When Democratic mega-donor and ardent Donald Trump critic Tom Steyer launched his $10 billion “Need to Impeach” campaign calling for Trump’s ouster, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wasn’t pleased. Although she brushed off questions about the campaign in public, behind the scenes she reportedly admonished Steyer for the ad, fearing it would distract from Democrats’ agenda and weaken their chances of regaining congressional control in 2018. And it seems Pelosi has gained an unlikely ally in her effort to tamp down on impeachment talk: on Monday, Fox News confirmed that it had yanked Steyer’s television ad from its airwaves.

In the 60-second spot, which aired on several networks, Steyer argues that Trump “brought us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructed justice at the F.B.I., and in direct violation of the Constitution, [has] taken money from foreign governments and threatened to shut down news organizations that report the truth. If that isn’t a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president,” he asks, “then what has our government become?” In a statement addressing the network’s decision, Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy implied that the commercial had upset the network’s audience: “Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money,” he said. (Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Steyer told the The Washington Post that the network did not return the money from the ad buy.)

But according to Steyer, who released his own flame-throwing statement in response, the timing of the network’s decision makes it suspect. The Post reports that Steyer’s ad first aired on Friday, October 27, during one of Trump’s preferred and oft-retweeted cable news programs, Fox & Friends. Within 24 hours, Trump had taken to Twitter to criticize the California billionaire, characterizing him as “wacky” and “unhinged.”

By Tuesday, October 31, the network had decided to pull the ad. “President Trump has threatened retaliation against broadcasters who provide him with negative coverage, and Fox News appears to have answered these threats with servility,” Brad Deutsch, a lawyer for Steyer, wrote in a letter addressed to Abernethy, seeming to reference the president’s threat last month to pull NBC News’s license. “The only plausible explanation,” Deutsch concluded, “seems to be that Fox News capitulated to political pressure from the Trump administration itself.”