Hope Hicks, counselor to the president (updated 2/13/20). Hicks, who first entered Trump’s orbit as a public relations flack working on Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, is reportedly one of Trump’s close confidates. In January 2015, a few months after she joined the Trump Organization, Donald Trump selected her to be press secretary on his 2016 campaign, one of its earliest hires. After Trump’s election, she served as White House communications director and was promoted to director of strategic communications. Hicks left the White House in April 2018. That October, she was announced as executive vice president and chief communications officer of what became Fox Corporation, Fox News’ parent company. In February 2020, The New York Times reported Hicks was returning to the White House as an aide to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, with the title of counselor to the president.

Richard Grenell, presidential envoy, former acting director of national intelligence and German ambassador (updated 7/15/20). Grenell, a Republican communications professional who spent seven years as spokesperson for the U.S. delegation to the U.N., joined Fox News as a contributor in 2009 and was still in the network’s employ when he was nominated to be ambassador to Germany in September 2017. He was confirmed in April 2018 “despite objections from Democrats that his past epithets about prominent female politicians made him unfit for the job.” Trump named him special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations in October 2019. Trump announced on February 19, 2020, that he was appointing Grenell acting director of national intelligence, a cabinet-level position overseeing 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. In a story on the move, The New York Times described Grenell as “a vocal Trump loyalist” and reported he was selected as an “acting” director rather than formally nominated because he is “a polarizing figure and his confirmation by the Senate is not assured.” After a tenure in which he used his post to advance Trump’s political interests, Grenell was replaced and he also stepped down from his ambassadorship, while retaining his post as special envoy.

Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development. Carson, formerly a prominent neurosurgeon, became a right-wing media sensation after using a February 2013 speech in front of President Barack Obama to trumpet conservative economics and health care arguments. He joined Fox News as a contributor in October 2013 and left just over a year later to run for president. After Trump’s election, Carson joined his administration as the secretary of housing and urban development. His tenure has been dogged by scandals involving lavish spending for office furniture and other ethics issues, as well as a general failure to carry out his department’s mission.

Elaine Chao, secretary of transportation. After a career in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors capped by serving as labor secretary in President George W. Bush’s Cabinet, Chao became a Fox News contributor. She left the network in 2012 and took a seat on the board of directors of News Corp., at the time Fox’s parent company. In 2016, she stepped down from the board after Trump nominated her as secretary of transportation. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); former Fox News contributor Erick Erickson has alleged that he was taken off the air because of his criticism of McConnell at Chao’s behest.

Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary (added 4/28/20). McEnany spent three years as a production assistant for Mike Huckabee’s Fox show, reportedly leaving the network when she was unable to secure on-air opportunities. Hired by CNN during the 2016 election cycle to serve as one of the network’s full-time Trump surrogates, she made a name for herself for her willingness to defend anything the then-candidate said or did, no matter how reprehensible. After the election she officially joined the Trump team payroll, as national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee and then the reelection campaign. She was named White House press secretary in April 2020, and she has carried out her predecessor’s precedent of largely using the role to appear on Fox to support the president and attack the press.

John McEntee, head of the White House Presidential Personnel Office (updated 2/14/20). Fox hired McEntee as a production assistant in 2015. He later served as Trump’s personal aide both during the presidential campaign and in the White House. When McEntee was fired in March 2018, CNN reported that it was “because he is currently under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for serious financial crimes.” In February 2020, Axios reported that McEntee had returned to the White House and would lead the Presidential Personnel Office, which oversees executive branch appointments.

Scott Brown, ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Glowing Fox News coverage helped power Brown to victory in his 2010 run for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. After losing his reelection bid two years later, he joined the network as a contributor, using it as a platform to burnish his profile over the next year while exploring a run for Senate in New Hampshire. He left the network, lost that 2014 race despite the network’s efforts to promote him, and was rehired two weeks later. After Brown endorsed Trump in February 2016, Fox hosts began promoting him for the vice president slot. In August 2016, former Fox host Andrea Tantaros named him in the sexual harassment lawsuit she filed against Fox and several network executives. Trump nonetheless nominated Brown to be ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa in April 2017, and he was confirmed that June. He subsequently faced a State Department inquiry after making inappropriate comments to a female server at an official event.

Georgette Mosbacher, ambassador to Poland. Mosbacher, a Republican businesswoman and donor, longtime Trump friend, and a Fox News contributor, was nominated to be ambassador to Poland in February 2018 and confirmed by the Senate that July.

Morgan Ortagus, State Department spokesperson. After working in the Bush and Obama administrations, Ortagus became a Fox contributor, then was named State Department spokesperson in April 2019.

Lea Gabrielle, State Department special envoy. In February 2019, the State Department named Gabrielle, a former Fox News reporter, as special envoy and coordinator of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, an agency that counters foreign propaganda and disinformation.

Sebastian Gorka, member, National Security Education Board, former deputy assistant to the president (updated 7/15/20). A bombastic, self-proclaimed national security “expert” with dubious credentials, a proclivity for anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, and ties to foreign extremist groups, Gorka made frequent appearances on Fox News during the 2016 presidential campaign and was briefly hired by the network before decamping for the Trump White House. His job was ill-defined, and he apparently did little other than go on television to support the president before he was canned in August 2017. He then returned to Fox News as a full-fledged contributor, albeit one who was reportedly banned from appearing on the network’s “hard news” programming. In March 2019, he left Fox for Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose stations now broadcast his bigotry around the country. On July 14, 2020, Trump announced his intent to appoint Gorka to a four-year term as a member of the National Security Education Board.

Monica Crowley, Treasury Department assistant secretary for public affairs. A C-list conservative commentator who spent two decades as a Fox contributor, Crowley was a reliable source of the network’s typical combination of bigotry, right-wing talking points, and attacks on the press. Most notably, she pushed several bigoted conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama’s heritage, including promoting a documentary about his purported “real father.” Trump’s plan to name her to a top National Security Council post was scuttled by revelations that she had plagiarized parts of her 2012 book and Ph.D. thesis, but she was appointed to the Treasury position in July 2019.