Revealed: How Fox News Morphed Into The Trump Administration

By Matt Gertz\Zeteo

Photos: YouTube\C-Span Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons

Donald Trump is casting his administration straight from Fox News. The president-elect has named 18 current or former Fox employees to leading roles – and his second term hasn’t even begun.

No other president has done this before in US history.

Trump is notoriously obsessed with Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda factory, where he built his political profile and then unified his base. During his first White House stint, Trump spent hours each day learning about global events through Fox’s right-wing programming – regularly tweeting along in real-time. Trump treated Fox stars as his advisers, giving the network unrivaled influence over policy, strategy, personnel, pardons, and more.

Trump is again using Fox as a staffing agency. Those going through this Fox-to-administration revolving door may be radical conspiracy theorists who lack experience for their potential roles in government. But by using the network’s platform to fawn over Trump, denounce his opponents, and make unhinged appeals to the GOP base, they caught the president-elect’s eye.

Here are Trump’s Fox selections – including official Cabinet secretary nominees, high-level White House aides, diplomats in key regions, and senior agency leaders:

Pete Hegseth, Defense Secretary Nominee

Trump nominated Hegseth, a relentless pro-Trump propagandist who co-hosted the weekend edition of Fox’s morning show, ‘Fox & Friends,’ to oversee the US military as defense secretary. An Army National Guard veteran who once served as a guard at Guantanamo Bay, Hegseth convinced then-President Trump to offer clemency to several accused or convicted US war criminals. Hegseth has advocated for the US to use waterboarding; described US military rules of engagement as “a huge problem”; valorized Jan. 6 rioters as people who “love freedom”; called for US military strikes on Iranian infrastructure and cultural sites; and floated a “preemptive strike” against North Korea.

Tom Homan, ‘Border Czar’

Homan, reportedly the “intellectual ‘father’” of Trump’s family separation policy while acting director of ICE, will return as Trump’s second-term “Border Czar,” with responsibility for deportations. Homan, who joined Fox as a contributor after his 2018 retirement, has pushed the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, including alleging that the Biden administration’s border policy is an effort to destroy the country to import “millions” of “future Democratic voters.”

Tulsi Gabbard, DNI Nominee

Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress who joined Fox as a contributor in 2022 amid her evolution to Tucker Carlson favorite and MAGA hard-liner, is Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence. On Fox, Gabbard has claimed that media figures who “warn the country that Donald Trump is going to be like a modern-day Hitler” are sending a message to a “rogue actor” or “lone wolf” to assassinate him.

Leo Terrell, DOJ post

Terrell, a California radio personality who joined Fox as a contributor in 2021 and used its platform to allege that Democrats “have basically declared war on white people,” is Trump’s pick as senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department. On Fox, Terrell has claimed that “systemic racism does not exist” and that Democrats are “perpetuating” a “race war.”

Sebastian Gorka, NSC Counterterrorism Chief

An unhinged anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist with dubious national security credentials, Gorka bounced from Fox to the first Trump administration back to Fox before decamping for other right-wing outlets. He will join the second Trump White House as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism.

Marty Makary, FDA Commissioner Nominee

Makary, a surgeon, professor, and Fox medical contributor who used that platform to criticize COVID-19 vaccine mandates, is Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration. He used the network’s platform to criticize COVID-19 vaccine mandates and medical experts who warned about the emergence of deadly variants.

Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary Nominee

Duffy, Trump’s nominee for transportation secretary, joined Fox as a contributor in 2020 and became a Fox Business host in 2023. In a 2024 segment, he blamed a malfunction on a Boeing plane on the company’s purportedly excessive focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, saying: “Attention Boeing executives, DEI must die, not passengers on your plane.”

Michael Waltz, National Security Adviser

Waltz, a Fox contributor before his 2018 election to the US House, will be the White House national security adviser. After he was elected to Congress, he remained one of the network’s most frequent guests, using a recent appearance to claim that the deadly New Orleans attack by an American-born Islamic State group supporter showed the need to “close the border, secure our sovereignty.”

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ambassador to Greece Nominee

Guilfoyle, a former Fox host who later worked on Trump’s campaign and became engaged to his son Donald Trump Jr., is Trump’s nominee as US ambassador to Greece. After that country’s populace voted down a 2015 bailout offer from European creditors, she described Greeks as “freeloaders” who should “suck it up” or be punished like when a “dog pees on the rug.”

Mike Huckabee, Ambassador to Israel Nominee

Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor who hosted a Fox show from 2008 to 2015, is Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Israel. On Fox, Huckabee has described the incoming president’s 2021 impeachment over his role in the January 6 insurrection as “a lynching of Donald Trump.”

Tammy Bruce, State Department Spokesperson

Bruce, Trump’s pick for State Department spokesperson, spent nearly two decades as a Fox contributor. On Fox, Bruce has argued that CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s conduct during White House press briefings made him “the enemy of the people.”

Monica Crowley, State Department Post

Crowley, a conspiracy theorist who spent about two decades as a Fox contributor, is Trump’s pick for State Department chief of protocol. Crowley has repeatedly suggested that the deep state has tried to assassinate Trump, blamed “the regime” for the “January 6 frame-up,” and enthusiastically endorsed a deranged documentary that alleged that former President Barack Obama’s “real father” was the communist writer Frank Marshall Davis.

Keith Kellogg, Special Envoy to Russia and Ukraine

A retired general who joined Fox as a contributor after serving as a top Trump defense aide, Kellogg will return to the administration as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. On Fox, he has cited the need to “super escalate” against Iran, calling for the Biden administration to “apply much greater force” and to “tell the supreme leader, and very clearly, you’re on the docket, dude.”

Janette Nesheiwat, Surgeon General Nominee

Nesheiwat, a doctor and medical director of a chain of New York urgent care centers who joined Fox as a medical contributor in 2020, is Trump’s nominee for surgeon general. On Fox, she repeatedly highlighted the purported health risks of vaccination for children and young men.

Abigail Slater, DOJ Post

Slater, an attorney who specializes in technology issues and left Trump’s first White House to lead the federal policy team of Fox Corp., Fox News’ parent company, is Trump’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

Richard Grenell, Envoy for Special Missions

Grenell spent eight years as a Fox contributor before joining Trump’s first administration and will be the presidential envoy for special missions in his second term. During the 2016 Republican primaries, Grenell called Trump “unserious,” “reckless,” and “dangerous” on Twitter. But he deleted those tweets after Trump became the nominee and began praising Trump on social media and on Fox. He was accused of cozying up to the German far-right when he was Trump’s ambassador to Germany.

Morgan Ortagus, Deputy Middle East Envoy

A Fox contributor who served in Trump’s State Department, Ortagus will be deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East peace in his second term. In announcing Ortagus’ appointment, Trump appeared unenthused about his choice: “Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson.”

Sergio Gor, White House Post

Gor, Trump’s pick to lead the White House Presidential Personnel Office, once worked as a Fox booker. He’s business partners with Donald Trump Jr. and was an officiant at the wedding of disgraced former congressman Matt Gaetz.

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Trump clashed with his first-term defense secretaries over his desire to pull the US out of NATO, pardon accused and convicted US war criminals, and invoke the Insurrection Act to turn the military on domestic protesters. He fought with his first-term healthcare team over pandemic policies. By hiring from Fox’s stable of pro-Trump propagandists, the president-elect can avoid such disputes – removing bumps on the road to authoritarian rule.

Matt Gertz is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, where his work focuses on the relationship between the right-wing media and Donald Trump’s GOP.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.