[8][9][10][11] He was one of three Fox Corporation program hosts named in a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic relating to conspiracy theories used in attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.

He briefly attended the University of Idaho College of Law in Moscow, and then worked as a cash-management specialist for Union Bank of California in Los Angeles.

[21] Howard Kurtz, in his book on business journalism of the era, wrote that Dobbs "could be arrogant and abrasive" and was controversial within CNN.

[21] In 1992, Dobbs admitted to receiving more than $15,000 to act as a spokesman from Shearson Lehman Brothers, PaineWebber, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, making promotional videos; he was reprimanded by the network for the conflict of interest and expressed regret in a memo to staff.

[23] According to The Washington Post, Dobbs started to increasingly focus on the alleged dangers of illegal immigration after returning to CNN.

[9] Dobbs became a self-described populist after his return to CNN, and criticized the "greed" of big corporations and their opposition to raising the minimum wage.

[20] In July 2009, controversy around Dobbs began when he was the only mainstream news anchor to give airtime to the birther theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

[25] In September, advocates challenged Dobbs for appearing at a conference organized by the pro-border security group Federation for American Immigration Reform.

[31] After Dobbs left CNN in 2009, he did not rule out the possibility of running for President of the United States in 2012, saying the final decision would rest with his wife.

[35] The three-hour daily show had affiliates in several major markets, including its flagship station (WOR) in New York City.

[38] On February 4, 2021, voting machine company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation suit against multiple parties, including Dobbs and two other Fox Corporation program hosts, asserting they had promoted conspiracy theories alleging the company and its competitor Dominion Voting Systems had participated in an international conspiracy to rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump.

[39] Venezuelan businessman Majed Khalil sued Dobbs, Fox News and Sidney Powell for $250 million in December 2021, alleging they had falsely implicated him in rigging Dominion and Smartmatic machines.

On October 5, 2010, Dobbs made a guest appearance on an episode of The Good Wife, entitled "Double Jeopardy",[42] in which he plays a client in search of a new law firm to represent his legal interests.

[57] The Associated Press said that Dobbs had "become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and hosted a show that seemed to contradict the network's 'no bias' brand".

He argued that the "true victims of corporate America's lust for cheap labor" were "American working men and women, taxpayers all.

[5] Dobbs's show made factually incorrect claims, such as the one that illegal immigrants were responsible for bringing 7,000 new cases of leprosy to the United States in a three-year period, where the actual timeframe was over the last thirty years.

In October 2007 he labeled then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer an "idiot" for advocating the issuance of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

"[73][74] In October 2010, The Nation published the results of a yearlong investigation detailing undocumented workers who had worked on Dobbs's personal properties.

The labor involved upkeep of Dobbs's multimillion-dollar estates in New Jersey and Florida, including the horses belonging to his daughter, Hillary, a champion show jumper.

"[77][78] Dobbs's critics, including columnist James K. Glassman, author of Dow 36,000 and member of the American Enterprise Institute think tank, accused him of inciting xenophobia.

Fox News president Jay Wallace said in a September 2020 private message to a colleague that "the North Koreans do a more nuanced show" than Dobbs.

[85] The New York Times described the interview as a love-fest and "courtier-like session", as Dobbs "didn't so much ask questions as open his mouth and let rose petals fall out".

[95] His defense led to charges of hypocrisy: in 2012, when a Daily Caller reporter was criticized by the White House for shouting out a question during an address by Obama, Dobbs defended the reporter, saying "What is rude is a president not speaking to the American people and taking the questions of the White House press".

When U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, temporarily restored Acosta's press pass, Dobbs described the ruling as "absurd".

[106][107] In January 2019, Dobbs described Mitt Romney as a "traitor" and "treasonous" after he wrote an op-ed published in The Washington Post criticizing Trump's character.

On his show the following day, Dobbs asserted that Bolton had been "reduced to a tool for the radical Dems and the deep state with his allegation".

[111][112] The day senior Justice Department officials intervened in the case of longtime Trump associate Roger Stone with a recommendation of a lighter sentence than had been recommended by DOJ prosecutors the prior day, Dobbs stated on his program that attorney general Bill Barr was "doing the Lord's work" by intervening.

[114] The next day, Barr stated in a televised interview that Trump's comments about ongoing DOJ investigations "make it impossible to do my job", causing Dobbs to state on his program, "I guess I am so disappointed in Bill Barr, I have to say this – it's a damn shame when he doesn't get what this president has gone through, and what the American people have gone through, and what his charge is as attorney general.

[125]Following the storming of the United States Capitol by Trump supporters in January 2021, Dobbs was among those who advanced the conspiracy theory that people associated with antifa were responsible for the attack.

[134] Dobbs opposed gun control and, though he was a fiscal conservative, supported some government regulations, as revealed in a 60 Minutes interview.