The former host of Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN, these days Dobbs has brought his unique brand of fear-mongering and immigrant bashing to the Fox Business Network. One of his favorite pastimes is threatening to run for office.

Born in the Texas panhandle and reared in Idaho, Dobbs was recruited to join CNN before its launch, and anchored Moneyline following the network's debut in 1980. The program gave Dobbs unparalleled access to the moneyed movers-and-shakers of the business world; for close to two decades he hobnobbed with captains of industry on their private jets, spoke at corporate retreats, and even shilled for companies like Paine Webber. But after a dust-up with then-CNN head Rick Kaplan in the late '90s—and with dotcom fever overtaking the city—Dobbs left the network in 1999 to head up Space.com, a website dedicated to covering all things newsworthy about astronomy. As the internet bubble started to pop, Dobbs returned to the comfy confines of CNN in 2001.

When Dobbs returned to his evening newscast in the aftermath of Sept. 11th—and with corporate scandals dominating the financial news—he soon refocused his show and turned it into a soapbox for Dobbs to deliver his rabid opinions on immigration, welfare and terrorism. With segments like "Broken Borders," "War on the Middle Class," and "Exporting America," Dobbs' pseudo-populist, anti-elitist rants stirred up an enormous amount of controversy during his tenure, and his aggressive stances against illegal immigration and globalization have led many to argue that he's racist and xenophobic. Dobbs and CNN parted ways in the fall of 2009, as CNN execs grew tired of his increasingly opinioned broadcasts (and the criticsm that invariably followed), and as Dobbs, himself, considered ways to increase his advocacy work. After allegedly contemplating a run for Senate from his home state of New Jersey, Dobbs was picked up by the Fox Business Network in 2011, where the current iteration of Lou Dobbs Tonight fits in much more comfortably.

Dobbs divorced his first wife in 1981 and later married former CNN anchor Debi Lee Segura (who, Dobbs is quick to point out, is Mexican-American). [Image via Getty]