The revolving door between Donald Trump’s Fox News propaganda outlet and his incoming administration is already beginning to turn.

Trump announced that Fox News contributor Tom Homan will serve as “The Border Czar” with responsibility for “our Nation’s Borders” as well as “all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin” in a Sunday post to Truth Social. Homan joined Fox two months after his June 2018 retirement as acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director during Trump’s first term.

Homan’s hiring points to the influential role Fox will play during the second Trump administration. The notoriously Fox-obsessed president-elect hired at least 20 officials who previously worked at the network during his first term, including Cabinet secretaries and top White House aides. Fox, in turn, put more than a dozen members of the Trump orbit on its payroll during and after his presidency.

Homan highlighted the importance of his presence on Fox in a Monday appearance on Fox & Friends, Trump’s favorite morning broadcast. 

“I have been on this network for years complaining about what this administration did to this border,” Homan said. “I have been yelling and screaming about it, telling them what they need to do to fix it.” 

Trump subsequently posted the segment on Truth Social. 

Indeed, Trump has had many opportunities over the years to see Homan using Fox’s platform to promote their shared brand of anti-immigrant vitriol. Homan made at least 441 weekday appearances on Fox from August 2017 through Election Day 2024, according to the Media Matters database, with 80 of those appearances coming since January 2023. 

As a member of the Trump administration, Homan made the case for the then-president’s anti-immigrant agenda on his network of choice while reportedly serving as the "intellectual ‘father’” of Trump’s cruel family separation policy.

On Fox’s airwaves, Homan regularly fomented fear of immigrants and demanded radical and inhumane policies in response to their purported invasion. 

Homan also appeared in the far-right fever swamps, pushing the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory in an appearance on the online program of a Hitler-praising antisemite. 

And during the 2024 presidential campaign, Homan promised that if Trump were elected, Homan would “run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen” in which “no one’s off the table.”  

Homan isn’t the only incoming Trump official to benefit from Fox’s megaphone. Several other people Trump reportedly plans to nominate for high-ranking positions in his administration have spent the last several years regularly appearing on the president-elect’s favored network. 

According to the Media Matters database, from August 2017 through Election Day 2024:

• Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), Trump’s reported pick for national security adviser, made at least 569 weekday Fox appearances, including 176 since January 2023.
• Stephen Miller, Trump’s pick for deputy White House chief of staff for policy, made at least 374 weekday Fox appearances, including 174 since January 2023.
• Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Trump’s pick for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, made at least 307 weekday Fox appearances, including 92 since January 2023. 
• Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Trump’s reported pick for secretary of state, made at least 263 weekday Fox appearances, including 70 since January 2023.
• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump’s reported pick for secretary of homeland security, made at least 135 weekday Fox appearances, including 46 since January 2023. 
• Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations, made at least 108 weekday Fox appearances, including 32 since January 2023.

Trump’s early staffing selections suggest that his administration will be every bit as intertwined with Fox as it was in his first term. And if Fox is helping with personnel, policy won’t be far behind.