Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former White House press secretary for President Donald Trump, has joined Fox News as a contributor, increasing the list of administration alumni who are employed by the Fox brand.
"Fox News has been the No. 1 news organization in the country for 17 years running, and I am beyond proud to join their incredible stable of on-air contributors in providing political insights and analysis," Sanders said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
And it is a family affair. Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, is already a contributor at the network.
According to the network, Sanders will "provide political commentary and analysis across all of Fox News Media, including Fox News Channel (FNC), Fox Business Network (FBN), Fox News Digital, Fox Nation and the radio/podcast division."
Sanders is also the third former high-ranking official from Trump's White House to join a Fox brand, according to CNN. The others include former White House communications director Hope Hicks and former White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah, who became an executive vice president and chief communications officer and a senior vice president of Fox Corporation, respectively.
When it was first announced that Sanders was leaving the White House, Trump implied that she might run for governor of Arkansas, an option which would be foreclosed to her if she remains a Fox News contributor.
"After 3 1/2 years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas...." Trump posted in a tweet at the time.
He later added in a follow-up tweet, "....She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas - she would be fantastic. Sarah, thank you for a job well done!"
Sanders also gained favor with Trump for her scathing criticisms of media outlets critical of him. In December 2017, for example, she wrote that "there's a very big difference between making honest mistakes and purposefully misleading the American people, something that happens regularly. You can't say that it's an honest mistake when you're purposefully putting out information that you know to be false. Or when you're taking information that hasn't been validated, that hasn't been offered any credibility, and that has been continually denied by a number of people, including people with direct knowledge of an instance."
She added, "I'm speaking about the number of reports that have taken place over the last couple of weeks. I'm simply stating that there should be a certain level of responsibility in that process."
It was also reported last month that Sanders will write a book about her experiences working in the Trump White House. According to Axios, "the book will be billed as an account of her life in politics and experience inside the Trump administration, which she sees as very positive. Sanders plans to relax with her family in July, and she will help with Trump's re-election campaign."
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