Fox News Channel Signs Ex-DNC Chair Donna Brazile As Contributor
Fox News Channel has signed its former punching bag, aka Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile as a contributor.
In Monday’s announcement, the cable news network noted the veteran Dem strategist will offer political analysis across both FNC and Fox Business Network’s daytime and primetime programming. Announcement was made just hours before her first scheduled appearance on Monday’s The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino.
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“I know I’m going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News,” Brazile said, accurately, in announcement.
“My response is that, if we’ve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we can’t have a country where we don’t talk to those who disagree with our political views. There’s an audience on Fox News that doesn’t hear enough from Democrats. We have to engage that audience and show Americans of every stripe what we stand for rather than retreat into our ‘safe spaces’ where we simply agree with each other.”
“You can be darn sure that I’m still going to be me on Fox News,” she added. “I’m going to do what I always do: and dish it out straight, exactly as I see it, with just as much New Orleans hot sauce as folks expect.”
Brazile also had somewhat limited options for contributor gigs, having been dumped by CNN in fall of 2016 over a WikiLeaks dump that included an old email from Brazile to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, alerting him about a question that would be raised during an upcoming debate on the cable news network.
“We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor,” a CNN rep said at the time.
But Brazile used to be one of FNC’s favorite targets. When on book tour in 2017, for instance,Tucker Carlson asked her about being accused of leaking a debate question to the Clinton campaign. “I didn’t want them to be blindsided,” she responded, triggering gales of Carlson laughter. The Five’s Eric Bolling, meanwhile, described her as “treasonous.”
Brazile will not have anything to do with FNC’s debate or town hall process, a source close to the situation told Deadline.
Prior to joining FNC, Brazile was the interim National Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 presidential election where she led the efforts to support Democratic candidates. She also served as chair of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute, as well as vice chair of Civic Engagement and Voter Participation at the DNC.
Brazil, author of Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, is the first African-American woman to manage a major presidential campaign, and she has participated in every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000.
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