Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump and senior adviser of his presidential campaign, announced Monday morning that she has joined Fox News as a paid on-air contributor.
During an appearance on Fox & Friends, the ex-president’s longtime favorite morning show, co-host Ainsley Earhardt noted that the network had a “big announcement” and giddily welcomed Lara, who is married to Eric Trump, to the Fox team as the entire crew applauded their new colleague.
“Well I’m so excited, first of all, to be joining the Fox family,” Trump gleefully exclaimed. “I sort of feel like I’ve been an unofficial member of the team for so long. You guys know, it was kind of a joke over the past five years, I would come there so often that the security guards were like maybe we should just give you a key. So to be a part of the team I’m so so excited!”
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Co-host Steve Doocy, meanwhile, pointed out that his new Fox colleague was still considering a run for Senate in North Carolina, prompting Trump to say that she’s already had a conversation with the network about the potential ethical issues. (Fox News has a history of cutting ties with contributors when they officially announce an office run, such as Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently and Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in the past.)
“Fox has been very generous with me,” Trump said. “They had said, look, if that’s something that you ultimately decide to do, they are going to work with me on that front and make sure that everything—all the rules are followed and we do everything properly.”
She concluded: “So thank you to the Fox team for allowing me to have the possibility that that’s in the future so I still haven’t officially made a decision, but hopefully sometime soon.”
While there has long been a revolving door between Team Trump and Fox News, and numerous administration and campaign officials have recently joined the network following the ex-president’s departure from the White House, this represents the first time an actual Trump family member has been hired by the network.
This move should also put to rest any notion that the former president is holding a longstanding grudge against Fox News for its early (and correct) election night projection of Arizona for President Joe Biden. The electoral decision created a snowball effect in Trumpworld which briefly resulted in disgruntled MAGA fans ditching the network while Trump urged his supporters to support smaller right-wing networks such as Newsmax.
