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Just as we saw during his previous tenure in the White House, Donald Trump has created a revolving door between Fox News and his administration.
Besides offering him fawning coverage throughout his first term, the conservative cable giant helped stock the White House after Trump won in 2016. According to Media Matters, at least 20 people who worked for the network eventually found their way into the administration at some point.
In his first term, the appointments and nominations ranged from administrative positions to Cabinet-level posts, including HUD Secretary Ben Carson and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. Two of Trump’s White House communications directors and a press secretary had previously worked at Fox. At the same time, longtime Fox News contributor John Bolton was tapped to become his national security adviser.
Trump also looked to many of Fox News’ on-air personalities to serve as unofficial policy advisers, whether through the TV screen or in private consultations on issues ranging from veteran affairs and war crimes to the pandemic and overturning the 2020 election. Fox News primetime star Sean Hannity was widely considered the “shadow chief of staff” due to the amount of influence he wielded.
Following Trump’s 2020 election loss, the conservative cable giant hired several members of the administration for on-air roles. Trump’s former chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow was given his own Fox Business show, while press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was hired to co-host the network’s midday panel show Outnumbered. Others, such as former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, were signed as network commentators.
Though Trump spent much of his post-insurrection bashing Fox News for seemingly displaying insufficient fealty to him, especially when owner Rupert Murdoch flirted with other GOP 2024 presidential successors, the 45th and now 47th president fully embraced the right-wing network when he won this past November.
And that included using Fox News’ roster to staff up his new administration in 2025.
With longtime Fox News host and Trump loyalist Judge Jeanine Pirro’s recent appointment as interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, The Independent has identified at least 23 former Fox News employees who have been appointed or nominated by Trump. This list does not include current Fox News personalities who have been named to advisory positions by the president, such as the appointments of Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo and Fox News host Laura Ingraham to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, or Fox News host Mark Levin’s inclusion to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Here’s the list of the ex-Fox Newsers who are serving the Trump presidency:
Jeanine Pirro – Interim U.S. Attorney for DC
After Trump decided to pull the nomination of Ed Martin as U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., the president turned to one of his top boosters at Fox News to fill the role. Pirro, who was previously a New York prosecutor and a county judge before flaming out as a Senate candidate, first joined Fox News in 2006 and spent over a decade hosting a weekend evening show before joining the highly rated panel show The Five.
Even among the right-wing network’s roster of MAGA shills and sycophants, Pirro stood out for her unwavering loyalty to the president, as she was one of the first Fox hosts to fully jump aboard the Trump train when he first announced his presidential campaign in 2015. During Trump’s first administration, Media Matters noted that her “advocacy for the president is so aggressive that it often borders on insane.”
Throughout her years at Fox, Pirro repeatedly courted controversy. She was suspended by the network in 2019 for saying on-air that Ilhan Omar’s hijab suggested she didn’t adhere to the US Constitution. Pirro spoke on stage at a Trump campaign rally in violation of Fox policy. And she was one of the loudest on-air voices parroting Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen, eventually leading to the network settling a defamation lawsuit with Dominion for a record $787.5 million in 2023.
Despite her outsized role in the 2020 election denialism that led to Fox News getting sued, which also featured her own producers labeling her a “reckless maniac,” Pirro saw herself getting promoted from weekends to the network’s premier weekday program.
Pete Hegseth – Secretary of Defense
Hegseth is perhaps Trump’s most controversial nomination and faced a tough confirmation battle over allegations of sexual assault, excessive drinking, and mismanagement of funds at two veteran’s organizations he ran. Besides questions over his personal and professional behavior, Hegseth was also grilled on his views about women in combat.
Before he was named by Trump to lead a sprawling organization that employs three million military and civilian employees, Hegseth joined Fox News as a contributor in 2014 and was named co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend in 2016. This isn’t the first time Trump considered appointing the former Army National Guard officer to a top administrative post. Back in 2018, he reportedly floated the idea of making Hegseth the secretary of veteran’s affairs. Trump would later take Hegseth’s advice on pardoning a number of accused and convicted war criminals.
Dan Bongino - deputy director of the FBI
A former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent before launching a right-wing media career, Bongino was named the second-ranking official in the FBI by Trump in late February. After launching a podcast and hosting a show on the now-defunct NRA TV, which infamously saw him declare that his mission was “owning the libs” while making lemonade from unpeeled lemons, Bongino’s unabashed Trump sycophancy led him to Fox News in 2019. Bongino would eventually get his own Fox weekend show in 2021, but ended up leaving the network two years later to focus on his podcast and radio show, which took over the coveted time slot left open by Rush Limbaugh’s passing.
Just before he was named FBI deputy director, a role generally reserved for bureau veterans, Bongino urged the president to “ignore” adverse court orders and instead set up a kangaroo court in the White House and “just start making judicial decisions.” After his surprise appointment, Bongino rubbed it in the following day on his podcast. “They’re not laughing now,” he ominously declared.
