Media observers have long recognized that Fox News effectively serves as an arm of President Donald Trump’s political apparatus. But with Wednesday’s announcement that the network has tapped his daughter-in-law, Lara, to host a weekly show, it’s clear Fox has abandoned any pretense that it functions as something other than a state TV channel.
Lara Trump — who served as a Fox contributor following Trump’s first term, zealously denied the 2020 election results and then co-chaired the Republican National Committee during the 2024 presidential campaign — will take over the 9 p.m. hour of Fox’s Saturday night lineup beginning later this month, The New York Times first reported. “[T]here is no precedent for the close relative of a sitting president to host a high-profile show on a major television news channel,” the paper noted.
Indeed, this deal is almost comically corrupt. No one should have any illusions that Fox has hired Lara Trump to produce anything other than crude propaganda for her father-in-law and his administration. And the arrangement for Fox to put money into the president’s family member’s bank account became public two days after Donald Trump met with network owner Rupert Murdoch in the Oval Office and publicly criticized his Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.
No credible news outlet would employ the president’s relative as a host. But Fox doesn’t function like a normal news outlet, and its executives apparently no longer care to pretend otherwise. Turning over airtime to Lara Trump is simply a natural progression for a network that merged with the White House during the president’s first term and is returning to that form for his second.
Fox, for all its airs of being “Fair and Balanced,” has served as an extension of Republican messaging since its founding by Murdoch and Republican political consultant Roger Ailes. But the network’s transformation was nonetheless jarring after Trump, a longtime network regular, took office in 2017.
Fox’s on-air coverage of Trump and his administration quickly became an endless stream of sycophancy. Network stars would alternate their over-the-top praise of the president with advice for what he should do. And that counsel, provided both on-air and off, was frequently adopted by the executive, powering everything from pardons to the pandemic response.
As pro-Trump employees moved through a revolving door between Fox News and the administration, dissidents left the network and publicly warned that it had become a mouthpiece for the White House. Meanwhile, Murdoch received favorable regulatory treatment, even as Trump put the hammer to more critical news outlets.
This merger between Fox and the White House created innumerable ethics scandals. Consider the case of Sean Hannity. Over four years, the Fox host appeared in an official Trump campaign ad; spoke at one of the president’s campaign events; served as a back channel between Trump and his indicted associates; employed a member of Trump’s legal team; scripted a re-election commercial; and held so much influence with Trump that he was described by White House aides as the “unofficial chief of staff.” Any one of these revelations might trigger summary firing at any other outlet. At Fox, they were met with shrugs.
Now, in Trump’s second term, it’s all happening again. Though Murdoch had some initial qualms about continuing to support Trump following the president’s incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection, their relationship has long been back on track. Fox’s programming once again consists of a stream of compliments for Trump’s actions, no matter how depraved or deranged or inane or absurd.
The president, in turn, has stocked his administration with nearly 20 former Fox employees, including “Fox & Friends” weekend co-host Pete Hegseth as the new defense secretary. Hannity received Trump’s first Oval Office interview. And his hand-picked Federal Communications Commission chair revived petitions against CBS, ABC and NBC, while ignoring a similar petition against Fox News’ parent company, the Fox Corp.
Lara Trump’s hiring eliminates any subtext. No outlet that prioritizes providing the news for its audience would put the sitting president’s daughter-in-law on its payroll. Fox operates under different rules and has different goals — and the network no longer cares who knows it.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
