Mr. Trump, a television connoisseur and former reality star, regularly turns to TV personalities as an informal sounding board. He speaks often with the Fox News anchors Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, dined recently with their colleague Jesse Watters and tweeted a shout-out this week to the veteran anchor Lou Dobbs.
But the elevation of Mr. Bolton is the latest sign that Mr. Trump is determined to pluck his favorite TV faces from their studios and place them in positions of serious consequence in American government.
Heather Nauert, a former “Fox & Friends” anchor, was recently promoted to a high-ranking position in the State Department. Pete Hegseth, a co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” has been mentioned as a candidate for secretary of veterans affairs, though his chances of being confirmed by Congress could be low.
The trend has not gone unnoticed.
“Was on Fox immediately before Bolton yesterday,” John McCormack, a senior writer at The Weekly Standard, tweeted on Thursday, “so assume I’ll be named to a high-level Cabinet post soon.”
Mr. Bolton’s hard-line on-air presence has long pleased Mr. Trump.
“He’s, you know, a tough cookie,” Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, told NBC News in 2015, naming Mr. Bolton as one of his sources for national security advice. “Knows what he’s talking about.”
Since Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Bolton has used his Fox News platform to praise the president and castigate his critics. He described Mr. Trump’s address last year to the United Nations as “the best speech of the Trump presidency.”
“It’s safe to say, in the entire history of the United Nations, there has never been a more straightforward criticism of the unacceptable behavior of other member states,” Mr. Bolton said. (On Thursday, Fox News said Mr. Bolton would no longer be a paid contributor to the network.)
The coterie of TV figures in the White House has fueled rumors that others may soon follow. On Thursday, there was speculation that Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host, might want to work for the president.
Mr. Bolling, who received a warm reception at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, acknowledged the rumors with a tweet that, to some eyes, doubled as a job application.
“I’d work for a single US $1 to help drain the swamp, plug the leaks, build the wall with Pesos, lower taxes, build infrastructure, protect #2A and save some parents from the scourge of opioids,” Mr. Bolling wrote. “But that would mean working directly with POTUS, not near him.”
Reached by phone on Thursday evening, Mr. Bolling laughed — but declined to elaborate.
“My tweet,” he said, slyly, “speaks for itself.”
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