Donald Trump is once again sourcing administration officials from the talent pool at Fox News.
The president announced Thursday night that he had formed a “revamped” Homeland Security Advisory Council, including the likes of Fox News host Mark Levin and former Fox News contributor Bo Dietl.
The council would also include South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster and Florida state Senator Joseph Gruters, who serves on the Republican National Committee and is a close ally of Trump’s.
“Under Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s leadership, HSAC will work hard on developing new Policies and Strategies that will help us secure our Border, deport Illegal Criminal Thugs, stop the flow of Fentanyl and other illegal drugs that are killing our Citizens, and MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
It’s not exactly clear how the “revamped” group will differ from past iterations of HSAC, which has been a fixture of administrations since George W. Bush announced its creation in 2002, to generate counterterrorism strategy and oversee a reorganized department.
Joe Biden’s iteration of the same group had a whopping 33 members, from the private sector and law enforcement groups—but none from TV. The DHS website, which was last updated in January, lists no current members of the group.
Trump has been known to tune into Levin’s show Life, Liberty & Levin, where the ultraconservative attacks the president’s enemies and regularly makes recommendations for his administration. Now he will make those same recommendations in an official capacity.
In November, Levin suggested to border czar Tom Homan that the Trump administration should withhold federal funding from states that failed to comply with its draconian immigration policies. Levin was once described by Rolling Stone as a “bomb-throwing Trump sycophant.”
Bo Dietl is a former detective with the New York Police Department and actor, who served as a contributor on Fox News until 2016, when he it was revealed that he’d been hired to dig up dirt on Andrea Mackris and Gretchen Carlson in an attempt to discredit their sexual harassment allegations against former Fox CEO Roger Ailes.