talk about the story "out of respect for the family's wishes — for now."

Yet Hannity, a leading Donald Trump advocate and confidant, did not apologize or say the story was wrong. Instead, he pivoted to assailing the "destroy-Trump media [and] the Democrats."

The public disclosure of the content of those DNC emails threw Hillary Clinton's campaign into turmoil during the 2016 election and led to the resignation of the chairwoman of the DNC, though they did not contain any extraordinary revelations.

The embrace of the conspiracy theory around Rich's death by Hannity and others caused similar tumult at Fox News this month, revealing and deepening rifts between its journalists and the opinion side that propels its economic success, according to several people at the network.

The handling of the story also exposed the tentativeness of the network's leadership after the departure of prominent and longtime executives, including former chairman Roger Ailes and former co-president Bill Shine. Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls Fox's parent company, is acting as the network's CEO. (Ailes, who died May 18, had been accused of sexual harassment by many women and Shine had been accused of enabling or hiding his behavior. Both men denied those charges.)

A version of the Fox News' May 16 online story ran on the Fox local station in Washington, D.C., Fox 5, the night before. Journalists and executives within Fox watched with growing alarm as Hannity, the network's fixture at 10 p.m., repeatedly legitimized suspicion that Rich's death was linked to the DNC leaks.

The claim about Rich's death has also been embraced on the air by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Fox News contributor. As far back as August, Fox host Eric Bolling compared the story to something out of the Showtime spy thriller Homeland and called Rich's killing "a hit."

The May 16 FoxNews.com report claiming proof of Rich's involvement in the DNC email leaks was used by Trump defenders to deflect growing concerns on Capitol Hill and among current and former intelligence officials about the nature of contacts during the campaign between Trump's circle and figures with ties to Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia.

Breitbart News and the Gateway Pundit were among the other sites that trafficked in the conspiracy theory — as did the Twitter account for the Russian embassy in London. Yet the story had a particular Fox imprint: The May 15 Fox 5 report cited as its source a private investigator who worked for the Rich family named Rod Wheeler, who has been a paid Fox News contributor. Wheeler later said he had relied on the statement of a Fox 5 producer who had prepared him for the segment.

As it happens, Wheeler had been hired not by the Riches but by a conservative Dallas investor named Ed Butowsky on their behalf. Butowksy has appeared periodically as a commentator on Fox News and Fox Business. He had his own personality page on Fox's website until shortly after I publicly pointed that fact out last week.

Hannity has told others at the network that Fox needs him more than ever since last month's departure of former star host Bill O'Reilly. (O'Reilly also left after facing sexual harassment charges he disputes.)

Hannity told viewers Tuesday night that he would stay at Fox News "as long as they seem to want me" but cited critics who he said were trying to silence him, such as the liberal advocacy group Media Matters. Hannity called such efforts "liberal fascism."

Yet many critics of the story could be found on the right — even among conservative voices in Murdoch's own vast media holdings.

On May 21, Seth Mandel, opinion page editor of the Murdoch-owned New York Post, tweeted: "Why are you doing this to them? Why are you tormenting a grieving family like this? Please, Sean. Please. Stop doing this. Please."

New York Post columnist John Podhoretz wrote in the magazine Commentary, which he edits, that the theory is "the unwitting catspaw of an authoritarian government in Moscow."

Podhoretz continued: "It should go without saying that defaming a dead man by asserting he was killed for doing something criminal is a great evil."

And National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, a Fox News contributor, has been a constant thorn to Hannity on Twitter over the Seth Rich story. Goldberg is author of a book whose title is apparently familiar to Hannity: Liberal Fascism.

Fox News founder Roger Ailes famously hated to retract any reports, arguing it showed weakness and simply gave more fodder to the network's critics.

In the post-Ailes era at Fox News, the news side won this round, even though the retraction was grudging, lacked specificity and did not include an apology. But that victory took a full week — on a story with major national stakes involving a young man's death.</s>NEW YORK -- Fox News on Tuesday retracted a May 16 story on an investigation into the murder of Democratic National Convention staffer Seth Rich, who was killed near his home last summer.

"The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed," the company said in a statement Tuesday.

"We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted," the statement read.

Rich, 27, was fatally shot in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington in July 2016. The Washington Metropolitan Police Department is still investigating the incident.

