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After leaving Fox News in June 2018, likely as a result of a sexual-harassment allegations, according to The New Yorker, newscaster Kimberly Guilfoyle has refashioned herself as a conservative influencer for legions of female Trump supporters.
Guilfoyle, who is dating President Donald Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is a lead fund-raiser for the Trump reelection campaign. Her speech at the virtual Republican National Convention, in August, instantly became a meme, drawing comparisons to Mussolini and “The Hunger Games'” Effie Trinket.
Mocked or not, it was the most talked-about speech of the convention, and it put Guilfoyle on a literal podium for Trump-loving conservatives.
As for the 42-year-old Don Jr., in two years he’s gone from just being Ivanka’s brother to becoming one of his father’s most ferocious right-hand men, thanks partly to Guilfoyle’s careful grooming, people said.
During his first presidential campaign, President Trump joked: “Don, you can finally do something for me — you can go hunting,” calling on Don Jr. to use his controversial hobby to curry favor with middle America. Now Don Jr. is an in-demand Trump surrogate who some are speculating will make his own run for office.
"She's definitely made Don Jr. more serious," R. Couri Hay, a New York publicist, told Business Insider. "She's had years and years on TV. She's helped guide and train and been very influential in Don's increasingly very secure, very formidable, very opinionated television personality.
"She's been able to guide him and lead him in the political waters. And he is basking in it and loving it."
None of this is surprising to those who have followed Guilfoyle's story. They saw how she shaped the career of her first husband, Gavin Newsom, now the governor of California. They saw her remake herself into a New York media personality after leaving her district-attorney job in San Francisco. They've seen her drive and her ability to work a crowd and use her fame as currency, not unlike President Trump.
As one former Fox News colleague said, "It's interesting to me that Donald Trump Jr. ended up with a female version of his father."