This reporting appeared as part of this week’s edition of Confider, The Daily Beast’s media newsletter. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Monday. Send questions, tips, and complaints here.
In the ongoing battle between Fox News and Newsmax, Mike Huckabee has long appeared to play both sides.
The former governor had been a paid Fox News contributor since 2008 (minus a break during his 2016 presidential bid), while at the same time becoming a fixture on Newsmax programming. Newsmax has long syndicated his weekly show that airs on a Christian cable channel (the same show that originally ran on Fox News until 2015).
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This double-dipping occurred all while Newsmax shamelessly exploited MAGA rage over the 2020 election and began taking wild swings at its much larger rival (and its biggest star in Tucker Carlson) in an effort to win over pro-Trump viewers. Even Huckabee appeared to take a potshot at Fox News, despite being on their payroll, in a tweet bragging about how Newsmax refused to call the election that Fox famously called—much to the chagrin of MAGA world.
And then, as The Daily Beast reported, the former Arkansas governor even appeared in an ad for Newsmax touting him as an example of its “honest analysis” while not-so-subtly jabbing at Fox News.
In recent months, Huckabee’s apparent playing of both sides reached seemingly new levels: Despite the fact that he had long been a paid commentator for Fox News, he appeared as a pundit on Newsmax’s political talk shows at least 12 times since late February. At the same time, he continued to make frequent appearances on Fox, popping up 15 times in the past month, per transcript searches.
Huckabee even showed up on both networks on the same day—May 2—to salivate over the potential for Roe v. Wade being overturned.
The entire situation has been especially curious given how little these two outlets care for each other and how rare it is for a network—especially Fox News—to allow a paid contributor to appear on a rival channel (Fox, as you may recall, famously blocked Jeanine Pirro from running to Newsmax even just to promote her book).
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Huckabee’s Twitter bio still lists him as a “Fox News contributor,” and as of last week his official page on the Fox News website billed him as such. And so we had to inquire: How was Fox News okay with his continued dual presence across the two networks?
When Confider inquired about his apparent double-dipping with Newsmax, a Fox News spokesperson revealed that Huckabee hasn’t actually been on the payroll for months: “Huckabee isn’t a contributor—he hasn’t been one since the end of August last year.” (After this story was published, Media Matters reporter Lis Power pointed out that Huckabee was billed on-air as a “Fox News contributor” just last Friday.)
Interestingly, after that initial comment request, Huckabee’s bio page was replaced with an error message.
A Huck-free Fox News payroll may explain why the cable titan didn’t seem to mind him hosting a Newsmax Christmas special late last year starring former President Donald Trump and airing dozens of times during and after the holiday season.
Newsmax declined to comment, and Huckabee did not respond to Confider’s query.
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