His family has rejected conspiracy theories about Rich -- theories that blew up again with this month's Fox News report, according to CBS affiliate WUSA-TV, in Washington, D.C.

"We are a family committed to the facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract," Rich's parents said in a statement to WUSA-TV.

The original Fox story -- posted on FoxNews.com and the network's Washington affiliate, WTTG-TV -- claimed that a "federal source" said Rich was communicating with WikiLeaks before he was murdered, potentially leaking thousands of DNC emails to the website. It also suggested that the local police department had been told to back down from the investigation.

Fox's Sean Hannity repeatedly covered the unfounded reports on-air and he often defended the story on Twitter.

On Tuesday, he pushed back despite Fox's retraction.

"And all you in the liberal media, I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com -- I retracted nothing," Hannity said on his radio show.</s>Fox News said it had retracted a story about the murder of Seth Rich, a former Democratic National Committee staffer who was killed in Washington, D.C. last July and which has provided fodder for Sean Hannity, the network’s longest-serving primetime host. Hannity has in recent days promoted a debunked theory that Rich was killed in exchange for providing internal documents to Wikileaks, prompting statements of outrage from his family.

“On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed,” the network said in a posting online Tuesday. “We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted. ”

Right-wing outlets including Breitbart and The Drudge Report have suggested with items and links that Rich could have been killed in retribution for the leak of DNC emails during last year’s presidential campaign, an act that has largely been attributed to Russian interference. The theory about Rich’s murder has yet to be proven.

Fox News lent the story new momentum last week when it posted an item about the story after Rod Wheeler, a Fox News contributor who is also a private investigator Rich’s family has hired, was shown on Fox affiliate WTTG suggesting he had evidence linking Rich to Wikileaks. Subsequently, Wheeler told CNN he had no evidence.

Theories around Rich have helped fill recent segments on “Hannity,” Fox News 10 p.m. primetime mainstay. It could not be learned if Hannity was planning to discuss the new development and Fox News’ retraction on his show this evening.</s>The far right has been collectively fixated on one conspiracy theory for the past two weeks: that a Democratic National Committee staffer was murdered on the orders of Hillary Clinton (or something along those lines).

Now, even Fox News — which helped kickstart the recent revival of the conspiracy — is distancing itself from the story.

Fox News on Tuesday announced a retraction of the story it published on May 16 about the staffer. In that post, Fox News claimed that a "federal investigator" had seen evidence that Seth Rich had been a source for WikiLeaks. That fed conspiracy theorists who believed this caused Democrats/Hillary Clinton to have Rich murdered.

"On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed," reads a post on FoxNews.com announcing the retraction. "We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted."

Since the story came out, the far right has been pushing the story online, while Sean Hannity, one of the few Fox News evening personalities still at Fox News, has also been championing the story.

Despite the retraction, Hannity still tweeted out about the theory right around the time that Fox News released its retraction.

Rich was shot to death in Washington, D.C. in July 2016. His murder, which remains unsolved, was seized on by online conspiracy theorists who linked the death to Rich's work with the DNC.

The conspiracy theory had cooled until recently when a local Fox broadcast affiliate posted a story quoting a private investigator (who is also a Fox News contributor) as saying he was aware of evidence that Rich had been a source for WikiLeaks — a key part of the previous conspiracy theory. Fox News then followed with their own story.

Those reports have since been debunked, but that has not stopped the far right as well as Fox News from pushing the theory — despite requests from Rich's family that their son's death not be used as political fodder.</s>Something is up with Sean Hannity and Fox News.

Today, Fox News retracted Hannity’s story about late DNC employee Seth Rich being the WikiLeaks leaker. This was after a public outcry against Hannity and a plea from Rich’s family to stop it. Hannity is basing his accusation on posts from right wing blogger Kim Dotcom.

In the last 2o minutes, Hannity has teased on Twitter that news is coming about his future at Fox News. This is after a day of Tweets back and forth about the Rich-Dotcom situation.

Hannity posted: “Huge announcement tonight about Seth Rich, Trump/Russian Collusion corrupt media, the liberal effort to silence me. And my future at Fox!”