Sean Duffy – Secretary of Transportation
Duffy, a former five-term Republican congressman from Wisconsin, resigned from Congress in 2019 to take a short-lived on-air role with CNN. He would eventually join his wife, Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, at Fox News in 2020, first as a contributor and then as the host of his own Fox Business show in 2023. Duffy took heat over a 2021 Fox News segment in which he and his wife suggested Native Americans are addicted to government help.
Tulsi Gabbard – Director of National Intelligence
Gabbard dealt with a challenging confirmation, largely over her praise of Russian leader Vladimir Putin (which was reciprocated) and defense of deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. She’s also peddled baseless conspiracy theories about the United States funding “biolabs” in Ukraine that could release “dangerous pathogens.”
The one-time Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate became a favorite of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson after she left office. She eventually joined Fox News as a contributor and guest host in 2022 and would ditch the Democratic Party, jumping headlong into the MAGA movement. Prior to Trump’s nominating her for director of national intelligence, Gabbard also assisted the president-elect with his debate prep. Despite Gabbard being a Fox News alum, fellow Murdoch media outlet the New York Post has urged Trump to ditch her.
Tom Homan – border czar
After retiring as Trump’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2018, Homan joined Fox News as a contributor in 2018. During the rest of Trump’s first term, Homan would passionately support the administration’s harsh immigration policies on Fox’s airwaves. Touted as the “intellectual father” of Trump’s family separation policy at the border, Homan was offered the position of Trump’s “border czar” in 2019 but declined at the time. This time around, Homan has accepted the president-elect’s appointment, claiming he will be tasked with the mass deportation of millions of migrants.
Sara Carter — director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
A Fox News contributor since 2017, Carter’s main role appeared to be as Sean Hannity’s favorite “investigative reporter” on topics such as border security, the “Deep State” and the so-called Russigate conspiracy against Trump, which she described as a “bloodless coup.” At one point, Hannity’s constant boosting of Carter’s “reporting” even ran afoul of Fox News’ editorial standards due to his description of her as a “Fox News investigative reporter, even though she did not work for the network’s news division. During the Canadian trucker protests in early 2022, the conservative journalist amplified a false claim that was trampled to death by Canadian authorities. Trump announced that she would be the nation’s “Drug Czar” in late March.
Dr. Janette Nesheiwat – Surgeon General of the United States
Nesheiwat became a familiar face to regular Fox News viewers — and thus Trump — when she joined the network as a medical contributor at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. During her time at Fox, she has lent credibility to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and frequently promoted supplemental zinc to treat Covid-19 despite the National Institute of Health saying there was insufficient evidence to recommend the treatment. A day before she was set to go before a Senate confirmation hearing, Trump suddenly pulled Nesheiwat’s nomination amid concerns that she’d embellished her resume and criticism from far-right extremists over her past support for vaccinations, replacing the former Fox News pundit with MAHA “wellness influencer” Casey Means. Nesheiwat will continue to work for HHS in a senior policy role.
Dr. Marty Makary – Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
Like Nesheiwat, Makary also became familiar to Fox News audiences at the start of the pandemic as he was one of the network’s favorite medical experts. Joining as a contributor in 2020, Makary — a health policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University — was a frequent critic of vaccine mandates and warned viewers about the supposed health risks of the vaccinations. He also denied there would be another surge in coronavirus cases and deaths before the delta variant swept through the nation.
Kimberly Guilfoyle – Ambassador to Greece
At one time, Guilfoyle was one of the rising stars at Fox News and within the MAGA world. She was one of the first co-hosts of Fox News’ top-rated show The Five, and began dating Trump’s eldest son during the first administration. However, Guilfoyle parted ways with the conservative network in 2018 amid a human resources probe into allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior. It was later reported that Fox had to pay $4 million to Guilfoyle’s assistant over claims of sexual misconduct, accusations Guilfoyle denies. Meanwhile, it appears that her engagement to Donald Trump Jr. is kaput, which might explain why the president-elect is sending her halfway across the world.
Monica Crowley – State Department chief of protocol
Like many on this list, this isn’t the first time Crowley has been tapped by Trump to serve a role in his administration. Having spent roughly 20 years as a Fox News contributor, and claiming Barack Obama lied about his race, Crowley was named by Trump during his first term to be on his National Security Council. However, those plans were soon cut short after it was revealed she had plagiarized portions of a book and her Ph.D thesis. After biding her time as a conservative podcaster, Crowley would contribute to the notorious MAGA blueprint Project 2025, which was apparently enough to get Trump to once again nominate her to a top national security position — this time as the State Department’s chief of protocol.
Tammy Bruce – State Department spokesperson
Bruce is another longtime Fox News contributor who was rewarded by Trump with a government position after spending the past few years singing his praises. The former liberal feminist activist has been with the conservative network for the past 20 years as a contributor and occasional host. During the first Trump administration, she apologized for mocking a 10-year-old autistic child as a “snowflake” who “needed a safe space” over the child’s viral encounter with Mike Pence.
