{"id":794,"date":"2018-03-25T19:47:04","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T23:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=794"},"modified":"2018-03-25T19:47:04","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T23:47:04","slug":"trump-is-staffing-or-casting-from-fox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=794","title":{"rendered":"Trump is staffing \u2014 or casting \u2014 from Fox"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Associated Press March 25, 2018<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nState Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert spoke during a briefing at the State Department in Washington. Nauert is a former Fox News anchor.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump\u2019s favorite TV network is increasingly serving as a West Wing casting call, as the president reshapes his administration with camera-ready personalities.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s new national security adviser, John Bolton, is a former U.N. ambassador, a White House veteran \u2014 and perhaps most importantly a Fox News channel talking head. Bolton\u2019s appointment, rushed out late Thursday, follows Trump\u2019s recent attempt to recruit Fox guest Joseph diGenova for his legal team.<\/p>\n

Bolton went on Fox to discuss his selection and said it had happened so quickly that \u201cI think I\u2019m still a Fox News contributor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another recent TV-land addition to the Trump White House is veteran CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow as top economic adviser. Other Fox faces on Trump\u2019s team: rising State Department star Heather Nauert, a former Fox News anchor; communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp and Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh. The latter two are both former Fox commentators.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s looking for people who are ready to be part of that television White House,\u201d said Kendall Phillips, a communication and rhetorical studies professor at Syracuse University. \u201cThis is the Fox television presidency all the way up and down.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiGenova, who has accused FBI officials of trying to \u201cframe\u201d Trump for nonexistent crimes, will not be joining the legal team because of \u201cconflicts,\u201d said Trump counsel Jay Sekulow today. Sekulow, however, said diGenova and his wife, attorney Victoria Toensing, also a frequent commentator on Fox, would not be prevented from helping Trump \u201cin other legal matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s affinity for Fox News is by now well-documented. He has bestowed more interviews on the network than any other news outlet and is an avid viewer. People close to the president say he thinks Fox provides the best coverage of his untraditional presidency. It also provides him a window into conservative thinking, with commentary from Republican lawmakers and right-wing thinkers \u2014 many of who are speaking directly to the audience in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

On-air personalities Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are favorites of the president, who also speaks to them privately. This past week Trump promoted Hannity on Twitter, saying: \u201cseanhannity on foxandfriends now! Great! 8:18 A.M.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s early-morning tweets often appear to be reaction to Fox programming. On Friday, for example, Trump tweeted he was \u201cconsidering\u201d a veto of a massive spending bill needed to keep the government open not long after it was assailed on \u201cFox and Friends\u201d as a \u201cswamp budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

The critic in question was contributor Pete Hegseth, a favorite of the president who has been rumored to be a possible replacement for embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin.<\/p>\n

Fox News came in for criticism this past week from CNN chief Jeff Zucker, who on Thursday attacked the rival network by saying it has become a propaganda machine that is \u201cdoing an incredible disservice to the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zucker spoke at the Financial Times Future of News conference two days after a former Fox military analyst quit, claiming he was ashamed at the way the network\u2019s opinion hosts were backing Trump. Zucker said that analyst, Ralph Peters, voiced what a lot of people have been thinking about Fox in the post-Roger Ailes era.<\/p>\n

Still, in Trump\u2019s Washington, lawmakers and influence-seekers know that the best way to get in Trump\u2019s ear is often to get on Fox. Legislators routinely seek to get airtime when they are trying to push legislation or policy ideas, said congressional aides who sought anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cA year ago, everyone was trying to figure out how to get into the building; now everyone is trying to figure out how to get on TV,\u201d said Republican consultant Alex Conant.<\/p>\n

This past week, for example, conservative lawmakers unhappy with the spending bill moving through Congress took to Fox. \u201cThis may be the worst bill I have seen in my time in Congress,\u201d said Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

And when the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, prompted a national conversation on gun laws, Fox contributor Geraldo Rivera used his platform to urge the president to support raising the age requirement to buy assault-type weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve gotta let me give my pitch,\u201d he said on \u201cFox and Friends\u201d several weeks ago, noting that he would see Trump that night. \u201cHere in Florida and most states a kid cannot buy a beer \u2026 and yet he could buy an AR-15 legally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hosts quickly pushed back. \u201cTell him to let the teachers carry concealed,\u201d said one.<\/p>\n

While the coverage varies by show, \u201cFox and Friends\u201d tends to be Trump-friendly, with the chipper morning show spotlighting his achievements and bashing the \u201cmainstream media.\u201d On Friday, they featured a teen from the Florida high school where the shooting occurred who opposes gun control efforts, as well as a young conservative activist who interviewed Trump at a White House event the day before.<\/p>\n

Also appearing Friday was White House counselor Kellyanne Conway \u2014 herself a constant presence on cable news \u2014 who pushed back at the idea Trump was focused on hiring TV personalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony is not lost on me that you have a lot of quote \u2018TV stars\u2019 calling Larry Kudlow and John Bolton \u2018TV stars,\u2019\u201d Conway said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Associated Press March 25, 2018 State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert spoke during a briefing at the State Department in Washington. Nauert is a former Fox…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presidential-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-25_19-45-47.jpg?fit=795%2C458&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-cO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":696,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=696","url_meta":{"origin":794,"position":0},"title":"Fox News Contributor Quits, Calls Network a \u2018Propaganda Machine\u2019","author":"Donnie","date":"March 20, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"By\u00a0Kirsten Chuba CREDIT: YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT Lt. Col.\u00a0Ralph Peters, an Army veteran and\u00a0Fox News\u00a0contributor, quit the network on Tuesday in an email to his colleagues, saying he was \u201cashamed\u201d of working there. 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