That was just 40 minutes after Hannity posted this: “I said publicly over and over to the Rich Family they are in my thoughts and prayers. I m trying to find the truth as the Mom Dad bro asked”

On Foxnews.com, the following statement went up this afternoon. It’s a direct rebuke of Hannity’s story:

We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.” Fox News ratings have been plummeting. The prime time schedule is being beaten handily by MSNBC. There’s a definite feeling that with the ouster and death of Roger Ailes, the firing of Bill O’Reilly, the firing of Bob Beckel, the racial discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits, and the obvious Nixonian moves by the Trump White House, something has changed. Will Hannity be next? Or will he be announcing that he’s digging in deeper? Never in my decade at Fox News would I have foreseen the collapse of what was a broadcasting empire. Stay tuned… This is very important. John Podhoretz, renowned conservative, has called Hannity “pond scum” today on Twitter. He’s written a very critical piece about Hannity.</s>After parting ways with the most-watched personalities in cable news and firing its founder over allegations of sexual harassment, the conservative-oriented Fox dropped to third place last week in prime time among the viewers that advertisers court, a spot it hasn’t occupied for almost 17 years. Meanwhile, left-leaning MSNBC soared to No. 1 for a second straight week, helped by news on probes into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

The reversal marks a big shakeup in TV news and could alter the fortunes of all three news networks — Fox, MSNBC and CNN — if it lasts. Audience ratings drive the subscriber fees and advertising rates that all three outlets charge, and being No. 1 for 15 years has made Fox News the most profitable channel at parent 21st Century Fox Inc. A long exile in third place would matter.

“That’s when investors will see it,” said Brett Harriss, an analyst at Gabelli & Co. who recommends buying shares of 21st Century Fox. Until then, “it’s kind of wait and see.”

Fox shares have dropped 4.4 percent this year, compared with a 6 percent gain for the S&P 500 Media Index.

On the surface, MSNBC’s rise can be explained by the fact that it has become a rallying point for those opposed to President Trump, said Andrew Tyndall, whose Tyndall Report monitors TV news. As troubles mounted for the administration last week, MSNBC’s audience swelled.

“These type of breaking news events are going to attract news viewers who are interested in learning more negative things about Donald Trump than positive things,” Tyndall said.

To be fair, Fox isn’t losing viewers — for now it’s just bragging rights to No. 1 that are in play. All three networks have benefited from heightened interest in the Trump administration’s turmoil, showing growth in total viewers and the 25-to-54-year-olds that advertisers target when they buy spots in newscasts.

So far this year, Fox News is still first in viewers of all ages for the full day, with its audience up 23 percent, according to Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group. Comcast Corp.’s MSNBC, fueled by the growing appeal of commentators Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, has seen its followers more than double. CNN, part of Time Warner Inc., is up 54 percent.

But last week, MSNBC climbed to first in total weekday viewers with 2.44 million in prime time, compared with Fox’s 2.41 million, and continued to lead in the younger demographic. That was Fox’s worst finish since 2000, TVNewser reported Monday. CNN was second in the key age group and third overall.

Including the weekend, Fox News still came out on top last week, a Fox News spokesperson said. And the company won first place Monday night, when all three networks were covering the terrorist attack in Manchester.

Cable news channels with political slants often get better ratings during the presidencies of the opposing side. Fox News came to prominence during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and got a second-wind during the Obama administration, Tyndall said.

MSNBC spent years in third place fine-tuning its identity as a liberal commentator on breaking news. Now daily developments in Washington are drawing larger numbers of more liberal-minded viewers to MSNBC, just as Fox News used Democratic administrations as a magnet for conservative audiences.

“They’re reaping the benefits of all the work they’ve done in the wilderness all these years,” Tyndall said. “It’s payoff for work already done, more than work being done right now.”

Fox’s recent drop to third can also be explained by the turmoil in its prime-time lineup and management. In the past year, the network has lost three of its biggest stars — Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren. O’Reilly, the most-watched personality on cable news, was fired for alleged sexual harassment. Kelly jumped to NBC while Van Susteren is now at MSNBC.

Behind the scenes, Fox News also lost founder and Chairman Roger Ailes, the ideological patriarch of the network and architect of its talent lineup, along with his deputy Bill Shine. Ailes was driven from the job over charges of sexual harassment, allegations that are forcing Fox to fight numerous lawsuits by aggrieved former female employees. He died last week from complications after a fall. Shine resigned over the network’s handling of the women’s complaints.