Mike Huckabee – Ambassador to Israel
The former Arkansas governor once hosted his own show on Fox News before it was put on ice in 2015 when he announced another run for president. After his presidential campaign, he returned to the network as a contributor while his show reemerged on a Christian broadcasting network. Though still a frequent presence on the right-wing network, Huckabee quietly left Fox News as a paid commentator in 2021 as he had simultaneously been appearing on Newsmax.
Morgan Ortagus – deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East peace
This is Ortagus’ second time around with Team Trump. After serving in both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations in various roles, she joined Fox News as a national security contributor. She left the network in 2019, though, when she was tapped to become the State Department spokesperson.
Leo Terrell – senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights
After spending decades as a liberal pundit, Terrell made a very public showing in 2020 of shifting his allegiance to Trump following the George Floyd protests. The civil rights attorney even went so far as to label himself “Leo 2.0” during his countless appearances on Hannity’s show, complete with the slogan emblazoned on a red MAGA-style baseball cap. Terrell’s antics and histrionics — which regularly involved heated on-air arguments — were rewarded with a Fox News contract in 2021. Just before Trump named him to his Justice Department this month, Terrell argued that the wildfires in Southern California were tied to “DEI nonsense” within the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Keith Kellogg – special envoy for Ukraine and Russia
A retired three-star general who previously served in the first Trump administration as an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Kellogg joined Fox News after leaving the White House. Trump has since named Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia and has tasked him with delivering a peace plan to the region. During a Fox News interview last week, Kellogg said that Trump aims to end the Russian war within 100 days of taking office.
Sebastian Gorka – Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism
Gorka is also going to be a two-time Trump administration official. Gorka, whose national security credentials have been questioned by other experts, has drawn notoriety over the years for his over-the-top rhetoric, pugnacious attitude toward journalists, and willingness to park on the sidewalk. Gorka was briefly a Fox News analyst before joining the Trump White House as a deputy assistant to the president, though it was never quite clear what he actually did in that job. After he was pushed out by the administration in 2017, Gorka once again returned to Fox News. He would leave the network in 2019 for Sinclar Broadcast Group before eventually landing at MAGA cable channel Newsmax in 2021.
Gail Slater – assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice
Slater joined the Trump White House in 2018 as the special assistant to the president for technology, telecommunications and cybersecurity. After leaving the administration the following year, she jumped to Fox News’ parent company to head up its federal policy team. The former Fox executive went on to serve as an economic adviser to JD Vance, Trump’s incoming vice president.
Ric Grenell – presidential envoy for special missions
Much like Gorka, Grenell is known for his bombastic media personality and trollish online antics. Working off and on as a Fox News contributor for nearly a decade before being tapped in 2017 to serve as Trump’s ambassador to Germany, Grenell bounced around the first administration as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations before Trump named him acting director of national intelligence in 2020. Grenell actively lobbied to be secretary of state after Trump’s latest election victory, only to be snubbed for Marco Rubio.
Michael Waltz – U.N. ambassador nominee
Before being elected to Congress in 2018, Waltz was briefly a Fox News contributor in 2017. Waltz is an Army veteran who worked in the Pentagon during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. While he was only a paid network pundit for a short while, Waltz has since become one of the most familiar faces on Fox News. According to Media Matters, the soon-to-be national security adviser has appeared on the network at least 176 times since January 2023, more than any other member of Congress.
Waltz was ousted as national security adviser in early May amid the fallout over Signalgate and criticism from far-right provocateur Laura Loomer that Waltz was disloyal to Trump and didn’t support MAGA’s national security policy. He has since been nominated to serve as the United States ambassador to the United Nations.
Sergio Gor – director of the Presidential Personnel Office
According to The Washington Post, Gor worked as a booker at Fox News before moving into GOP politics. After moving on from the network over a decade ago, Gor spent time in the office of former Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — known mostly for his white nationalist rhetoric — before becoming Sen. Rand Paul’s spokesman in 2013. During the Trump campaign, he was dubbed the “Mayor of Mar-a-Lago” because of how much time he spent at Trump’s private club.
Alex Pfeiffer — White House principal deputy communications director
Starting off as a reporter for conservative media outlet The Daily Caller, which was co-founded by Tucker Carlson, Pfeiffer followed his old boss to Fox News and served as an associate producer on Carlson’s primetime show. Eventually, he left the program to work for Trump’s campaign and MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC. In late January, Trump announced that Pfeiffer would be part of the White House’s press shop and serve as principal deputy communications director as well as deputy assistant to the president.
Michael Bastasch — EPA senior adviser for communications
Like Pfeiffer, Bastasch also worked for the Daily Caller. He would end up leaving his job as energy reporter to join Fox News as a writer in 2019, staying with the network for three years before returning to his old outlet to serve as managing editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation, eventually moving his way up to editor-in-chief. In late April, it was reported that Bastasch was joining the administration as a senior adviser for communications at the EPA.
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