- Fox is doubling down on its ties to Donald Trump.
- On Monday, Fox announced it has hired the former president's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as a paid contributor.
- The network also announced that Kayleigh McEnany will be a co-host of the daily program "Outnumbered."
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Fox News is doubling down on its ties to former President Donald Trump.
On Monday, Fox announced it has hired the former president's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as a paid contributor. On Tuesday, the network revealed that Trump's former White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, will be promoted to a co-host of the daily program "Outnumbered."
After the Fox & Friends hosts welcomed Lara Trump to the "Fox family," the former campaign adviser said she's long felt like part of the Fox "team" because she's appeared on the network so frequently over the last several years.
"I'm so excited, first of all, to be joining the Fox family," she said. "I sort of feel like I've been an unofficial member of the team for so long. You guys know, it was kind of a joke over the past five years, I would come there so often that the security guards were like maybe we should just give you a key."
Trump, the 38-year-old wife of Eric Trump, served as a 2020 campaign adviser and helped lead Women for Trump. She had no experience in politics before her father-in-law ran for office, but she's now considering running for US Senate in North Carolina to fill retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr's seat. Trump said she hasn't yet decided whether or not to run, but would make a public decision "hopefully soon."
In the past, Fox has terminated the contracts of contributors - including former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders - when they formally announce their bids for office. Trump said she's discussed with Fox how running for office would interfere with her TV work.
"Fox has been very generous with me," she said. "They had said, look, if that's something that you ultimately decide to do, they are going to work with me on that front and make sure that everything-all the rules are followed and we do everything properly."
She went on to discuss immigration and vaccinations with the Fox hosts. She called the fact that the Trump administration turned underage migrants away at the border and separated them from their parents "totally ridiculous," attacked infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, and claimed her father-in-law deserves "full and 100% complete credit" for the development of COVID-19 vaccines.
Lara Trump came under scrutiny recently when HuffPost reported that an animal welfare charity she's affiliated with, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, has spent nearly $1.9 million since 2014 at properties owned by Donald Trump. She has served as the "chairwoman" of the group's fundraisers for several years.
-Lis Power (@LisPower1) March 29, 2021
Fox announced that McEnany, who the network hired as a contributor shortly after she left the White House in January, will be a co-host of its noon hour beginning on April 6. McEnany has continued to defend the former president in her appearances on Fox and will likely remain a staunch MAGA loyalist as a network host.
While McEnany has long been welcomed on Fox's airwaves, some at the network have pushed back on false claims she pushed while at the White House and advising the Trump campaign. Fox News host Neil Cavuto cut away from McEnany's Nov. 9, 2020 briefing after she claimed without evidence that the Democratic Party was "welcoming fraud" and "welcoming illegal voting" in the presidential election.
"Unless she has more details to back that up, I can't in good countenance continue showing you this," Cavuto said.
This comes after the former president repeatedly lashed out at Fox News, claiming the network didn't give him favorable enough coverage during the 2020 election and that had lead to a drop in viewership.
".@FoxNews daytime ratings have completely collapsed. Weekend daytime even WORSE. Very sad to watch this happen, but they forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose," Trump tweeted after the election last November, referring to himself as the network's "Golden Goose." "The biggest difference between the 2016 Election, and 2020, was @FoxNews!"