“That’s an awful lot of change in a given year,” Tyndall said.

Fox has rebuilt its prime-time lineup to replace the lost personalities, with Tucker Carlson replacing O’Reilly at 8 p.m., the round-table talkshow “The Five” in Kelly’s old spot at 9 p.m. and longtime conservative firebrand Sean Hannity staying at 10 p.m.

Last week, 21st Century Fox founder Rupert Murdoch, who has been leading Fox News in the wake of Ailes’s exit, announced an investment of millions for a new newsroom and the hiring additional staff to expand Fox News’ capabilities on various platforms including digital.

In recent weeks much of Fox’s prime-time coverage has downplayed the controversies engulfing the Trump administration or blamed the Republican president’s troubles on a hostile media. On Monday, the network pre-empted “The Five” at 9 p.m. with an hour newscast hosted by Shepard Smith focusing on the terrorist attack in Manchester, followed by a live telecast of Hannity, whose show is usually taped. Smith then returned to host another hour of news at 11 p.m. The change paid off, putting Fox back on top in prime time.

“Fox News has a problem,” O’Reilly said last week on a radio show hosted by Glenn Beck, himself a former Fox commentator. “Whenever you lose key personnel in any competitive industry — sports, media — you better have a plan. And it doesn’t look like FNC has a plan.”</s>Fox News has found itself in an unfamiliar position - out of first place.

The network's weekday prime-time lineup, long the king of cable news, finished behind MSNBC in number of viewers last week.

The Nielsen company also said among the youthful 25-54 demographic advertisers pay a premium for, Fox finished third to MSNBC and CNN for the first time in 17 years.

It was uniquely bad timing for Fox, coming during a week filled with late-breaking news unflattering to President Donald Trump, who much of the network's audience supports.

But it also comes shortly after the firing of the highly rated star anchor Bill O'Reilly as Fox tries to establish a new prime-time lineup. Tucker Carlson has taken over the prime time slot in O'Reilly's position in the last few months.

Rachel Maddow's red-hot show led MSNBC to victory last week in cable news, with 2.44million viewers to Fox's 2.41million. CNN trailed far behind with 1.65million viewers.

This was only the second time in the history of MSNBC that the network has beat out both of its news rivals in one week, with the only other time being the 2012 Democratic national convention.

Among the youth demographic range, MSNBC had 611,000 viewers last week, while CNN had 589,000 and Fox had 497,000.

With weekend viewership added back in, and more flattering coverage of the President's first trip abroad, Fox will move back into first place.

Then, on Monday, with the breaking coverage of the attack at Ariana Grande's concert in Manchester, England, Fox nearly doubled its rivals in viewership, with 3.37million to CNN's 1.74million and MSNBC's 1.65million.

MSNBC has in recent years grown to define itself as the liberal-equivalent to conservative Fox News, with Rachel Maddow as the face of the news network.

The fiercely intelligent, acerbic and relentless anchor has defied ultra-feminine stereotypes to become the most watched news host in the United States, riding the wave of the Trump presidency and recent chaos at rival Fox.

'The Rachel Maddow Show' airs Monday to Friday at 9pm on MSNBC.

Republicans and conservatives attack her from the right, insulting her as 'Madcow' or 'Queen of Fake News.'

From the left, MSNBC's identification with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, Maddow's solemn style and her fondness for conjecture are also criticized.

But critics aside, Maddow hosts the most watched cable news show in America, supplanting a position held for 15 years by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who was sacked late last month amid a blaze of sexual harassment allegations.

She has crossed the threshold of three million viewers - never previously seen by MSNBC, which has traditionally trailed not only Fox but the centrist CNN.

It's a remarkable achievement for a woman whose audiences were at a record low only two years ago, in early 2015. But then Trump ran for president, defeated Hillary Clinton and more than tripled her audience.

The change in the White House has given MSNBC a new visibility and a new direction, having been criticized during the Obama years for vigorously defending the Democratic administration.

However, MSNBC is dealing with program changes of their own, as Lawrence O'Donnell's contract is set to expire on June 4, with no news on it being renewed.

O'Donnell has been with the host of 'The Last Word' for about seven years, but could be losing the 10pm slot to Brian Williams as his contract with the network has yet to be renewed.
Fox News retracts their claims regarding the murder.