Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo has thrown her reputation down the toilet in the service of far-right bigotry, conspiracy theories, fake news and, über alles, Donald Trump. Is her nosedive from respectability a ratings grab and/or a suck-up-to-Fox-brass move or does she really believe the crap she now spews?

A terrific article in today’s Daily Beast details Bartiromo’s descent from decency as a well-regarded CNBC host into a Trump-propagadizing Fox Business host. The Daily Beast notes that her embrace of Trumpism coincided with soaring ratings:

As that success continued, so progressed Bartiromo’s embrace of Trumpism and the more rabid, alt-right elements of his fanbase. Her Twitter feed often veers from retweeting crudely made pro-Trump and anti-immigrant memes, to alt-right conspiracy theorists like Paul Joseph Watson and Mike Cernovich, to liking uncouth tweets such as one mocking the physical appearance of MSNBC host Joy Reid by calling her a man.

When not sharing Fox content, Bartiromo posts articles almost exclusively from pro-Trump outlets like The Daily Caller, Breitbart, Hannity’s go-to pro-Trump “investigative reporter” Sara Carter, and Zero Hedge, a financial blog often described as “conspiratorial” and unabashedly pro-Russia.

That coziness with Trumpist media seemingly reached a climax when, shortly before the election, she twice promoted a pro-Trump troll’s completely fabricated smear that Clinton referred to Muslims as “sand n---ers.” She eventually deleted the retweets and responded to the ensuing outcry by blocking the reporter who’d first called her out.

Bartiromo has also promoted Sean Hannity’s baseless conspiracy theory that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, not a Russian hacker, leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

“Let’s not ignore this,” read a tweet from Twitter user “Deplorable Taz,” which Bartiromo retweeted. The post linked to an article headlined “Report: Seth Rich Sent More Than 44,000 Emails To WikiLeaks Prior To His Murder,” from far-right clickbait site Western Journalism.

Now, of course, Bartiromo is helping Trump attack the Mueller investigation:

“It sounds like either President Obama or Hillary Clinton were sort of masterminding all of this,” Bartiromo recently said on Fox & Friends Weekend, dabbling in a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign.

But if you know nothing else about Bartiromo of late, her lapdog interview with Trump last year, in which she gently reminded him he had not launched missiles at Iraq but at Syria, tells you almost everything you need to know about her credibility collapse.

Watch Bartiromo’s sycophancy below, during her April 12, 2017 interview on Fox Business Network.

And do read the complete article on The Daily Beast. It’s devastating and right on the mark.

(Bartiromo image via screen grab)