Lou Dobbs, the defiant anchorman who abruptly quit CNN late last year, has decided to stay on TV — and out of politics, sources say.
Dobbs has said repeatedly that he was considering a run for public office — perhaps even the White House — as an independent candidate.
“I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t enamored . . . with the idea,” he told the ABC News show “Nightline” last night.
But if Dobbs were going to run in the November elections, he would have had to begin putting together a campaign this month.
“The idea that you think you are the best person of 300 million people to run this nation,” he said about a White House run. “I guarantee you, I don’t think that.”
Unwilling to commit to a political future, he has begun talking with several cable channels, sources close to the anchorman said.
Dobbs, 64, quit CNN last November after a year of friction with his bosses, who did not approve of the anchorman’s often inflammatory comments on issues like immigration and the “birther” movement.
CNN paid Dobbs nearly $8 million to get him out of his contract two years early.
The populist anchorman retreated to his 300-acre New Jersey farm shortly after and is now heard only on his daily radio show.
A spokesman for Dobbs declined to comment.