A month ago, after Senate Republicans confirmed Sara Carter as the nation’s new drug czar, she likely recognized many of her new colleagues in the executive branch. Carter, who didn’t have any of the relevant qualifications her predecessors brought to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, was best known as a Fox News contributor, and she joined an administration filled with other Fox veterans.
The precise number of former Fox hosts, anchors and contributors who have joined Donald Trump’s team is open to debate, but by any fair count, the total is roughly two dozen.
One of the notable things about revolving doors, however, is that they can be used to go in both directions: As a wide variety of figures leave Fox to join Team Trump, some members of Team Trump have also left the administration to join Fox. The New York Times flagged the latest example:
Dan Bongino, the right-wing pundit who became President Trump’s No. 2 official at the F.B.I. before stepping down in December after a rocky tenure, is set to return to Fox News as a paid contributor, the network said on Monday. Bongino, who has also restarted his popular right-wing podcast, hosted a Saturday evening program on Fox News before leaving the network in April 2023.
Bongino’s tenure at the FBI was an embarrassment. The president thought it might be interesting to put a volatile podcast personality in charge of running the bureau, and the result was a failed experiment in amateurism: Bongino did a job he didn’t like badly.
But shortly before his formal departure from the FBI, Bongino sat down with Fox News host Sean Hannity, who asked the then-deputy director about the discredited conspiracy theories he used to peddle about the Capitol Hill pipe bomb case. He replied, “You know, listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions. That’s clear. And one day, I’ll be back in that space, but that’s not what I’m paid for now.”
Two months later, he’s “back in that space.” Indeed, Bongino is in a unique position: While the revolving door has spun quickly since Trump returned to the White House, Bongino is one of those rare people who went from conservative media to the administration and then back to conservative media, all within the span of about 10 months. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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