‘Beyond proud’: Sarah Sanders to join Fox News as contributor
The former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has joined Fox News as a contributor, further bolstering the revolving door between the conservative television network and Donald Trump’s administration.
Sanders, who resigned as Trump’s top spokesperson in June, will make her debut next month on the president’s preferred program Fox & Friends.
In a statement, Sanders said she was “beyond proud” to join the team of on-air contributors at Fox News.
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It is not uncommon for former administration and political aides to transition into network television: George Stephanopoulos, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, is an anchor at ABC News; Jay Carney, the former press secretary to Barack Obama, did a stint at CNN as a political commentator after departing the White House; Nicole Wallace, a senior adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, is a host at MSNBC.
Nonetheless, Sanders is the third former top White House official to join Fox News, which has emerged as one of Trump’s largest boosters.
Raj Shah, the former White House deputy press secretary, joined Fox Corporation as senior vice-president just last month. Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director and close Trump confidante, was also brought on by Fox Corporation in 2018 as an executive vice-president and chief communications officer.
The network’s primetime opinion lineup positions some of Trump’s most prominent cheerleaders back-to-back, from Tucker Carlson to Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Bill Shine, the former co-president of Fox News, also served as White House communications director from July 2018 to May 2019.
Sanders will provide commentary and analysis across the network’s programming. During her tenure at the White House, Sanders was a frequent guest on the network even as she stopped providing press briefings.
She was widely criticized for making statements to reporters that were deemed false, including her assertion amid the firing of former FBI director James Comey that he had lost the support of “countless” agents inside the bureau.
Sanders often clashed with reporters over the media’s coverage of the Trump administration and forcefully defended the president’s agenda, including his policy of separating families at the US-Mexico border.
Her hiring at Fox News comes as ABC drew a torrent of backlash for casting her predecessor, Sean Spicer, on the next season of Dancing with the Stars. Critics have panned what they say are efforts to normalize or rehabilitate the image of former Trump administration officials who misled the American public and stood by the president’s most controversial actions.
Disclosure: Sabrina Siddiqui is a political analyst at CNN.
