Jeanine Pirro is latest loyalist to join Fox News to Trump administration pipeline
When Donald Trump launched a series of scathing attacks on Fox News after the network in effect called the general election for Joe Biden in 2020, it seemed that one of the most enduring relationships in politics could be over.
Now, in 2025, it's clear that the relationship between rightwing news channel and the mercurial president is firmer than ever. Trump's hired nearly two dozen Fox News hosts – most recently Jeanine Pirro – to create an administration stocked with television personalities able to spout his message and acquiesce to his every demand.
The appointment of Pirro to interim US attorney for the District of Colombia takes the number of former Fox News personalities Trump has hired to 23. Pirro, like Pete Hegseth, the embattled defense secretary, and Sean Duffy, the embattled transportation secretary, and Michael Waltz, the embattled national security adviser turned UN ambassador, is a longtime Trump defender well practiced at delivering a Make America Great Again message on screen.
Trump, who praised Pirro's viewing figures in announcing her for US attorney, probably trusts her to share his ethos because, like her fellow Fox News alumni, she has already been distributing it for years. And like Hegseth et al, she owes her new role not to a wealth of recent, relevant experience, but to Trump himself – essentially guaranteeing subservience to a president known to demand it.
'Naming Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. Attorney is ridiculous,' Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Kamala Harris, wrote on X, in a view echoed by many on the left.
'Trump is deeply unserious and has no interest in keeping any of us safe. Same with Hegseth. Loyalty over competence – always.'
The Fox News-Trump administration pathway also speaks to the enduring power of the Rupert Murdoch-owned network – Trump has recruited from its staff despite clashing repeatedly with the network.
Fox News, which loudly promoted Trump before and during his first term, left the president furious when it called the swing state of Arizona for Biden in the days after the 2020 election. The extent of the rift was huge: Trump began urging his supporters to watch One America News and Newsmax instead, and Fox News' ratings briefly declined.
The bond has been restored since then, even if there are occasional Trump eruptions, like when he recently called for Fox News' pollster to be fired, and Fox News has in effect become the finishing school for rightwing figures before they take up government positions.
The unsuitability of Hegseth, who was a Fox & Friends Weekend host and used to run – reportedly badly – two veterans charities, to lead the 3 million military and civilian employees of the Department of Defense is quickly becoming apparent. Hegseth's involvement in the leak of Signal chat messages in March brought scrutiny, and it seems that despite Hegseth's obsequiousness, Trump may be losing some faith: last week it emerged that the White House will take the unusual step of blocking Hegseth's choice for chief of staff and install its own candidate.
'How many more TV hosts is Trump going to put in serious positions they're unqualified for? This is the US government – not the Celebrity Apprentice,' the legal commentator Tristan Snell reacted after Trump announced the Pirro appointment.
In Pirro, Trump isn't just getting a good TV performer. He's getting a loyal soldier who seems unlikely to question him, and likely to carry out his demands. Pirro, a one-time district attorney whose legal career essentially ended 20 years ago, has shown before she will do whatever Trump wants.
Trump noted Pirro's time as district attorney in Westchester, New York, in announcing her appointment before adding: 'In addition to her Legal career, Jeanine previously hosted her own Fox News Show, Justice with Judge Jeanine, for ten years, and is currently Co-Host of The Five, one of the Highest Rated Shows on Television.'
It might seem irrelevant that a prosecutor has spent time on a highly rated TV show (The Five is one of the more popular cable news shows, not of all television), but it makes sense through Trump's lens. Pirro excels at performative outrage, and will probably have no trouble hosting the kind of over-the-top Democrat-scolding press conferences that Trump favors.
'As Fox remade itself as a Trumpist network, Pirro emerged as one of the president's most notable sycophants,' Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a watchdog group, wrote at MSNBC.
'Her personal devotion to the president is impossible to parody – she once described Trump as 'a nonstop, never-give-up, no-holds-barred human version of the speed of light'.
Related: Trump's latest Fox News hire looks even worse than Pete Hegseth | Margaret Sullivan
Pirro's time at Fox News saw plenty of controversy. She was cited in a lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for repeating Trump's conspiracy theories about the 2020 election result on air. Documents made public during that legal fight were revealing as to how Pirro was perceived internally. The verdict of the executive producer on one of Pirro's proposed Fox News monologues was that it was 'rife with conspiracy theories and BS and is yet another example why this woman should never be on live television'. The same producer described Pirro as a 'reckless maniac'.
Now, she will be in charge of the largest US attorney's office in the country, overseeing 330 assistant US attorneys and more than 330 support staff in a role typically filled by a person with recent experience.
Given Pirro's seemingly unshakable support for Trump, and her past defense of the 2021 insurrection in DC, her tenure will be closely watched.
'She's expressed deep distrust of career staff, lauded the January 6 rioters as patriots, and made clear that she will use the office to protect Trump rather than advance the interests of justice,' Liz Dye, host of the Law and Chaos podcast, wrote at Public Notice.
'There's no indication she'll run the US attorney's office in DC in a professional manner.'
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