NEW YORK — Veteran anchor Chris Wallace has left Fox News after 18 years for CNN, dealing a significant blow to Fox’s news operation at a time that it has been overshadowed by the network’s opinion side.
Wallace delivered the surprising news that he was leaving at the end of the “Fox News Sunday” show he moderates, and within two hours CNN announced he was joining its new streaming service as an anchor. CNN+ is expected to debut in early 2022.
“It is the last time, and I say this with real sadness, we will meet like this,” Wallace, who is 74, said on his show, which airs on the Fox network and is later rerun on Fox News Channel. “Eighteen years ago, the bosses here at Fox promised me they would never interfere with a guest I booked or a question I asked. And they kept that promise.”
Wallace was a veteran broadcast network newsman, working at both ABC and NBC News, before the late Roger Ailes lured him to Fox with the promise of his own Sunday show.
Methodical and never showy — in contrast to his father Mike, the legendary “60 Minutes” reporter — Chris Wallace was known for his willingness to ask hard questions of all guests no matter their politics.
He was the first Fox News personality to moderate a presidential debate, doing it in 2016 and 2020.