Shepard Smith Lands New Job After Abruptly Leaving Fox News

After 23 years at Fox News, gay journalist Shepard Smith is now at CNBC.

Starting Monday, Smith will anchor The News With Shepard Smith, an hour-long program airing Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern. Smith was also named chief general news anchor and chief breaking general news anchor by the business and financial-minded news network, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The announcement comes nine months after the anchor abruptly left his longtime position at Fox News, where he oversaw Shepard Smith Reporting. Smith had just renewed his contract in 2018 but asked to leave the network after pointing out the often fictional narratives put forth by Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Jeannine Pirro, who often place allegiance to President Trump above the truth.

In a Time interview published in March 2018, Smith said some of the opinion-oriented programming on Fox News "is there strictly to be entertaining." He added, "They don't really have rules on the opinion side. They can say whatever they want."

Smith was always one to call out right-wing lies -- and misogynistic smears -- even when they're directed at frequent Fox News targets like Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Smith saw a vast separation between his work as a straightforward editor and that of anchors like Hannity.

"Hannity is trying to get conservatives elected," Smith told HuffPost in 2016. "And he wants you to listen to him and believe what he believes. I'm disseminating facts. It's really apples and teaspoons. What we do is so different."

Smith's coverage of Trump drew the ire of the president last year.

Smith, who came out in 2017, was reportedly in talks to join MSNBC, known for its left-leaning coverage. Instead, Smith headed to channel's sister network, which focuses on the economy, personal finance, and the stock market.