Leland Vittert, an anchor and reporter, had drawn Trump’s ire alongside Smith as of 2019. In mid-November 2020, he engaged in a heated on-air conversation with a Trump campaign spokeswoman over the campaign’s fraud claims. Shortly after the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot, in one of his final on-air appearances, Vittert described being confronted by pro-Trump supporters demanding loyalty. After he did not appear on air for months, Fox announced in April that the network had “mutually and amicably parted ways” with Vittert, who now works for NewsNation.

The situation was similar with another lower-profile Fox anchor who had criticized Trump, Jedediah Bila. Shortly after the election, she said of Trump: “To make a statement about an election being stolen or an election being rigged, that can be a dangerous statement. I haven’t seen any evidence.” She talked about how it was going to be “incumbent” upon Trump to concede the election in the then-increasingly obvious absence of voter-fraud evidence. The next month, her temporary replacement on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Rachel Campos-Duffy, responded approvingly to those who cheered her taking Bila’s role. Fox announced Bila’s departure in May, again saying that the two sides had “mutually and amicably parted ways.”

In January, the departures included two key figures on Fox’s “decision desk” who had angered viewers by declaring Joe Biden the winner in Arizona on election night: executive Bill Sammon and political editor Chris Stirewalt. Sammon described his exit as a planned retirement; Stirewalt, who was among nearly 20 staffers laid off, has since sharply criticized the network’s coverage of Trump.