When President Joe Biden’s administration flip-flopped on building the border wall this month, Fox News scored a big exclusive interview with former President Donald Trump to get his reaction.
That interview with the current GOP 2024 frontrunner wasn’t with primetime star (and Trump’s close confidant) Sean Hannity. Nor was it with the network’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier. It wasn’t even with the denizens of the curvy couch on Trump’s one-time favorite morning show, Fox & Friends.
Instead, it was with a relatively unknown reporter, though she is quickly becoming one of the most powerful personalities at the conservative cable giant: Fox News Digital correspondent Brooke Singman.
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In her nine years at Fox, Singman has risen through the ranks, from her first position as Fox News President Jay Wallace’s assistant to a general assignment digital reporter to Trump whisperer. She’s scored scoop after scoop from Trumpworld over the past couple of years, and she’s also become a regular presence on Fox News’ early morning programming, appearing daily on Fox & Friends First.
Along the way, Singman’s meteoric rise from Wallace’s assistant to on-air personality—with clear aspirations for stardom—has sparked drama behind the scenes at Fox. Sources at the network tell The Daily Beast that Singman has gained a reputation for stepping on toes and encroaching on other reporters’ territory in order to get in on a story. She’s also ruffled feathers with her seemingly unfettered and recent access to Trump—access that previously appeared to be largely limited to the network’s top hosts and anchors.
At the same time, Singman’s job title at Fox News Digital is as a general politics reporter, suggesting that she works on a wide range of stories in the political world and isn’t confined to a specific beat, such as the White House or Congress.
Another source of contention is that the “hard rule” governing on-air appearances for Fox News Digital reporters doesn’t seem to apply to Singman, sources say. While digital employees are usually only given occasional opportunities to discuss their stories on the network’s airwaves, Singman has become a fixture on Fox’s early-morning shows over the past couple of years. According to a review of transcripts on media monitoring service TVEyes, Singman has appeared on Fox News and Fox Business Network programming at least 150 times in the past six months, and has been a regular presence on Fox & Friends First since December 2020.
While Fox acknowledged digital reporters typically don’t go on air, this is the first instance where they have tried to develop a digital talent for the last three years to be on air, according to a source knowledgeable about the matter.
And she isn’t just relegated to the Fox & Friends kickoff show, either. Following her latest Trump scoop, for instance, she was welcomed on the mid-afternoon news program America Reports to convey the ex-president’s message to Biden on caving on a border wall.
“A victory lap, it’s true,” Singman reported. “He [Trump] said Joe Biden is changing his policies here because he’s watching the country be invaded.”
Several Republican campaign sources, Trumpworld operatives, and Fox News insiders also told The Daily Beast that they suspect Singman could be a candidate for press secretary in a future Trump administration.
Singman did not respond to a request for comment.
Singman’s ascendance as the Fox reporter with a direct line to Trump comes at a time when the ex-president himself has grown sour on the right-wing network that helped boost him to the White House.
After announcing his presidential bid last November, Trump went roughly half a year without appearing on the network’s airwaves. Much of that reason revolved around Fox battling a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which accused the channel of knowingly peddling Trump’s 2020 election lies to boost sagging ratings. (Fox settled with Dominion in April for an eye-popping $787.5 million.)
Even after that “soft ban” expired this spring, Trump’s on-air interviews have been few and far between as the network—along with founder Rupert Murdoch’s other media entities like The New York Post and Wall Street Journal—began promoting other Republican 2024 hopefuls, notably Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Nikki Haley.
Of course, this did not sit well with the former president, who has railed against Fox in recent months. Besides growing increasingly agitated with the Murdoch family trying to find an anti-Trump candidate, Trump has also bristled over his belief that the network’s conservative on-air personalities are no longer sufficiently loyal to him.
The network’s firing of star host Tucker Carlson in April, which angered much of Fox’s pro-Trump viewership, only served to deepen the divide—and Trump eventually leveraged that situation to his advantage. Rather than participate in the first GOP primary debate in August, which would have guaranteed Fox News a massive television rating, Trump instead decided to sit down for a pre-taped Twitter interview with Carlson. (Trump also skipped the second Republican debate, which was also hosted by Fox.)
But throughout Trump’s progressively fraught relationship with Fox since leaving the White House, Singman has seen her stock soar, becoming one of the ex-president’s trusted messengers and landing dozens of exclusive interviews with him.
“It’s what comms people say: ‘Give it to Brooke.’ She will print it as a press release on Fox Digital,” one Republican operative told The Daily Beast.
For example, in the wake of the FBI raiding Mar-a-Lago last year, the former president took on criticism for fomenting violence among his supporters towards the government. In an August 2022 interview with Singman, however, Trump asserted that he “will do whatever” he can “to help the country,” adding that the “temperature has to be brought down.”
In recent months, Singman has kept churning out headline-making quotes from Trump as the ex-president racked up four criminal indictments revolving around his hush-money payment scheme to a porn star, attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and mishandling of classified documents.
The chumminess with Trump’s inner circle has also caused other GOP presidential campaigns to grow a bit wary of Singman.
