Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is joining Fox News as a contributor, the network announced Thursday.
Sanders, who left the Trump administration roughly two months ago, will appear on various Fox platforms to provide political commentary. She will make her first appearance on “Fox & Friends” during its Sept. 6 broadcast.{mosads}
Sanders worked on the Trump campaign and later in the White House, where she spent approximately two years as press secretary. In that role, she oversaw the demise of the daily press briefing and had an at-times strained relationship with the press corps.
While Sanders did not hold regular briefings in the White House, she did appear regularly on Fox News programming to take questions from anchors.
Her credibility took a hit after she admitted to federal investigators that she misled reporters when she claimed during a May 2017 briefing that “countless” FBI agents had told her they supported Trump’s decision to fire former Director James Comey.
Sanders has been floated as a future gubernatorial candidate in her native Arkansas, where her father, Mike Huckabee, held the same job for 11 years. Huckabee is also a Fox News contributor and hosted a weekend show on the network.
Trump has been vocally supportive of a Sanders gubernatorial bid, though the former press secretary indicated upon her departure that she hoped to spend more time with her family.
Trump has an affinity for Fox News, and his administration and campaign team have ties to the network.
He previously hired former Fox News executive Bill Shine as communications director. Shine left that post earlier this year and joined an outside group supporting President Trump’s reelection campaign.
Hope Hicks worked as Trump’s communications director prior to Shine and now works in a similar role for Fox Corporation.
Former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle is also working with the Trump campaign and is dating Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
The president has often tweeted approvingly of commentary from Fox opinion hosts like Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs and occasionally calls into Hannity’s show or “Fox & Friends” for lengthy conversations.
Trump, however, has in recent weeks grown frustrated with Fox, complaining about polls commissioned by the network that show him losing to former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democratic presidential candidates.
“Fox has changed. And my worst polls have always been from Fox,” Trump said Sunday. “There’s something going on at Fox, I’ll tell you right now. And I’m not happy with it.”
Sanders follows in a long line of former press secretaries going from the White House to network and cable news outlets.
Jay Carney, Robert Gibbs and Josh Earnest all worked for President Obama in the role of press secretary. Carney was hired by CNN after leaving the White House, while Gibbs and Earnest went to work for MSNBC.
Dana Perino, who worked for President George W. Bush, was signed by Fox News shortly after her tenure in the White House and currently serves as co-host of “The Five, “The Daily Briefing” and “Dana Perino’s Book Club” on Fox Nation.
Ari Fleischer, who also served under Bush from 2001 to 2003, would join CNN as a contributor years later, from 2011 to 2013. He was later signed by Fox News in 2017.
Tony Snow, who served under Bush in 2006 and was a Fox News host prior to coming on at the White House, was signed by CNN following his stint as press secretary in 2007. He died after a bout with colon cancer in 2008 at age 53.
Updated at 11:07 a.m.