“I think that there’s a lack of trust there,” one rival campaign aide said. “I would be hesitant in putting my principal in front of her because of that reason. Whatever you say around her gets back to the Trump team.”
In fact, the general feeling is that she could be angling for a job in a prospective second Trump administration. “I’m sure she’d jump at the chance to be press secretary,” said one source.
The Trump campaign said Singman has never relayed any off-the-record information, and praised her for being “very good at her job” and a reporter who “stays with the facts.”
“For other candidates to think that’s a bad thing speak [sic] volumes about them,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told The Daily Beast.
Singman has recently reached out to CNN and NewsNation for potential jobs, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks, and has been meeting with talent agency CAA about a potential move. A pair of CAA agents also followed Singman on Instagram recently. According to two other sources, however, the Fox reporter ended up rejecting an offer from NewsNation earlier this year.
Another insider added that she flaunts her close relationship with Team Trump. “She brags about it,” the source noted.
At the same time, while some GOP campaign operatives told The Daily Beast they are a bit suspicious about Singman, it hasn’t stopped the well-sourced Fox reporter from pulling a slew of exclusives from their candidates. In recent weeks, in fact, she’s published a number of scoops on Haley, Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, and Mike Pence. And, just for good measure, President Joe Biden’s campaign.
Beyond that, Singman has also developed close relationships within the current White House, resulting in her scoring numerous exclusives from the Biden administration, especially on policies and issues that the president hopes Fox News consumers will see.
Singman’s ascent at the network goes back to the very start of the Trump era.
Prior to joining Fox News, she obtained a degree in broadcast journalism and political science from Boston University and got her start in local political journalism—beginning her career as an on-air reporter for the Boston public access program Neighborhood Network News.
In late 2016, after serving as Wallace’s assistant for two years, Singman was shifted to Fox News Digital as a reporter. In recent years, the network’s online news site has been run by former Hannity executive producer Porter Berry, who has been ruthlessly committed to making the digital operation into a carbon copy of the network’s arch-conservative primetime programming.
Prior to fully transitioning to her digital reporting position, Singman was already gaining an edge over others at Fox due to her association with Wallace. Two sources with knowledge of the situation noted that Wallace would bring her into editorial meetings while she was his assistant, prompting Baier and others to complain.
“Jay would bring her into high-level meetings that Bret’s assistant wasn’t allowed into, but Jay would bring her in and Bret was like, ‘This is totally inappropriate and like it’s gonna be a problem and you got to like cut this out,’” one source said.
A network source with knowledge of the situation pushed back on the notion that it was “inappropriate” for Singman to attend editorial meetings, noting that it was part of her job as an assistant of a high-ranking member of management to take part in these meetings. Additionally, all of Wallace’s subsequent assistants since Singman have taken part in these editorial meetings, while talent assistants have not and continue to not be involved.
In her role as a reporter, Singman has gained a reputation for being extremely ambitious, making no secret that she has clear aspirations for on-air fame. At the same time, her hustle—and her willingness to encroach on other reporters’ well-worn territory—has resulted in her irritating some of her colleagues, especially the more experienced ones, sources say.
In fact, insiders have added that because of her start in Wallace’s office, Singman has been deemed “untouchable” by Berry at Fox News Digital. “Porter has told people she’s unnamable when he’s heard complaints about her,” a source added.
A Fox News source with knowledge of the situation, however, disputes this characterization, saying nobody at the network is deemed “untouchable” and that this is pure gossip about Berry.
“She somehow wriggles her way into beats that aren’t hers all the time,” one Fox News reporter said, adding that Singman “often tells people what they want to hear.”
Additionally, Fox News sources said, she’s elbowed her way into White House and National Security Council background calls, despite working for the digital side. Generally, the network already has several beat reporters and correspondents assigned to represent Fox News on those calls.
“They’re a different entity. Like Fox News Digital, they're actually completely separate from the Fox News Channel,” one Fox reporter said. “They’re under the umbrella, but we don’t have any insight into them.”
Furthermore, according to network insiders, the separation between the digital side and the cable news channel also extends to a “hard rule” surrounding on-air appearances. For the most part, outside of occasional one-offs, Fox News Digital reporters and writers largely do not appear on the network to promote their reporting or discuss news events.
“I don’t think Fox has ever had a digital media reporter on before her,” one former network producer told The Daily Beast.
While Singman may have engendered jealousy among her colleagues over her aggressive tactics, proximity to Trump and daily television hits, they also acknowledge that she has a great work ethic and relentlessly puts in the effort to get ahead.
“She does put in the work,” the Fox reporter said. “I think that she has taken advantage of all the opportunities that she’s been given and she's done relatively well with them.”
And she has done well, as exhibited by her midday Fox News appearance to discuss yet another one of her Trump scoops. But perhaps she’s always had that star quality about her.
While she was still an assistant for Wallace, Singman—a classically trained opera singer who previously sang the national anthem at Citi Field—was tapped to sing the national anthem before a 2016 GOP primary presidential debate hosted by Fox News in Cleveland. Fast-forward to 2023, and Singman is now one of only a few dozen people Trump bothers to follow on his social media site Truth Social—joining MAGA Fox hosts Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, and Laura Ingraham.
